Day 93...Ferrari!!! - 27th September

Up early, bought breakky from an offlicence and ate in the car. Got hit by parking Italians but the car was unmarked – thank god. Crazy Italians. I also did something crazy…well stupid anyway. I dropped our last small Ricoh camera. (I broke the first one when wasted in Amsterdam). This one I didn’t realize the cover was open, and the camera slipped out and bounced on the floor. Now it wont focus. I’m such an idiot! Will still have the SLR but it takes up so much memory and is such a bulky bastard.

We then headed to the official and first headquarters of Ferrari.

Nathan: What an exciting place to be! Central Italy in the one and only Motor Sport Valley! This is the home and birthplace of Ferrari and the evidence is everywhere. Obviously 2 of their more famous models derive their namesakes from the towns in the area – Modena – 360 Modena and Marrenello – 550 Marrenello. Lamborgini is also located in this area, but it turns out it’s a case of ‘piss off unless you are cashed up’ as far as visits go.

Coming into Marrenello yesterday we drove past the famous Fiorano test facility where Ferrari do ALL their testing and development work, and managed to see a couple of new models being put through their paces. Unfortunately we were becoming more than a little bit anxious about finding a bed for the night so didn’t stop to take any photos.

We did stop at the TIC though, which is basically a café with 1 brochure – the Ferrari one – cause that’s all there is here! The only things on the town map are; Ferrari Motorsport Gallery, Test Facility, Main Factory, the new gazillion dollar wind tunnel, monuments to Enzo Ferrari and the Prancing horse…….and that’s it!

So after Nikki’s little incident with the camera we headed straight for the main tourist attraction – being the Motorsport Gallery. This is much like the museums we have visited for BMW, Mercedes and Porsche (not a bad line up eh?) but in some ways was the best. Not as big as Mercedes or as close to my heart as Porsche, but certainly somewhere you can really feel the passion for motor sporting excellence of this company.

The ground level exhibited some wonderful examples of old school F1 racers and was separated down the middle by a full scale model of the modern F1 pit garage. Adjacent to this were 3 or 4 very recent examples of world championship winning machines. So impressive, not a single road going car in one of the largest rooms of the whole exhibit – see what I mean about commitment to motor sport?

Unfortunately there were some pretty large groups coming through so we had to move through in a fairly back to front way to get the photos without the dorks in the back ground posing and getting their sticky mits on the beautiful Italian metal. (Also made parking pretty hard in the first place too!)But, more or less, next we came across a 550 Marrenello and a full race spec 360 Modena – not their fastest or most expensive machine but certainly very appealing.

From there we skipped the Special V12 display to avoid the crowds and went upstairs. This was cool. They had all these exploded displays around the room from the components of the new F430. Undoubtedly my favorite model and yes Geoff, I would by this ahead of the Lamborgini Murceilago any day! There were displays from active diffs, gearbox, aerodynamics, etc. and how they were derived from F1 development. The only disappointment here, and of the whole experience, really, was they didn’t have one of the complete cars on show!

They did have the new 599GTB though. This thing is cool. It’s a great fusion of older school GT Flavor with super modern and hard edge sporting components. This level of the display also had a good 20 + various engines and cutaways on display so we could marvel at the engineering genius of Italy’s best. Also on display, some of their landmark achievements – the F40 and F50 – looking a bit outdated now, but absolute breakthroughs in their hey day.

The crowd had caught up with us again so we back tracked downstairs to the V12 exhibit. I think Nikki thought I was having some kind of medical emergency upon entry – what an unexpected pleasure, you guessed it – Enzo, in the flesh! One of only 399 ever built (I’m pretty sure) sitting on display for Ferrari fans. Such a strange mixture of being totally ugly, but some how beautiful and ideal functionality blended into the ultimate street legal road racer. Ridiculously expensive, but, as close as any mere mortal will get to the cockpit of F1. Suffice to say we spent some time here; photographing and marveling, and probably not paying due respects to some of the other machines on display!

By time Nikki dragged me away there was only the last room to go through and if anything a bit of down note to end on – a display of famous people with Ferrari’s. Everyone knows JK has several, etc. etc. so we moved on pretty quickly to try to catch some of the other sites around Marrenello.

Well, I can’t really say I was surprised, but none of the other sites I mentioned are really intended for visitors. We found the entrance to the Fiorano test facility, which could pass for a military headquarters the way the security is! We were lucky enough to be there just in time to see a brand new 599GTB emerge and scream up the road beside us. We also drove by the manufacturing plant and the new wind tunnel, but couldn’t do much more than snap some guerrilla shots out the window on the way by. All the Ferrari mechanics were on lunch break; all decked out in their pristine red Ferrari overalls, which was pretty cool though.

Back to Nikki: After that we drove straight for Florence. For a city that is the cradle of the Renaissance, it doesn’t seem too inspiring. Just the normal European city – a cross between the tired buildings of Milan, and the old balconied terrace buildings like Paris. We negotiated our way in ok, considering the crazy traffic and I went to the TIC at the train station. I got the cheapest room available which ended up being a fanastic find. Firstly, everywhere was in the hundreds of euro, and this one was 70. (there was only one other 70 but it got booked out while I was standing there). Not only that, the room was cheap only because the hotel had a cancellation, and was actually much more expensive. We drove there and it as a cute 3 bed room (singles) with high ceilings and its own balcony that looked over the terracotta roofs. It was also down the most tiny, skinny street – so cute!

We went for an afternoon walk and ended up at the Duomo. (that’s the main church to you). The cathedral had an astounding pink, white and green exterior. It was started in 1296 and took nearly 150 years to complete. We didn’t go inside, but went up the side to the top of the dome to watch the sunset. We climbed another astounding number of spiral staircases (what is it with them??). We reached the inside of the dome first, and got a close up view of the painted dome. It was painted in the mid 1400’s by Brunelleschi and it showed hell, earth and heaven. We were gazing at the picture when I thought they’d made a bit of a mistake with the hell section. It had people getting eaten by monsters and stuff, and there was one guy with a firey hot poker. It was a bit close to a guys bum which I thought a bit of a faux pas on their part. Then I looked closer and there was another demon doing the same thing! But right up his ass! These guys were in hell getting jabbed up the arse by firey hot pokers! Quite good advertising to make you go to church downstairs wouldn’t you say? Very odd for the 1400’s we thought, but we were highly amused!!!

Outside on top of the dome we got a lovely orange-glow view of Florence but only briefly before we got ushered down inside as the church was closing. (tight bastards. They take our money and then close down!) We wandered the streets a bit more, then had a lovely dinner and jug of red wine at the edge of a square. I had rabbit for the first time! I thought it would be tough and gamey but it was much more like chicken but jucier. Yum! Nathan had another pasta. He had the real carbonara – done with egg and no cream. It was pretty tasty.

Then we headed home to bed. I had another amusing evening with Nate undertaking some more flapping around and mozzie squashing.