Cars, bikes and parmesan cheese in Bologna, Italy.
One of these things is not like the others...But they go together, somehow. It just works!
On a recent trip to Italy, and due to my love of cars and bikes (and cheese) we decided to go to the historical city of Bologna in northern Italy from which we planned to launch our tours of the Lamborghini, Ferrari and Ducati factories.
Bologna is a mix of medieval towers, many churches and antique buildings plus is the location of the world's oldest university called, unsurprisingly, The University of Bologna founded in 1088. The first settlement dates back to about 1000BC and has been home to the Etruscans, Celts and Romans. It was also conquered by Napoleon in 1796 and in World War Two was extensively damaged by Allied bombing in July 1943 when the historical city centre was all but destroyed.
It's a fairly vibrant city full of university students, great places to eat and excellent architecture. We walked around soaking in the history and culture for a couple of days prior to heading off to the main attractions and true reason we went there.
Lamborghini
We arrived with our private guide to the Lamborghini factory and visited the museum. We were disappointed to learn earlier that morning on being collected at our hotel that production had been halted for a week and so our factory tour was not possible. We had a couple of other things on the agenda to replace it but more about that later.
The Museum is an impressive collection of the cars that Lamborghini produce and every model is represented. It also tells the story of Lamborghini's journey from it's sports car origin in 1963 to being the manufacturer of some of the world's most desirable vehicles today. We were greeted by an immaculately presented, and completely stunning, Italian lady who proceeded to talk us through the Lamborghini story. It was fascinating and interesting for us to stand in front of the stars of the show, the vehicles, as she went from model to model. She then allowed us to wander and soak it in.
The image below is the Miura built from 1966-1971 which was a V12 350HP vehicle with a top speed of 285kph!
The lovely vehicle below is a concept car, called Miura, built in 2006 (This vehicle is number 1 of 1). It was created to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original Miura. In real life it is simply beauty personified, at least it is to a car-guy like me.
I have about 200 pictures from Lamborghini and have only selected a few that most people would never see. There is every model there though including Lamborghini-powered Formula 1 cars. On leaving the museum we were farewelled by this little number. One of only 250 made! It was out the front being photographed for a media release. The vehicle was created by Valentino Balboni. Stunning.
Looking pretty smug for some reason. Anyone would think it's mine!
From Lamborghini we headed off on a side trip. This was one part of the trip which was to make up for the fact the production line was halted which meant we were not able to take the full tour we had planned at Lamborghini.
Collezione Umberto Panini
Collezione Umberto Panini is a private collection of cars and bikes owned privately by one of the richest men in Italy. The museum is located within the grounds of Hombre organic farm which also produces parmesan cheese. In fact they make cheese for the Pope. As far as I know they are the only supplier of parmesan to the Vatican to this day.
Although unplanned, this side trip was thoroughly enjoyable. Only a few people will ever see this collection and I could go on and on about what's in it. A simple visit to the CUP website will fill you in on the details though.
Pope cheese! The cows are treated incredibly nicely here. They eat organically and classical music is played to them to help them relax. Apparently the milk is much better as a result therefore so is the cheese. We had a look at the production process and were able to try several different samples.
The equipment you see in the picture below works automatically. It pulls out each wheel of cheese, cleans it, rotates it and replaces it on a rotational basis. Easy!
After tasting as much cheese and balsamic vinegar as I could scam we jumped in the car with our guide and headed off to the Ferrari factory, the Fiorano test track and the Ferrari museum. I'm going to post about Ferrari in my next post however so will skip to Ducati.
Ducati
I ride motor bikes. Sure, I'm more partial to Yamaha (The R1 and R6 in particular) however I couldn't come here and neglect to visit the Ducati museum. It didn't disappoint.
It's like a journey through time with every model they have ever produced in attendance including every race bike as well. It was so impressive. My photo's do not do it justice however, so I apologise for that.
The Cucciolo was conceived by Aldo Farinelli shortly after World War Two. It used a 4-stroke "clip on" engine to adapt motorised bicycles. Siata, a small Turin firm worked with Farinelli to produce them but demand outstripped supply which is when Ducati stepped in. They were an electronics and appliance manufacturer at the time. Ducati produced the Cucciolo under license taking production from 15 units in 1946 to over 25,000 in the ensuing years. Then took over full production completely.
If you're wondering what Cucciolo means well...The motor made a yapping sort of sound so the name Cucciolo was bestowed upon it. It means, "little puppy". Cool story huh?
