Seeing Red

In a former iteration of life, before I chose what I thought was love over money, I went through a bout with success.  Spoiler alert, both were a mistake.  Jimmy Buffett put it best in _A Pirate Looks At 40_, “I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed it away so fast.” During that time I was a Porsche man.  Sure, the Italians made sports cars, but in my mind at the time it took proper german engineering to made a sports car dependable, not a hostage to a repair shop.

Now both are out of my league, but I have become a little more open minded.  Movies in the past couple of years have brought new interest. Really the reason why I am in this particular city comes down to one scene in the movie _Ford vs Ferrari_.  You have to throw a southern accent on it to really get the spirit of Matt Damon playing Texan, Carroll Shelby, “that's what he's thinking about while he's sitting in Moe-deena, Italy, right now. That man is scared to death... that this year, you actually might be smart enough to start trusting me. So, yeah. I say you got Ferrari exactly where you want him. You're welcome”

It was a little over two hours train ride from Milano into this area I had been close to before.  Two years ago, up at Parma home of the famous cheese, and Verona home to …well, love I guess.  It provided the backdrop for Romeo and Guliette.   I guess I was expecting something similar to those towns, older and much smaller.  But Modena has a significant industrial base and though it had some old buildings and town square, seemed post war modern and well maintained.   Maybe it was the car builder who had something to do with it.

Touring Ferrari was interesting.  They actually have two museums, I only went to the one in Modena.  The second, a few miles south in Maranello is more technical about the cars and the racing program.  Whereas the one I went to was about Enzo himself and the consumer cars.  …If you can call a $230,000+ car a consumer that is.  They did have a Formula One car there and a very interesting display of the different engines they have used throughout the years.  It was fun seeing the different models.  They have a 250 GTO sitting on the museum floor.  The last one of those that changed hands, just back in November, made it the most expensive car in the world at fifty-one point seven million dollars.

Picture if you will this liquor store window
in America and the resulting "What about the 
children" protests. 

Of course just seeing all these cars in one spot, seeing the beautiful design of the museum itself, seeing the gift shop with $1700 sweatpants, $1200 jackets and $200 ink pens, all of this stuff was some combination of interesting and shocking.  They had several employees on staff and one of them would show up at your shoulder instantly if you handled a product.  Their job is to make sure disreputables like me didn’t try anything on unless I looked like a potential buyer.  

I didn’t realize Ferrari makes an SUV now and they actually had a couple of cars there not in red.  A beautiful yellow, of course, was my favorite.  There were quite a few people touring and they had one of their pre-production models where for an extra fee you could have your picture taken beside it.  I am not sure if the beautiful woman standing there was available as an additional prop.  I didn’t see any photos taken.

The museum wasn’t the only place around town I saw the Ferrari name.  I saw it on wine bottles and construction company barricades as well.  Evidently the family has diversified.  I didn’t see it on a single car outside of the museum grounds.  But, I guess it is winter here.  Plus, I wouldn’t have recognized the SUV had I walked right past it.

The best meal, and in the top five for the entire trip thus far, was a bit of a fluke.  I had researched a restaurant on google.  It was rated quite high and there were a couple of wild boar pasta dishes I just knew would be fantastic.  When we arrived I overshot the front door ending up in front of a different restaurant where the host rushed out to sweep us in.  About that moment we discovered my error and I told him no.  But then when we went into the original spot we were told, lacking a reservation, we are out of luck.  Fate had taken control I told the host next door we would love to dine with them.  When we walked in we were the only table so I was a bit nervous about that.  But, it filled some by the time we were finished.  It still surprises me how late Italians eat.  The restaurant was called In Vino Veritas, and was at Piazza Roma 4.  I had their lasagna and it was outstanding!  The wine, also one of the best of the trip was very reasonable in price.  

If you are looking for a lovely coffee shop/bar with a wonderful warm setting, friendly people and outstanding selection I would recommend Benny’s Bar, Corso Canalchiaro 88.  I am saying this not just because they served me the largest, best tasting olives I have ever eaten in my life.  I spent a couple hours sitting in one of their little tables.  They kept my snack tray full and arrived immediately when I needed a second vino rosso.  People watching was great there was well.  The happy hour crowd was fun to watch and though I only catch about one word in ten it was easy to see everyone was having a good time.

A disappointment was the first restaurant we went to when we got to town. Fra Diavolo, right on the main strip in town, on via Del Taglio.   From the outside they looked a little “American shopping mall.”  But, it was rolling up toward 2pm and food gets really hard to come by in Italy about that time.  You can’t be too picky.  If you are you might end up having to wait until seven thirty when the restaurants re-open for dinner.  So I was hoping for the best.  I thought their logo was great, I thought their tagline cute, “eat pizza, make love”, but their crust was bready and tasteless.  Not at all chewy.  It did tide me over until dinner time though.  That’s what was important.

The BnB we were in had only one read downside.  Running across the middle of the bathroom ceiling was a heavy wooden beam just above eye brow level.  I proved this height twice during the stay there.  I realize there are sometimes not good options when remodeling these old buildings but I can’t imagine something like this in America. 

...And yes, I made you wait.