Saturday, August 21, 2010

Galleria Ferrari- Modena and Maranello

This Tuesday we went to Galleria Ferrari (it is Iain’s day)
We went from Florence to Modena by train (one train) then we were supposed to get 2 buses from Modena train station to Maranello and walk to Galleria Ferrari, but we saw some taxi’s out front of the Train station and decided to take the easy route this time ;-).
Maranello is a pretty little town where Mr Ferrari built his company and there memorabilia of Ferrari and Enzo all over town. You will see the photo’s to back this up. Anyway of course there is a Ferrari museum to visit if you are an avid fan of the sports car. Ferrari is Iain’s dream car so today was very exciting for him. We went to the museum and purchased family tickets 9 euros each, not too bad. The museum is not very large but if you love the car there are many displays of the real thing and the race cars too. There is also a trophy room with all the trophies and helmets on display. They even have a display cabinet with all the colours of paint and leather you can get for your very own Ferrari. I must admit it was not very interesting for me, but to see that Iain was so excited about it was good. It did not take very long to go through the museum, and we left with a souvenir for Iain.
When we walked outside I could see a car rental place and all these people sitting with tickets in their hands (Iain had not noticed), so I went inside the shop to see how much it cost to go for a ride in a Ferrari, well to my surprise you didn’t just go for a ride you actually got to drive one. I knew Iain had always wanted to do this so I casually went back out and said you can do it (the cheap one) go inside and fill out the forms. I don’t think he knew exactly what I was talking about but a few seconds later he had his wallet out and was filling the form for a 10 minute drive in a Ferrari F430 coupe (60 euros). We had to wait a couple of hours for the drive so we sat and took photos of the other Ferrari’s for rent: California, Scuderia, Spider and some other ones that I can’t remember…(embarrassed).
So at 115pm Iain got up a bit nervous because this was his first time driving a Ferrari and also his first time driving on the right hand side of the road (what a way to do it). He told the owner of the car and he was not worried, so Iain hopped in and I took photos and a video as proof that he had actually done it. Yay! Off he went down the road with a low roar for what was supposed to be 10 minutes. I ran down the drive way to wait for his return to take photos and another video, 10, 12, 13 minutes passed, I began to worry that Iain had kidnapped the owner and taken off with the car (LOL). In the meantime a stretched dark green British mini had driven past me (to tell you the truth I was more impressed by that J sorry!!!)
15 minutes passed and I could here the Ferrari coming up the street in front of me, I zoomed the camera to get a close up shot, then pressed record button, this was a bad idea because then I could not zoom back so I got a video of rosso red passing by. Forgive me, I am trying to learn how to use the camera quickly.
Iain turned off the car and told me there was a video to buy too so we went in and purchased it.
We then had to walk to the bus station which was not far but we had already missed the train we wanted to catch. We got to the bus station and decided we were too tired to bother and got another taxi back to Modena.
To make a long story short we ended up having to catch 3 trains back to Florence, one from Modena to Bologna, the Bologna to Prato (took us an hour to work out where the platform was), then Prato to Florence, let’s just say it was a very long day, and leave it at that.
AT LEAST IAIN GOT TO FULFILL A LIFETIME DREAM!!!

2 comments:

Charlotte said...

Can you tell me how much the taxi ride was to and from Modena?
Was it difficult to find a taxi from the museum back to Florence?
Thankk you.

Anonymous said...

Charlotte so sorry that I haven't replied earlier . We caught a train from Florence to Modena then a train to marenello then a taxi from there to the gallery . It cost €25 for the taxi. The whole journey took about 2 Hours. Definitely worth it if you are into Ferrari and you might as well book a Ferrari drive through push start for €60 for 15 mins. If you are not a huge car person don't bother.