Again, I have about 200 images from Ducati but you'll get bored if I show all of them I think. For me it was awesome. My girl loves bikes too and although I thought she may get bored she didn't. It's simply amazing to read the history of each model, the stories about the riders like Casey Stoner, Troy Bayliss, Valentino Rossi, Nicky Haden (RIP), Mike Hailwood etc. There's much to see, interactive displays and well, a whole building full of awesomeness!
Ok, so that's it for tonight. In my next post I will share my Ferrari experience including the museum and the F430 Spyder I got to drive around Modena for an hour or so!
I hope you're enjoyed my post.
All the best and thanks for reading.
Oh wow that Lamborghini museum is awesome. I don't think you could have ripped me away from that place. I would still be stood about there drooling.
Perhaps not a huge fan of the smelly cheese though, I was watching an episode of How Stuff is Made and they were letting the cheeses mature in wheels, stacked like in your picture and they were laced with cheese mites. Supposedly that is what gives the cheese an extra nutty flavour.
Resteeming, can't wait to hear about the Spyder.
Thanks @munchell! Yeah, cheese isn't for everyone. It smelt kinda...cheesy in there but that goes with the territory I suppose. The Lambo museum was great, as was the Ferrari one which I'll post about tomorrow if I get time. We try to do different things when we travel as well as some more traditional tourist stuff as well. We visit small out of the way towns, attend local festivals and markets etc. A great way to "get local" and truly learn about a place. Lambo and Ferrari was a bit extravagant but was worth it! I can still recall the power under my foot in that F430! Awesome! :)
I like these cars. I also like Rolls Royce. Have you checked out the Rolls Royce Ghost Series 2?
Hi @munchell, what are cheese mites? We had this one huge round block of cheese on our fridge once, with this weird white material stuck really deep into it. I think it was for making it rot faster.
We went to Italy two years ago and this one shop in Tuscany had these really smelly cheeses. Some of them had changed colour, they were purple and brown if I remember correctly.
I believe they are added to some of the cheeses to help give them their distinctive flavours.
They look like this.
Kind of puts you off eating cheese doesn't it?
AGGHH that is so disgusting... do they put it in all cheese?
WOW pretty cool man. Have you heard of the brand Lancia? My friend here in SA has a Lancia Integrale. At one point it was the best rally car in the world. I think the car I would most like to get is the Rolls Royce Ghost Series II, have you seen it?
I tend to believe the whole thing about playing music to animals. I also think you can do the same with plants. I think it has been proven scientifically actually.
Hey @pjcswart, thanks for reading my post. Yes, I've heard of the Lancia. The 1980's Lancia Rally 037 was an amazing beast in Group B. Won the WRC in 1983! Nice machine. I think I've got a picture I took of it in action here at a rally a few years ago. (Not WRC, just a local comp). It's owned by one the wealthy people in my city.
I'm vaguely familiar with the RR Ghost. Nice car. Well out of my price range though! :)
Interesting. RR Ghost Series is around 360k USD i think. Are Lancia's pretty valuable?
I think an ex-rally Lancia would fetch a lot of money. I'm not sure though. That RR in AUD would be somewhere around a million bucks I think based if the USD price you mentioned. Again, not sure. I'd rather do a small property development than by that RR though.
Interesting, are you a big car fan? Why do you think they are so valuable?
Not a big car fan. I like guns more. They are valuable because people attach a value to items that make them feel a certain way. People also like to be perceived by others in a particular way consequently they feel they need certain things to assist with growing others' perception. Cars, houses, designer handbags...The list goes on.
Yeah I know it is a trap. It just never ends, there is always the next thing. Have you seen Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. One guy asks the other guy, how much is enough, what is your number, everyone has a number? And then he says "More." Thats it. Thats all he said.
Yep.
OMG - fast cars, cheese and 11s - what more could a man ask for. Upvoted and resteemed.
:) Thank you kindly sir!
This would be an awesome experience I need to do this sometime and maybe even a test drive haha! And parmesan is my favourite cheese ever!! Great post ;)
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STOPAwesome post! I'm not what you'd call a car person as I know little of their history and specs, however when I travel to America, I love to do my road trips in muscle cars. So, legit question, how difficult is it to arrange driving around Italy in the F430 Spyder? Because that sounds like something I may need to do.
I'm posting about it tonight, probably within a couple of hours. I paid nothing for my drive but I think a couple of hundred Euro's should do the trick for a 30 minute drive.
Sweet, thanks for that. :-)
Just imagine the fast and the furious in the 60's what it would look like. the cars are unique. Nice research work.
That's the feel I had there actually. The more modern cars and bikes seemed common-place when there were so many more historic vehicles from the old days. Each manufacturer proudly tracks their history and displays it passionately for people like us. Amazing.