Friday, 23 June,2017 – Weather: Stinking Hot

Everything has gone wrong so far concerning the cheese factory visit. But we are on the bus early for an appointment today. Well, things continue to go wrong as there are two addresses and we go to the wrong one. We could just see our appointment being cancelled because of our lateness but when we get there a guide is waiting for us.

Our guide

We had to cover our hair and feet for cleanliness reasons.

Cutie with hair bonnet
The Troops Kitted up and Ready to Go

We are here to learn about the making of Parmigiano Reggiano – a premium cheese.

The milk is first poured into these copper tanks
The milk starting to curdle into cheese
This belt is put around the rounds to imprnt logos and messages without ink
The rounds are soaked in plain water for an extended period
and placed into these metal rounds
Lots of cheese soaking
Lots of cheeses – worth around e500 each
Funny robot thing which goes along one round at a time, extracts it, shakes/compresses the round and then puts it back
Finished Product

We go back to the first point where the process continues initially breaking up the curds.

The Tool
Further along in the process

We ditch our exotic slippers and bonnets. We are given some finished product to taste – very nice but I find quite rich. We then go out to the main shop to exit.

[Caption id=”attachment_5996″ align=”alignleft” width=”520″] Cheeses for sale[/caption]

They sell other kinds of cheeses and products, not just PR
Including wines
I did not hear why St George and the Dragon were so important
Close up of final markings

So we end our interesting cheese factory tour. We hop in the bus and drive to Ravenna – around 2 hours. Our first port of call is the magnificent Cathedral in Ravenna. For those who know me well, cathedrals are not my scene, right Peter?, so the following photos are from Julie. First a couple of impressive glasswork.

Then into the Cathedral.

Enough of that scheiss. This is a food and wine blog after all. From there we walk the 4/5 blocks, more like 2 KM, to our restaurant.

Entering our very old restaurant Ca De’ Ven

Food starts coming. Capo calls it nosh, I am calling it Chow.

Under the famous barrels
Rooster Salad
Worm Pasta with Pesto
Our Red
Our Red
Steak and Potatoes
Dessert

Then it is back on the bus to return to home base. It is still very hot. When we get back, Julie does a lot of study while I Blog. Eventually we decide to get something to eat. We walk a ways in the heat and I shortly decide I would not go on further. Julie continues on and I go to the local Chinese for, wait for it, some Chow food.

Curried Chicken and Rice
and Beer

It was a low cost meal and I paid for what I got. In the mean time Julie has gone into the centre where a food festival is on. The following are some of her photos.

Umbrellas
Mexican
What a grill
Malaysian Satay

The Burgers
Que?

The Scene
The Crowd
On the way back
The Events

Eventually Julie returned and we hit the sack. We did not sleep very well as the air conditioning was not working. Turns out that was because we had a window open and there is an interlock.

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