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.