Modena

With a busy plan for the day we got up early to pack up and drive up to Modena where we were staying one night. We did kinda try and sneak out of the Airbnb before our host was up but her dog Oliver managed to get out of the gate and the process took a little longer in which she ended up spotting us leaving. She actually just wanted to say goodbye and give us a bottle of olive oil from their own trees which was a sweet gesture. She asked me the awkward question about how everything was and I launched in to telling her how I think (actually we know!) the pipes in the bathroom are leaking hoping to distract her. Once she had agreed to check on the pipe she goes “but other wise everything was good?” and I had to tell her we were a little disappointed with the wifi and that she should be writing that on her Airbnb blurb. A tad awkward but she still kissed me on the cheek and told us to have a safe journey. Once we were both in the car we realized that the clock said that it was 10.45am but our phones were saying 9.45am and that today was the day we officially in daylight savings time. I have to admit it was nice not to even have to care since last time the hour went back I think I was starting work at 7am and was up most of the night concerned I was going to get the time wrong and be late. Winter is really coming however. The toll road cost us €10.50 ($17.70) to drive the 1.5 hours to Modena via the outskirts of Bologna. Our next Airbnb host Alessandro had said it was fine for us to leave all our belongings with him whilst we spent the afternoon at the Ferrari museum. His place was just off one of the main highways but felt surprisingly secluded due to the fact that it is flanked on either side by crops and backs onto some estuaries. We didn’t get to see around the place as the previous guests had obviously just left and it needed a clean but we had thing to do anyway! It was a beautiful sunny day and we drove into Modena to check out the Ferrari museum first. At one point during the drive Lew sees a speed limit sign of 50 and exclaims “Wow I’m going 90kms in a 50km/hr zone, I think I officially drive like an Italian now!” Not to worry the guy in front of us was going much faster, I promise.

The Ferrari museum was tucked away on the outskirts of Modena with a strange squishy looking yellow roof. Since Lew couldn’t make his mind up between the Ferrari Museum in Modena and the Ferrari factory in Maranello we brought the €44 ($74 NZD) ticket for both places and hoped to knock them both off today. He had already warned me as we got out of the car that if he was offered a job there was not even an inch of doubt, he was taking that job! Haha!! The museum in Modena focuses more on Enzo Ferrari himself and you walk into the sterile white show room with old cars and we were just in time for a projector to play a video on one of the large showroom walls highlighting Enzos life. Born in 1989 it started off with him as a boy at aged 10 seeing his first car race which sparked his passion for cars. World War 1 interfered with any of his plans to develop his passion further and he enlisted in the Third Mountain Artillery only to develop pleurisy. During his time at war his idol and Italys top fighter pilot Count Francesco Baracca always flew a plane with his personal emblem of a black prancing horse on the side it. Some years after Baraccas death and when Enzo himself had recovered he went to visit Baracca’s mother who encouraged Enzo to use the horse as his emblem for Ferrari as it would bring him good luck. Enzo founded a company in 1939 supplying parts to other racing teams before being able to manufacture two cars for the Millie Miglia (an open-road endurance race). World War 2 broke out in 1943 and Enzo’s factory was forced to assist Mussolini in producing parts for the war effort. He finally created the first car to bear the name Ferrari in 1947 – the Ferrari 125 S which was a 1.5L V12 engine. From this day forward Ferrari really began to earn it name by winning lots of Le Mans (a 24 hour race) and Grand Prix. Between the years of 1975 – 1983 Ferrari won 5 consecutive World Constructors Championships in Formula 1. Safe to say they had become a well-known car brand before Mr Ferrari himself died at age 90 in 1988 after signing off his final car – the F40. After watching the film of Enzo’s life we had a lot more appreciation for the passion and commitment in which it took to build the Ferrari Empire we know today.

The car display was not the only thing to see at the Modena location as there was Enzo’s original house next door that houses a lot of metal! There were different types of engines everywhere from V6, V8, V12 and turbos. To me they really were just like a big hunk of metal but Lew told me the process in which they use wax and compressed sand to create the mould before tidying everything up to create what we were looking at. He also explained the workings of a turbo engine, which was fascinating but really left me with a headache afterwards. I don’t think my brain is cut of for engineering…is this what happened when Lew visited the anatomy museum as well? We successfully completed that museum and had decided to drive 20 minutes away to the Balsamic Vinegar Museum in Spilamberto since this region is famous for it's vinegar.

