Collecchio

Collecchio sits on the right bank of the Taro, thirteen kilometers southwest of Parma along the Via Emilia and the medieval Via Francigena. In medieval documents the town appears as Colliculum, a possession of the bishops of Parma; the Romanesque Pieve di San Prospero on the hill above the town dates from the eleventh century, with a fragment dated 1089 and a three-nave plan completed in the thirteenth. Pilgrims walked through here on the way to Fornovo and the Cisa pass.

The town is now better known for two industrial residents: Parmalat, the dairy multinational founded by the Tanzi family in 1961 and headquartered here, and Parma Calcio, whose Centro Sportivo di Collecchio is the club's training base. The Parco Nevicati and the Boschi di Carrega regional park, where the Dukes of Parma kept their hunting grounds, fill the southern half of the municipality.