Beautiful scenery, beautiful cars.

A couple of sick days and no internet for 4 days has put us well behind in the blog, so this post covers 5 days and I'll try and get another up tonight also.

Tuesday 13^th May

Today we headed to Brescia where the Mille Miglia starts on Thursday. Today was also about cars as we stopped at Monza for a look around. Rob was particularly keen to see the old parabolic track which is not used any more. This was achieved with a climb over a fence and through the blackberries but he was very happy to have seen it.

 

A few views of Monza

Manuel Fangio

Practice day for some at Monza

The old parabolic track

The drive was pretty uneventful except the search for somewhere for lunch. In the end we decided we would have McDonalds that were advertising along the way, but when we found it in the shopping centre there was a food court and a very nice Chinese meal was enjoyed.

Not a lot else to report for the day except to say that our hotel for the next 3 nights was quite a few rungs above some of our hotels – and really not much more in cost. We arrived there late in the afternoon and decided that it was just easier to eat at the hotel as the price was quite reasonable, and as it turned out, the meal was really good.

Wednesday 14^th May

Our hotel is about 15k from Brescia where the Mille Miglia starts, and is in a very small village, set up on a hill. The view from the windows was just beautiful – very peaceful. Before heading in to Brescia we visited the town of Salo on Lago di Garda. I liked this place much more than Como – almost no tourists, a beautiful boardwalk along the lake, lovely little shopping streets, views that almost match Como with snow covered mountains in the background. Definitely not the hype of Como. I would come back here to explore more but quite happy to say I have been and seen Como and not go back. We found a lovely café by the water and enjoyed a coffee before heading into Brescia and the MM.

View across the town from our hotel at Vallio Terme

The boat harbour at Salo - the views were just spectacular.

View from the boardwalk. 

Looking to the town of Salo.

Isn't that just a beautiful view. I'm not sure just how far north
these mountains are
- whether they are in Italy or Switzerland.

You learn something new every day
- this man invented the violin.

Street view in Salo

We eventually found the gathering of cars for the MM and had a good look at them all. Millions and millions of dollars under this roof. There was a Ferrari tribute section of cars – lots of red – and competitors were fixated on polishing every bit of paint and chrome. You could smell the polish in the air. We were hoping to meet up with some other members of the car club while at the event but there was no sign of them today.

Any one want to guess at the $value here?
Some beautiful cars. 

Jay Leno was competing
- not sure how he went
but had a film crew trailing him around.

Bruno, son of Ayrton Senna was also competing.
Jeremy Irons was also there competing but you couldn't get
within cooee of him for photos.

Dinner was again taken at the hotel and again very nice. The hotel is owned by a family and the owner is also the chef. He speaks minimal English but speaks French and Italian so we were able to have conversations in French. He assisted us with arranging haircuts and finding somewhere to do the laundry (bonus – it was a service laundry and we just left it for 2 hours and came back to it neatly folded, and cost less than us doing it at the self service laundromat).

Thursday 16^th May

A late start to the day as I first got my haircut. The hairdresser spoke no English so with sign language and an old photo the job was done  – not quite what I’d get at home but it will do till then.

We spent the rest of the morning with a drive around part of the lake, and then checking out the route of the MM to find a spot to park for the day where we could watch the cars. We eventually propped in the town of Descenzano  del Garda where the cars were to drive right along the main street on the shore of the lake. Desenzano was another nice little town with lovely cobbled streets and the centre of town closed to vehicle traffic. Like Salo, it is also on the shore of the lake and has beautiful views north to the mountains. It would have been nice to be able to take a ferry trip somewhere on the lake but we didn’t have time. I did a little bit of window shopping as it was nice and quiet when we first arrived there. We stayed here for most of the day – until it started to get very cold with the breeze coming off the lake.

Not much more to say about the day really but if we ever come here again the lake is certainly worth an explore.

 

How would you like this for a loaner car to organise a car rally? 

