Music walk: Verdi, Toscanini, Paganini

From Parma station, Toscanini's birthplace is about 1.3 km on foot. If you are coming from Piazza Garibaldi, start instead at the Regio and pick up Toscanini's house on the way to the Conservatorio.

Arturo Toscanini was born at Borgo Rodolfo Tanzi 13 on March 25, 1867. The city opened the house as a museum in 1967, for his centenary; its rooms follow his life through objects and documents his family gave to Parma. It opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (weekends close at 2 p.m. in July and August). Tickets are €4, €3 reduced, free under 18 and on the first Sunday of the month. Keep the ticket.

Cross the Ponte Verdi. On Piazza della Pace, by the Pilotta, stands the city's monument to Verdi. Then the Teatro Regio, built from 1821 to 1829 to designs by Nicola Bettoli and opened on May 16, 1829 with Bellini's Zaira. Its 30-minute tour covers the foyer, the auditorium and the Ridotto, in Italian and English: €12 full, €8 for under-30s, over-65s and holders of a Toscanini birthplace ticket, €3 under 18. To hear it in use, see an opera night at the Regio and our verdict on whether it is worth the ticket. The Festival Verdi runs here in the autumn.

The Casa della Musica on Piazzale San Francesco houses the Museo dell'Opera, one of the six civic museums (single ticket €4). We could not find its current opening hours; check before you go.

Sixty-seven meters away, the Casa del Suono is a small museum of how we record and play back sound, from the phonograph onwards, opened in December 2008 in the former church of Santa Elisabetta. It opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., for €4. Allow 45 minutes. See our Casa del Suono page for who will enjoy it.

Pass or singles? The city's six-museum pass costs €15 (€12 reduced) and lasts a year. For the three music museums on this walk, singles cost €12, so the pass only pays if you add the Pinacoteca Stuard or another civic museum.

Parma's conservatory, named after the composer and librettist Arrigo Boito, is on Strada del Conservatorio, south-west of Piazza Garibaldi. It is a working school, so this is a stop outside the building. The Biblioteca Palatina's music section, housed there, has made its collections unavailable from March 16, 2026 to the end of 2027, researchers only. On the corner, Trattoria dei Corrieri at Strada del Conservatorio 1 serves from noon to midnight every day, which makes it a practical lunch or dinner stop.

From the Conservatorio it is 1.9 km, about 26 minutes, south-west to the Villetta, Parma's monumental cemetery. The first burials were in March 1818 during a typhus epidemic, and the square-outside, octagonal-inside cloister of arcaded family chapels was completed by the end of 1868.

Niccolò Paganini died in Nice on May 27, 1840. He had studied in Parma from 1795 to 1797, had the support of Duchess Marie Louise, and owned property here, including a villa at Gaione. His monument at the Villetta was put up in 1876 by his son, Baron Achille Paganini, with a marble bust by the Genoese sculptor Santo Varni. The composer Ildebrando Pizzetti is also buried here. The cemetery operator, ADE, includes Paganini in a musicians' route and runs occasional guided visits.

Entry is free. Hours: April to October 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. from October 25 to 31); November to March 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; last entry 15 minutes before closing; closed January 1, and mornings only on some holidays.

Parma city has Verdi's name everywhere but no Verdi house. For that, go to Busseto: his birthplace at Roncole, the Casa Barezzi where he first played in public, and the Teatro Verdi, €15 for all three. Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata is closed with no reopening date.

Museum entrance ticket - Full (Museo del Violino, Cremona)

The museum's standard ticket is €14 on its own site, €4 less than here. Closed Mondays; last entry 45 minutes before closing.

1 to 3 hours

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Parma: Historic Old Town Guided Walking Tour

Only the cathedral interior is visited; the Teatro Regio and the Pilotta are seen from outside and their tickets are extra.

2 hours

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Rating as shown on GetYourGuide

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