What is Collecchio known for?

Headquarters of the dairy multinational founded by Calisto Tanzi in 1961, still the largest employer and a defining presence in town. Medieval pilgrim route between Parma and Fornovo passes through the centro, with the Pieve di San Prospero on the hill above. The Centro Sportivo di Collecchio is the training base of Parma Calcio 1913 and home to the club's youth academy.

When is the best time to visit Collecchio?

Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct. April through June and September through October are the working months on the Parma plain. The Taro valley is green in spring and dry-gold in autumn, the months when the Via Francigena fills with pilgrims walking the Parma to Fornovo stage. July and August touch thirty-five degrees with high humidity, and the centro empties between two and five. Winter on the plain is grey and foggy, with Po-valley fog sitting over the fields most mornings between November and February. The Festa del Prosciutto di Parma in September, hosted across the surrounding communes, is the calendar event that draws visitors to Collecchio. Weekday stays in May and October give the Boschi di Carrega park to itself.

Collecchio is a comune in the province of Parma, Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, about 12 kilometers from Parma.

How do I get to Collecchio?

From Parma, Collecchio is roughly 12 km by road.

Emilia-Romagna · Parma

Collecchio

A Parma-cintura town on the Via Francigena, known today for a dairy multinational's headquarters and a football club's training ground.

Known for

PARMALAT
Headquarters of the dairy multinational founded by Calisto Tanzi in 1961, still the largest employer and a defining presence in town.
VIA FRANCIGENA
Medieval pilgrim route between Parma and Fornovo passes through the centro, with the Pieve di San Prospero on the hill above.
PARMA F.C. TRAINING
The Centro Sportivo di Collecchio is the training base of Parma Calcio 1913 and home to the club's youth academy.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: Prospero di Reggio Emilia, 24 November

Why come

Collecchio sits on the right bank of the Taro, thirteen kilometers southwest of Parma, where the Via Emilia and the Via Francigena run together. In medieval documents the town appears as Colliculum, a possession of the bishops of Parma. The centro lies on the flat valley floor, with the parish church set apart on the hill above it, and the two industrial sites, the dairy headquarters and the football training ground, occupying the built-up town rather than the countryside around it.

The southern half of the municipality is given over to parkland: a municipal riverside park along the Taro and, further out, the wooded former hunting reserve of the Dukes of Parma. A town shaped by a bishop's holding and a pilgrim road has ended up defined by a milk company and a football club, with its church and its woods left to mark what came before.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Collecchio’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

What to see

Pieve di San Prospero
The three-nave interior is reached by climbing the hill above the centro; the walls show the masonry seams of construction stretched across two centuries.
Via Francigena
The Taro variant is marked with waystones through the centro, following the line pilgrims once walked toward the Cisa pass.
Parco Boschi di Carrega
Wooded grounds once reserved for ducal hunting, now open with trails through the trees across the southern municipality.
Parco Nevicati
A riverside stretch of old oaks along the Taro, with jogging paths and a section set aside for native Apennine fauna.
Centro Sportivo di Collecchio
The training ground has drawn Parma Calcio 1913's first team and youth academy to Collecchio since the 1990s.

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Living here

Population 14,684
Commuter belti
Pharmacy in town
High school within a 30-minute drive
Train station in the comune
Nearest airport Bologna, 1 h 19 min drive
Regional capital Bologna, 1 h 23 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

The numbers

Elevation: 112 m
Population: 14,684
Surface area: 58.83 km²

On the map

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These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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