The road along the lake front in Desenzano del Garda
where the cars were to compete.

View across the lake from Desenzano.

Flag marshals - the Italians just love a uniform.

Just another flavour of organisation vehicle
- there were hundreds of them, all nice loaner cars from alfa.

And no day is complete without a dog photo.
These European dogs go everywhere that mum and dad go.

Friday 16^th May

I came down with a gastro last night so this morning was a very slow start as I was feeling pretty lousy. The plan for the day was to head to Volterra, in Tuscany, and where the Mille Miglia was due to pass through on Saturday at lunchtime. It was quite a long journey compared to what we have been used to and because of the distance, and me feeling so crappy, we decided to autostrada it. We stopped once along the way for Rob to eat some lunch and arrived in Volterra around 4pm.

The autostrada is certainly the way to cover distance fast, but you do miss seeing some of the lovely towns we have passed through on some of the lesser roads. The other bonus with the autostrada is that the road surface is good – some of their other roads are pretty crappy; you’d be hard pressed to sit on 130 comfortably. We are finding some of the speed and road signage to be lacking – how do you know when you are off the autostrada and the speed limit changes? – the road turns to crap.

Again we have picked a nice hotel, and one that has a restaurant and does meals – finding somewhere to eat an evening meal has often been a challenge, and at the end of a long day is the last thing we feel like, so a hotel meal is much appreciated.

Rob had a chat with the owners and they were talking about the Mille Miglia, and then rallying of bygone days, and it turns out that the hotel we were staying at was the base hotel for the Martini Lancia rally team for the San Remo rally.

Dinner at the hotel would have been very enjoyable except it was now Rob’s turn with the gastro. Early to bed for us both.

Saturday 17^th May

Another late start but the only plan for the day was to see the MM cars in Volterra around lunchtime and then head to our holiday cabin accommodation at San Vincenzo – home for 4 nights. We first of all had a drive through one of the old stages of the San Remo rally – nothing special to mention but some of the views were pretty spectacular. As we drove through the area both yesterday and today you could see villages perched on top of the hills. Volterra was one of these villages. We had hoped to be able to get into the town of Volterra to have a look at the walled town, but they had the old town completely blocked off to non rally traffic so we missed out.

Volterra - high on the hill.

And the Tuscan countryside.

We found ourselves a spot to park along the route, and where there was a café we could get food and drinks. We were not alone – all along the road there were people camped to see the cars. What we can’t get over is the amount of hangers-on that are with the event. There seem to be hundreds of organization cars, the competitors, the service cars, the guest cars (they have a label guest on the side but I've no idea what that means), the police bikes and cars, the media cars, motor bikes, tour buses (pretty sure some of them were with the rally) and every wannabe competitor who has dusted off his historic vehicle and polished it up to take it out for a drive and show off. Lots of LOMBARDS out there!!  Along with all of that there are your normal tourist cars and people out for a Saturday drive. 

We stayed around for a couple of hours and got photos (yes I have some for show and tell) and finally headed to San Vincenzo. The road out of town was part of the rally route and it was also lined with spectators. There would have been some good viewing spots as the road switchbacked down the side of the hills for a couple of K. Give Rob the sniff of a rally and he can’t help himself – he had to show them that he could keep up the pace.

 

Mille Miglia competitors interspersed with hangers on
and your average tourist. 

There is not a lot of room in some of these cars and when
you get 2 big blokes in them there seems to be
more hanging over the doors than inside the vehicle.

San Vincenzo – we are staying in a caravan park in a cabin for 4 nights. The park is absolutely huge, I haven’t even bothered to have a look further afield than where we are. Fortunately we are near the centre of the ‘village’ where they have a take away shop, restaurant, supermarket, games room, laundrette, internet café, bar, gelati bar, and other stuff I can’t remember. There are 4 swimming pools here and there are rows and rows of deckchairs around the pools. It is not super hot here so don’t know that I will get in the water. We’ll see how the weather goes.