Best Western Hotel Liberta Modena

Short train ride from Florence after a hair raising trip trying to return the rental car in confusing, congested and traffic restrictied Florence (don't rent a car downtown go to the airport). Bologna is an university town (even Johns Hopkin has a campus). Very historical town with a great plaza area like most towns and a great antique market.

... he was here this day to inform all that he will be back next year, after recovering from his terrible accident. 3 drivers... 3 cars... This will be an interesting 2010 campaign.

The FXX and retired F1 car works are as equally amazing as anything else. 26 of the 30 FXX's were in store waiting for the next private owner campaign. Including number 30, the last one built especially for Michael.

Maranello, Emilia-Romagna, Italy travelingmoores

... desk clerk our passports and she looks for the reservation and takes a while to find us in the system. And she tells us our room is Monet. So now I'm really curious about what this room is like. We get in and the place is huge, especially by Italian standards, king bed (actually 2 twins pushed together... not really that comfy but who can complain), satellite tv with English programs, a fridge, a thing to make your pants ...

... and some funny thing that looks like an olive but tastes like an apple. Finally we could shower and wash our clothes. Nico, Cristina and Nico's mother cooked for us a delicious Italian pasta and we drank amazing wine, Grappa and olive and walnuts liquor!!!! Although all conversations where in Italian the atmosphere was so good and we could communicate really well (mix of Italian,Spanish and Portuguese).

The next day ...

We started the morning with a visit to Conad (their local grocery store) we bought some French bread, cheese and prosciutto for our lunch. We then drove the back roads to neighboring Moglia, nuvi Modena, then Carpi where we stopped and walked around and saw the largest Piazza de Martiri which has a 16C renaissance cathedral overlooking it. We have found that it is rather easy to find the town center in these ...

After flying from Lisbon to Madrid airport, spending a sleepless night there, and an early morning flight to Bologna we were pretty tired when we finally arrived! We had booked into a cheap hotel, but got an email just before we left Lisbon saying that they had overbooked and we had been moved to a 4 star hotel for the same price – WOOHOO! We had the address but had no idea where it was, so we asked at the tourist info desk and jumped on the shuttle to the city ...

... watch the locals go about their daily business. I'm not making a huge effort to see the touristy stuff here as I'm more than happy to just absorb daily life, the architecture is quite spectacular, all the buildings are so big but unlike Genova this town still leaves space to breath and move. Anyway how much Renaissance art and architecture can you look at with a fresh eye. As far as company is concerned I am finding it a bit difficult here ...

... our next stop was in a much older and pokier part of the factory at the engine assembly room, where both V8 and V12 engines are built for all Ferraris and Maseratis. Then, having seen some of the parts being put together, we finished off at the car assembly area where each of the current F430 and 599 models progressed through the production line, starting out as mere skeletons and finally rolling off as the completed head-turners. The most frenetic movement ...

... for dinner. It’s a beautiful spa town and smells good! I took a long walk through the park and had a Gran Marnier on the patio. Peggy had Amaretto which pleased the bartender/host. He didn’t like my ordering a French liqueur! The hotel was one of the nicest on our tour.

We left our window open and it was actually cold when we got up!