What our students say about us

From Matilde di Canossa to Max Mara

I was lucky to choose Reggio Lingua for the first time more than two years ago, which is located in a charming small city between Parma and Bologna.
Paola and Daniela and their team provide a comprehensive teaching environment mixing well-explained grammar topics with listening and conversation practice, and games like Luciana’s fiendish take on the “giochi di Tris” all delivered with much fun and enthusiasm. I have met beginners there and others at all levels, all of us receiving tuition to suit in small classes. I have returned for two weeks twice each year to learn more and explore more of a city developed very much on a human scale, to see again the lovely trees everywhere in the town, and to eat erbazzone.
The Via Emilia crosses the northern approach to the Appenine spine of Italy, bisecting the small charming city of Reggio Emilia; it takes 20 minutes to walk along it across the city from the language school beside the eastern gate at the Piazza Tricolore to the western end to reach Italy’s famous Esselunga supermarket.
Poised halfway between Modena and Parma, Reggio Emilia boasts the best of their culinary highlights, as visits arranged by Paola and her colleagues confirm: The Caseificio Rossi for their Parmigiano from the local “red cows”, the salumifici e prosciuttifici from Gianferrari at Canossa as well as a small artisan balsamic vinegar producer who scorn the brews of larger commercial factories at Modena.
Canossa boasts one of the many castles of the famous medieval countess and land owner Matilde di Canossa . They form a string of pearls across the skyline.
In the outskirts of Reggio there is spectacular art in the staggering modern art gallery at the Collezione Maramotti, in the original building where the Max Mara fashion House was housed after being founded in 1951. Nowadays Max Mara lives a few kilometres to the north within sight of the equally spectacular architect Santiago Calatrava’s bridge which leads to his amazing Stazione Mediopadana –on the highspeed rail link between Bologna and Milan.
Wartime Italy is remembered in the poignant museum of the “Sette Fratelli Cervi”, and seeing the large railway sidings with their huge industrial sheds behind the main station where aircraft parts were constructed and shipped elsewhere.
Since my first visit I have returned twice a year to learn more and explore more of a city developed very much on a human scale, and to see again the lovely trees everywhere in the town.
And then there is erbazzone Ahh!

Janet P.