NH Parma

Stay here if trains are your plan. From the lobby you are 2 minutes from the platforms for Modena, Bologna, Cremona and Salsomaggiore (via Fidenza). An early train stops being a taxi problem.

It is also the easy choice for a late arrival or an early flight from Bologna or Milan, and for business travellers who want a predictable international chain room.

Breakfast is the difference. NH describes a signature buffet with pastries, fruit and cheeses, and it was included in all four double rates on sale for October 14. Compare that with Hotel Stendhal, 8 minutes away on the other side of the station approach: €151 room only plus €15 per person for breakfast comes to €181 for two, so the gap to NH's €196 is only €15.

On a quieter date the numbers shift. On November 11, NH was €164 with breakfast. The Stendhal was €114 room only, or €144 once you add two breakfasts. The single-occupancy rate at NH was €178 on October 14, with the tax at €4 instead of €8.

NH's own site lists an indoor car park at €18 a day, and warns that it cannot be reserved in advance. The hotel is outside the historic-centre ZTL, so you can drive to it without a permit. The station has its own small restricted area: under the city's 2024 ordinance, Via Cecchi and most of Piazzale Dalla Chiesa are closed to unauthorized cars 24 hours a day, and there is a bus-lane camera in the Viale Falcone underpass. Follow the signs for the hotel car park, not for the station drop-off.

If you are driving to the Food Valley, a hotel on the ring road such as Best Western Plus Hotel Farnese has free outdoor parking and gets you out of the city faster. See our ZTL and parking guide.

Times below are from OpenStreetMap walking routes.

For the area itself, read Around Parma Station.

The station was rebuilt between 2007 and 2014 to a design by Oriol Bohigas and reopened on May 6, 2014, and the hotel belongs to the same redevelopment. The immediate surroundings are offices, the bus terminal and wide roads, not piazzas and wine bars. After about 9 p.m. the streets between the hotel and Strada Garibaldi are quieter than the old town's.

We publish no crime figures for the station area because we found no official ones to cite. Use the ordinary care you would at any Italian railway station, and take a taxi back from a late dinner in the Oltretorrente if you would rather not walk the 15 to 25 minutes back.