Thursday 9th December: Bologna

My original plan was to stop off at Maranello (Ferrari) on the trip from Florence to Venice, but after the Pisa debacle I realised that that was not a very practical plan. Also since the rest of the family did not appear to share my enthusiasm for a trip to the Ferrari museum, I decided to go it alone and leave them in Florence. But while working out how to get there from Florence I found that the Bologna Motor Show was on and after flipping a coin I decided to go to the Motor Show instead. This was a good decision, because given the ‘efficiency’ of Trenitalia I probably would not have made to Maranello and back in the same day. The Motor Show was huge, as you would expect, with all the big carmakers competing for the attention of the predominantly male crowd using that age old method, SEX. There was a host of very attractive women standing beside the cars, sitting in the cars and sitting on the cars at every display. In addition to the static displays, there were also about half a dozen test tracks set up where you could go and try your chosen make and model (car that is). A small racing circuit was also set up where events were running all day, but the most surprising thing was the size of the electric car display at this bastion of petrol guzzling machines.