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https://www.paganinifestival.com/

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Visiting? A guitarist's guide to Parma

Photo: Città di Parma, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Niccolò Paganini was as devoted to the guitar as to the violin, leaving more than two hundred pieces for it, and the festival that carries his name keeps that side of him alive. It is held in Parma, the graceful food capital of Emilia-Romagna, and there is a fitting reason it belongs here: after a burial saga that dragged on for decades, Paganini finally came to rest in Parma, so the competition plays out a short walk from the composer's own grave. Around the international rounds the week fills with recitals, masterclasses and luthiers' stands, in one of the most quietly pleasurable small cities in Italy.

Getting there

Parma sits on the main line across northern Italy: fast trains reach it in about 45 minutes from Milan and an hour from Bologna, and the station is a short walk from the historic centre. The city's own little Giuseppe Verdi airport (PMF) has a few Ryanair routes, but Bologna (BLQ) is the practical gateway, with Milan's airports a larger alternative. Once you are here you won't need a car: Parma is small, flat and made for walking.

Compare trains, buses & flights to Parma on Omio →

Italy uses Type L/F sockets, so pack a travel adapter for your tuner and chargers.

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Where to stay

Base yourself in the walkable old town, around Piazza Duomo and the Teatro Regio, and the festival venues, the great food and the evening passeggiata are all on foot. Parma is compact and civilised (pastel palazzi, arcaded streets, a river through the middle), a genuine pleasure to stroll once the concerts let out.

What you'll hear

The competition spans several categories, including one for the romantic-period guitar, so you can hear the instrument as Paganini's own contemporaries knew it, gut strings and all, alongside the modern one. The public finals unfold in the city's concert halls, framed by a week of recitals and masterclasses; it is a specialist, friendly gathering rather than a stadium affair, and all the better for it. And Paganini is never far. His tomb stands in the Cimitero della Villetta on the edge of town, the end of a strange saga, for the Church refused him burial for years after his death in Nice in 1840, rumouring a pact with the devil, and his body wandered for decades before Parma finally took him in. For the fuller pilgrimage, Genoa, the city where he was born, is a train ride to the coast: in the Palazzo Tursi on the grand Via Garibaldi you can stand before his violin, the great Guarneri he called Il Cannone that he left to the city, with two of his own guitars beside it.

If you play as well as listen, explore Paganini's own guitar music in our repertoire finder, where you can hear each piece and find the sheet music.

The local table

Few places in Italy eat better than Parma. This is the home of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma, so build your meals around them, then go on to the filled pastas the city is proud of (anolini in a rich broth, tortelli d'erbetta), with a glass of the sparkling local Lambrusco to cut through it. A morning at a cheese dairy or a ham cellar just outside town, watching the great wheels turned and the hams aged, is one of the best half-days you can have here.

Fancy a guided taste? Food and wine tours in Parma →

While you're there

Parma rewards slow wandering: the Duomo, whose dome Correggio filled with a dizzying Assumption of the Virgin, the pink-marble Baptistery beside it, and the Teatro Regio, temple of one of Italy's most exacting opera audiences (Verdi's own festival takes over the city each October). Verdi's country lies just north around Busseto, and for easy day trips the food cities of Modena and Bologna are each a short hop down the line. But the excursion to make, if you can spare a day, is the pilgrimage west to Genoa: a couple of hours to the coast, where Il Cannone waits in the Palazzo Tursi among the UNESCO-listed Rolli palaces, the caruggi, the tall, shadowed alleys of one of Europe's largest old towns, tumble down to the Porto Antico and its huge aquarium, and lunch is a slab of chickpea farinata or trofie al pesto, the basil sauce the city gave the world.

Tours, tickets and day trips in Parma →

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This map centers on Parma in general, so the venue may be elsewhere in town. Check the competition's official website before booking.

More guitar events in Italy: Altamira Gorizia International Guitar Competition · Concorso Città di Fiuggi · Concorso Emilio Pujol · Concorso Fernando Sor · Concorso Internazionale Rovere d'Oro · Concorso Riviera Etrusca

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