Home of FERRARI !!!!!

This was a bit of a pilgrimage: Brooksy had planned to visit the small town of Maranello months ago to see the home of arguably Italy's most famous sports cars, Ferrari. So after a few hours of trains and buses, we finally arrived in Maranello which turned out to be completely Ferrari-mad. Pubs had the Ferrari prancing horse on the front of their awnings, Ferrari flags were hanging out of apartment windows and flying behind Vespas and motorbikes, and to top it off there was a special exhibition of Ferraris in the main square that happened to be just on the day we went.

01 Outside the Ferrari Factory

We rocked up to the Ferrari factory only to be turned back because we didn't have a Ferrari on order or hadn't purchased one recently. So we walked over the road to the Galleria Ferrari, a fine and very well decked out Ferrari museum which occupied us for a couple of hours. It was full of Ferraris, new and old, as well as a smattering of gearboxes and engines. There was also a whole floor of the gallery dedicated to famous musicians who own Ferraris - Eric Clapton, Miles Davis, Mick Jagger, Placido Domingo, Robbie Williams, amongst others - there was a Ferrari red piano, a Ferrari guitar, you get the picture.

02 Ferrari red piano!

So our pilgrimage didn't end up including a factory visit, but we felt very satisfied with the town square exhibition and the Galleria visit. On a side note, Michael Schumacher won a GP that day also, which led to some mild celebrations in the streets of Maranello which was fun to see.

03 Me in one of the many showrooms

04 A highly offensive mullet haircut

05 That's a great looking car