The Foodie Pilgrimage
We had been to Modena twice before and The Albinelli market there is my all time favorite. Every time we visited I would say—“I would love to be able to shop here and cook something.” So that’s what we did! Getting out of our apartment by 10:00ish wasn’t too difficult. But there was an open market right down the street and in Piazza Fontanesi so we wandered through there. The produce was uninspiring and there was tons of clothes which we do not need. I was a little chilly so we bought some nice organic eggs and took them back to the apartment to get a warmer sweater and scarf. And we took off again for the trian station to go to Modena.
The ride is 16 minutes. Then we walked, through the park in Modena
rose colored horse chestnut trees
Horse chestnut bloom—they’re everywhere!
towards the centro with a stop at the Nespresso shop and right to the market.
After great deliberation, and knowing that we had to carry our bags back on the train to Modena we selected these perfectly lovely homemade tortelloni: gorgeous puffs of local sheeps milk ricotta and spinach in egg pasta. She told us 7 or 8 each would be the portion so we got 16.
We also got some butter from the kind lady.
Lunch at the Bar Schiavino in the market was a must. We got 2 cottechino sandwiches and 2 glasses of dry Lambrusco and had ourselves a feast. 
I also picked up some good looking strawberries and lucious tomatoes from the bio/organic guy. I loved these little zucchini but didn’t buy them:
We strolled around Modena some more, through the Piazza Grande and in the direction of the train station where we saw this Trojan Horse:
Then we made the easy ride back to Reggio Emilia in time for a good rest.
Before dinner we took another walk around Reggio Emilia. We still don’t know one landmark from another except the Piazza Fontanesi. Gotta study up!
They are having a photo show here, so all over town there are spaces displaying photographs. We enjoyed a few of them on our walk.
Came home excited to cook the pasta and warm some already cooked chard I also melted the tomatoes in the butter with just alt and pepper. With a little pasta water, that was the sauce. Freshly grated parmigiano reggiano finished it off. So so delicious! Success!
Those torelloni look incredible. How wonderful it would be to simply go to the market and buy those beauties…..
Living vicariously through your blog, and loving every minute :~). How long are you away, in total, and do you have any tips on fighting off travel fatigue? About 16-17 nights has been our longest trip so far, and by night 14 we are weary indeed, even if we haven’t been moving around too often. I figure there’s a point at which one gets a 2nd travel wind.
I saw rose colored horse chestnut trees in North Carolina a few years back and didn’t know what they were – thanks for educating me!
Isn’t this the birthplace of Pavarotti? It seems just perfect!
Yes, Mary, it is. He is really revered here.
This post made me hungry! Albinelli is one of my favorite markets, and Modena is one of my favorite towns. <3
We spent an afternoon in Modena as part of our Po River cruise. Our guide was not very inspiring so we wandered off on our own. I associate Modena with Pavarotti, but it was an interesting town. We had to change to smaller boats because even our river cruise boat was too big for us to take on the smaller streams. Wondering if you will go to Parma too.
Update — the foodie posts made me so long for Emilia-Reggiano that I went online to ParmaShop.it and ordered a kilo of parmagiano-reggiano, some DOP balsamic vinegar, and some balsamic condimento. Arrived within a few days, beautifully packaged!!