Bosco, Italia

On Monday, we drove from France through the mountains to Bosco, Italy. It's in Reggio Emila, close to Parma, Modena, and Bologna. We're staying at an agritourismo, basically a farm that also has a B&B. This farm grows grapes for wine and balsamic vinegar, fruit for jam, and various vegetables. They also have a few animals, but not that many. The breakfasts here are delicious cakes plus local parmesiano reggiano and prosciutto. This region is known for their pasta - the problem is that you are expected to get both a primi (first course) and secondi (second course), plus antipasti (appetizers). The end result is that we leave restaurants completely stuffed. We've resorted to only eating 1 meal a day (plus breakfast) and then snacking. They're a few weeks ahead of Wisconsin here so certain fruits are starting to be in season. We've eaten some very good strawberries. Plus there are oranges from Spain and Sicily all over the place which are amazing. Today we drove up into the mountains (that divide this northern region of Italy from Tuscany) and toured the ruins of a castle. We got some amazing views. Unfortunately, we don't have a wireless connection right now so we'll have to upload pictures later. Tomorrow we drive to Tuscany where we stay for 5 days. I'm hoping we'll take a day trip to the coast. We got great views of the Mediterranean on our drive here (at Cannes and Nice) but haven't gone down to the beach yet.