Your driver-escort, who speaks perfect English, will pick you
up in downtown Milan or Como and drive you south across the vast Po River Valley, with its rice fields and
dairy farms. After about an hour you will descend into the verdant foothills of the Emilia-Romagna Appennine
Mountains.
You
may encounter a lot of high-end sports cars on the road in this neck of the woods, because many of them are
made here. This is the home of the car par excellence, the Ferrari, and you will see a wonderful selection
of the very best Ferraris at your first stop, the Ferrari Gallery in Maranello. Inaugurated in 1990, the museum is near the plant and trial course, and has been managed directly by Ferrari since 1995, becoming the carmaker's chosen mecca to preserve its past, present and future. The treasures that you will see
here range chronologically from the actual single-seater in which Froilan Gonzalez won the Prancing Horse's first world championship at Silverstone in 1951, all the way up to the latest all-conquering F1 car used by Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. You'll also see every trophy ever won, as well
as a faithful reproduction of Enzo Ferrari's office, and spaces dedicated to technical innovations, a wind tunnel, a collection of all the Ferrari engines and steering wheels ever created, and an exhibit of the paddle gears invented by Ferrari and now used by all F1 teams. But perhaps the thing that will thrill
you the most during your visit is experiencing what it feels like to drive on an F1 course. Take a seat in an authentic F1 car, turn on the simulator, and watch out for those G forces!
After this excitement, it will be a relief to settle back and let your guide
do the driving to the next stop, a typical workshop where world-class balsamic
vinegar has been produced for over 150 years. Once inside these sweet-smelling
ancient walls, you will learn how this gourmet delicacy was born right here in
this area. In fact, though aceto balsamico is a relative newcomer to fancy
food shops outside Italy, its origins go back so far that even in the year 1046
it was already a rarity craved by kings and emperors (and virtually unknown to
the common people). Throughout the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, the vinegar-makers
of Reggio Emilia had one of the richest and most powerful trade guilds in central
Italy, their secrets as closely-guarded as those of the Murano glass-makers.
By the 1800s it had become commonplace to enrich the dowries of local noblewomen
with jars and little barrels of this precious liquid. During your visit to the
workshop you will see the maker's own vineyard, witness how a grape eventually
meets one of its most glorious ends inside these little containers, and taste
several types of vinegar made from various grapes and aged for various lengths
of time. Believe us, even if you are a balsamic vinegar devotee, if you have
never tasted one of the older ones – aged, say from 25 to 100 years – you
still haven't experienced a drop of heaven on your tongue. There is nothing
like it!
After the tasting, it's time for lunch!
Your driver-escort will accompany you to a restaurant commensurate with your appetite
and budget, then meet you after your meal to continue on to Florence. If your appetite
is hearty, we recommend you try the local parmesan and prosciutto at a little
place near Modena that is the favorite haunt of yet another Emilian treasure,
Luciano Pavarotti!
This
tour lasts eight hours and ends at your hotel in central Florence. Prices include private car and personal
driver-escort. Entrance tickets (15 Euro/person for the Ferrari Gallery) and meals are not included, and no
touring in Florence is planned. If your group includes at least two adults plus children, up to two of the children under 18 years old pay nothing for the tour except for entrance tickets. If you have more than two children, all the others pay
the adult price for the tour no matter their age.
