Hi.

We will have a day trip from Bologna (Saturday) to Parma, by car.

We wish to have a country-side experience after / before visiting Parma.

Could you please recommend on a beautiful country-side place which we could visit on this day?

We enjoy rural areas, farms, animals and hikes.

Thanks a lot.

If you are at all interest in opera and Verdi in particular, i think you'd enjoy the Verdi-related sites in Busseto and environs. There are also a lot of interesting food museums in the area. The Tomato Museum was especially good.

We loved the food tour we did as a day trip from Bologna: http://www.italiandays.it. The gentleman leading the tour was fun and very passionate about Italian food.

Catch the train to Ferrara, walk through the walled city to the first bike hire place, ride off by the bank of the Po. Eat in one of the riverside cafes, repeat.

The trip from Parma to Bologna is by autostrada (the A1), so you would have to find someplace that you could easily reach from one of the exits. The route passes through a very flat countryside, with many large farms, but not much scenery. South of the autostrada lies the Apennine mountain chain, so if you drive in that direction, you'll come to a more hilly terrain. If you look at the map, you'll see that there are very few larger towns in this direction. So if you get off the autostrada at Reggio Emilia or Modena Nord, and drive towards the southwest, you'll see countryside, for sure.