The small town felt completely deserted as we entered the museum in which no one else was around either. The women there explained that the next tour and tasting was at 3.30pm but unfortunately for us it was only 1.45pm. We didn’t have much choice but to look around the museum ourselves for €6 ($10 NZD). We began watching a video about the process of balsamic vinegar production in which Lew and I had not a single clue as to how it was made. It is such a traditional process that has been past down from generation to generation and about half of the population in the area still produce balsamic vinegar for their own use and for gifts. They use their attic to store the barrels as it is a good temperature in both summer and winter to aid in the fermentation. Trebbiano grapes and sometimes Lambrusca grapes which are known to make rubbish wine are harvested by hand late in the season to allow them to naturally produce a lot of sugar. They are then crushed and de-stemmed to produce grape-must before being cooked over a low heat for 12+ hours. Once this has finished and it has reduced to about half the amount the grape-must is ready to be added into barrels to begin the fermentation, acidification and aging processes. Now these barrels are certainly something special and they are made out of 7 approved woods - oak, chestnut, mulberry, cherry, acacia, ash and juniper. These woods allow the flavor of the vinegar to be rich with hints of both sweet and sour and these barrels are never completely emptied. They are also expected to last for multiple generations and the process of creating them involved the wood being dried for 7 years before being moulded into the circular shape. The grape-must always starts in the largest barrel and is moved into gradually smaller barrels after designated amounts of time using a large glass piece of equipment that looks like a giant test tube. This process allows the alcohol to evapourate off and the vinegar to gather flavours from the different woods turning into a thick dark syrup. However, this certainly doesn’t happen overnight and we were surprised to find that this can take up to 25 years before you have a very highly regarded vinegar. The longer the ageing time the better the quality and the higher the price of the balsamic vinegar. We spoke in lengths to the women in charge of the museum since we were the only ones in there and we were just so fascinated by yet again the passion Italians have for something else. She ended up dragging us back into her office for a special tasting on the house. She also said she had been to NZ many moons ago and was raving about the place so this was our wee treat. First she let us try the balsamic vinegar that had been aged for 12 years. It had such a strong sweet and also sour taste and we were amazed it tasted nothing like what we buy in the supermarkets. Then she pulls out the big guns with the one that had been aged for 25 years (its older than me!!) and man the favouring was quite different. It still had both the sweet and sour taste but it was blended in together much more and had a lot more depth to it. I really can’t explain this to you until you have tried it yourself. Unfortunately they are well out of our price range with a tiny bottle of the vinegar aged 25 years starting at €75 ($127 NZD) – WOAH! It’s ok since I do like the stuff from the supermarket anyways…. After we had toured around the three rooms of the museum we said our goodbyes to the lady and the very small deserted township and drove 20 minutes to Maranello’s Ferrari factory.

This is the other part of our ticket and most people choose only to go to Modena since Maranello is a bit of a drive out of town. This entire small town is dedicated to Ferrari and despite having a population of only 17,000 people I can imagine that majority of them work at Ferrari also. The museum is a lot more modern and had some different older cars than what we had seen at Modena. They had a specific room dedicated to the drivers of Ferrari cars that won championships with the latest being Kimi Raikkonen in 2007. They had a very large 1:1 lego model of the SF70H an F1 car which competed in the 2017 F1 World Championships. It took over 750 hours to complete and is produced using 349,911 bricks. Multiple cars lined up on a half circle bank showed us the progression of the cars and also the changes to the rules in terms of aerodynamics made to the appearance of the cars over the years. Exiting the exhibition we could see why when we had read reviews online people were struggling to tell you which museum to go to if you had to choose one. The museum at Modena had more of a link to Enzo himself with the video being a great insight into his passion that lead to the creation of Ferrari. It also had an impressive display of engines that have all been used in past cars that is fascinating to see. Maranello was more modern and was more focused on manufacturing of the cars which included descriptions of how the clay models are used to provide a life like image of what the car will look like. The museum also focuses on F1 showing the progression of F1 cars and the drivers who lead Ferrari to championship wins. Maranello is also a lot more interactive as it includes experiences which you can purchase such as a pit stop area to see how fast you are at changing tyres, a simulator in which you could pay €25 ($42.50 NZD) to have a 10 minute go, opportunities for a photograph with a Ferrari California, and an impressive gift store. Also around the museum/factory itself you can pay to drive an actual Ferrari but be prepared to part with €120 ($204 NZD) to drive one for 10km around the streets. The streets also have a speed limit of 50km/hr and I don't know who would pay to drive a Ferrari that slow? If I'm going to pay that much to drive one I would want to know how fast that thing can go...! So I couldn't tell you myself which one to visit over the other so I would recommend to get the full experience and just do both.

We were hoping to walk around Maranello itself as it was a lovely warm afternoon reminding us of those northwest wind days back in Christchurch. The autumn leaves were falling off the trees in the breeze as we begun our walk into town. Finding a map on the end of the street we realised we didn't know how long it would take us and since daylight saving started today we had no idea what time the sun was going down. Heading back to the car we opted to drive into town and the walk to anything of interest from there. As it was there was barely anything in town to see and we went straight back to our accommodation instead. We hadn't managed to find a butcher to get any meat for dinner and Lew wasn't too keen for just potatoes and salad for dinner. Our host Alessandro had given us a local place for dinner down the road which we decided to check out instead. It was empty aside from one other couple and the place looked more like somewhere you come and buy wine. The menu was in charming cursive writing which meant unfortunately we couldn't Google Translate it or even really read what it said! We did managed to work out that there was some sort of ragu and opted for that which turned out to be an excellent choice. The flavour was divine but the portion wasn't overly large especially since we never found ourselves lunch today. We both basically licked the plate clean and Lew tossed up ordering something else or just getting another portion of the ragu! The waitress seemed rather surprised when we asked for another serving  and we went convinced it was a good idea since they cost €9 ($15.30 NZD) a plate. But of course as soon as it arrived Lew was pleased for the extra food. The plan was we were going to share it but knowing I was dairy intolerant the waitress had asked me whether I wanted some of their fresh dairy free apple cake which I gladly accepted for an extra €2.50 ($4.30 NZD). Over all dinner was a tad expensive at €38 ($64.60 NZD) but after we paid the kind waitress offered us a drink on her. I was a tad confused thinking she wanted us to pay for her to have a drink but then she started bringing out bottles of spirits that we could choose from. The dreaded Limoncello was offered but Lew and I knew not to touch that god awful stuff and instead she offered us this nice mint drink. We had no idea what it was made of but it tasted similar to drinking a peppermint and lucky didn't make us screw our noses up! We drove the 3 minutes back to the house and were both exhausted despite the time only being about 7.30pm! Tomorrow was going to be a big day with the Pagani factory tour in the morning and then driving to Venice!!