Italy - Adrenaline and beer!
Ahh… when I think of Italy I can almost smell the coffee, taste the Gelati and feel the adrenaline of one type of car… the Ferrari! Maranello, home of Ferrari, is one place that petrol heads flock each year. So fully fuelled (with coffee), we headed to the brand new Ferrari gallery.
F1’s, 12 cylinders and many more cars that I couldn’t even begin to price. Other than the gallery it is also possible to get a factory tour. A great idea but don’t expect to see inside. The tour involves pointing at buildings and vaguely identifying the work that might be going on inside…. “They paint the cars in there”, “In that one, they do body work”. We are glad that we didn’t decide to pay for that one. Instead we watched it from inside the gallery.
Next stop was the Ferrari shop. Oh… to have money! (*sigh*) I bought myself a sexy Ferrari t-shirt (with its official Ferrari tag and unique serial number!). Ray bought himself a very high-tech alarm clock. It even works out the time zone for itself and resets accordingly. If only we could work out how to turn the alarm off without having to remove the battery! (*grin*)
So, from “wish I had money” Maranello, we headed to “Where has the hostel gone?” Trento. Yup, the Lonely Planet had recommended a hostel long gone, however Trento offered other things. (I mean, who needs a place to sleep anyway!) There was the Pantheon we couldn’t get to and the dodgy people near the ‘pond’. On the plus side they also had amazing fresco covered buildings and a beautiful church. A city of contrasts.
With an elusive hostel we decided to hit the road again. Our plans were to head North-East however with a bit of fate (and our stubborn refusal to every turn the car around) we ended up heading towards the Dolomites.
The further North we got, the more we noticed the Germanic influence. Each town even had two names (one Italian, one German). Thus we found ourselves in Bruneck/Brunico. A very Germanic town that was absolutely beautiful and even had an old castle on the hill. More importantly it had German beer and finally… non-Italian food! (*insert clapping here*)
The people here were amazing. Most of the older people spoke three languages; Italian, German and English. Communication was often confusing as the younger people spoke German or Italian, but not much English. Some restaurants had menus in German, but then next door it might be completely in Italian. We discussed that we could live here for a while as I could still improve my Italian, but that there was enough English that we could also survive the more difficult conversations. Not to mention the excitement from Ray that there were German influenced beers!
F1’s, 12 cylinders and many more cars that I couldn’t even begin to price. Other than the gallery it is also possible to get a factory tour. A great idea but don’t expect to see inside. The tour involves pointing at buildings and vaguely identifying the work that might be going on inside…. “They paint the cars in there”, “In that one, they do body work”. We are glad that we didn’t decide to pay for that one. Instead we watched it from inside the gallery.
Next stop was the Ferrari shop. Oh… to have money! (*sigh*) I bought myself a sexy Ferrari t-shirt (with its official Ferrari tag and unique serial number!). Ray bought himself a very high-tech alarm clock. It even works out the time zone for itself and resets accordingly. If only we could work out how to turn the alarm off without having to remove the battery! (*grin*)
So, from “wish I had money” Maranello, we headed to “Where has the hostel gone?” Trento. Yup, the Lonely Planet had recommended a hostel long gone, however Trento offered other things. (I mean, who needs a place to sleep anyway!) There was the Pantheon we couldn’t get to and the dodgy people near the ‘pond’. On the plus side they also had amazing fresco covered buildings and a beautiful church. A city of contrasts.
With an elusive hostel we decided to hit the road again. Our plans were to head North-East however with a bit of fate (and our stubborn refusal to every turn the car around) we ended up heading towards the Dolomites.
The further North we got, the more we noticed the Germanic influence. Each town even had two names (one Italian, one German). Thus we found ourselves in Bruneck/Brunico. A very Germanic town that was absolutely beautiful and even had an old castle on the hill. More importantly it had German beer and finally… non-Italian food! (*insert clapping here*)
The people here were amazing. Most of the older people spoke three languages; Italian, German and English. Communication was often confusing as the younger people spoke German or Italian, but not much English. Some restaurants had menus in German, but then next door it might be completely in Italian. We discussed that we could live here for a while as I could still improve my Italian, but that there was enough English that we could also survive the more difficult conversations. Not to mention the excitement from Ray that there were German influenced beers!
posted by Kerrie at
11:46 pm
1 Comments:
Thanks for the chat the other night. I loved hearing from you. Sounds like you are having lots of fun. Keep up the walking/gym or all the food and alcohol from those lovely little towns will catch up with you! :)
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Anonymous, at 5:05 pm
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