Day 8 - Peschiera del Garda to Maranello

Just an 80 mile hop today. Focus today was on the destination, rather than the ride. Maranello is, of course, the home of the prancing horse, Ferrari. We had museum tickets booked, plus a coach tour of the factory and the Fiorano F1 test track.

 

We arose to the sun shining and by the time we left at 8:30, the heat was well and truly in evidence. We could hardly believe the waterlogged place of last night, was now this hot, dry sunny resort we saw before us, as we rode out of town. We rode straight through, in about 2 hours. Having had a couple of attempts last night to charge the Scala headset, I have to conclude it is fecked! No idea why that should be but it means I have another 11 days of instructionless navigation to cope with. I'll miss Jayne :-(

 

We arrived by the museum and parked up, ignoring the usual pay to park signs. Paying to park a bike, are they joking! Feck 'em, as Griff would say.

A quick visit to the reception area with my printed confimation and we were in possession of two museum tickets. In we went. There's a selection of racing Ferraris, some used in movies, along with which there is a short film, showing all the clips of the cars in their films and a selection of the road cars from various decades. Another room has all the GP cars and trophies but that is pretty much it. Not as big as I imagined it would be but we got quite a few snaps taken and then had a coffee.

 

Our factory/test track tour wasn't until 13:30, so we had some time to kill. After the coffee we took a wander across the car park to a rental company called Push Start. Here you can do a short term hire of any of the Ferrari models. We watched on as a young couple took out a 458, another group of people, the new California. A dream come true for many. One of the guys asked if I was looking to take one out. I wasn't exactly dressed for it, so had to decline. Inside the shop, I checked the prices. A 10 minute jaunt would set you back just €80, though I forget the model. The most expensive was €700 for a full hour. If I had gone in a car and budgeted for it, I would definitely have taken one out.

 

The sun was beating down, so we found some shade and waited until 13:30. And then it was tour time.

 

The bus tour takes you through the factory gates and around the complex, so you see the admin buildings, wind tunnel, paint shop, etc. As the weather was fine, there were all colours of body shell just sitting outside in the open air! Quite bizarre. Each street in the complex is named after drivers who won F1 titles for Ferrari, so via Mike Hawthorn, via Juan Manuel Fangio, etc, are the names you can see. No Schumacher though. He has his own square named after him but not at the factory. We had a glimpse of some of the new models, La Ferrari for example, £1.2m worth, pushing out 950bhp! There were some other cars not instantly recognisable to the expert, i.e. the brit kid sitting behind me. Little know it all! These were pre production and painted in a swirly black and white. Apparently, that makes them impossible to photograph to make out any features. Grizzly was prepared to bet he could!

 

Which one would you like to take out sir?

 

Leaving the factory we drove across the road and into the Fiorano test track. This is where the the racing drivers come to test the cars. They have an apartment building with all the comforts they are likely to need, situated  on Schumacher Square. This is a special honour as he won them 5 consecutive world titles. We were lucky there was no activity today, so the bus took us out onto the track. It is a few meters short of 3km, I forget exactly, 2.9 something. The guide asked for guesses as to the track record. The answer, 55s, set by one Mr Schumacher in the 2004 car. Our driver took a little longer :-)

 

The final part of the tour takes you past an F1 car and an Italian Air Force jet. The car, was raced against the jet by Gilles Villeneuve. The car, heavily modified, to make it as light as possible won the race and Gilles survived to later kill himself at Imola. In recognition of the feat, the air force donated the aircraft, which is now painted Ferrari red.

 

Tour finished we rode the short distance to our hotel. When we arrived, Grizzly was saying that his brakes weren't working that well and that every time he braked , the fluid level dipped. I checked the pads. Barely anything left of them. Hard to understand why, he's not been going fast enough to need to stop that much ;-)  Decision was taken to find a Honda dealer and get them replaced, so enlisting the aide of the hotelier, a dealer was called and arrangements were made for a visit Monday morning. One snag, it was back near Modena and in the opposite direction to Bologna, where we were due at 9:15 for the Ducati tour.

 

Although booked, the Ducati tour was pay on arrival, so Grizzly planned to get his brakes done, whilst I would head to Ducati.

 

The hotel is out of town, so we were rather captive and had to eat in their michelin starred restaurant. Very nice, small portions though and expensive beer, so we had to slum it and drink Becks. We kept up our average of 3 per evening though. One for me, one for Grizzly and one for Dudley!

 

Bellissimo!