Today was the culmination of 10 years of thinking and planning: Carter’s childhood desire to see where Italian sports cars are produced. We visited three car brands: Pagani, Lamborghini and Ferrari, all located in the Moderna and Maranello region, about an hour’s drive back toward Milan.

On the way there our guide told us a few interesting facts:

• Bologna, as we had already observed, is known for its porticos – the arched covers that shade the sidewalk and protect from rain. Bologna has 50 km of porticos, the most in (choose one, I forget: Italy, Europe, the world). It’s a great aesthetic and practical innovation that makes Bologna special.
• The countryside we passed was a mixture of industrial and farming enterprises. Wheat, corn and alfalfa are grown here. The alfalfa is especially important: it’s used to feed the cows that produce the milk from which parmesan cheese is made, a regional specialty. Our train from/to Milan passes through the town of Parma. Fruit, including apples, peaches, pears and Lambrusco grapes are also raised here.

The Pagani tour was first. Pagani is unique in that it’s independently owned (Lamborghini is Audi and Ferrari is Fiat). They produce about 50 cars per year with a workforce of 157, 70 or so of whom do factory work. A stripped-down model goes for 3 million euros. Order-to-delivery takes two years, including multiple consultations with clients to customize their car’s design. There are lots of stories about cars sold at auction for more than 10 million euros.

Pagani was the only place that allowed us onto the factory floor. Many components come from suppliers. Mercedes makes engines to Pagani’s specs. A big part of Pagani’s value add is carbon fiber composite body parts that are fabricated in large autoclaves on site. Every component carries the Pagani stamp. The least expensive part, a screw or bolt or something, costs 60 euros.

Pagani vehicles are indeed beautiful machines. See the pictures. Not being a famous movie star or sports figures I’m probably not in their target market.

Our tour included a very nice lunch: two homemade pasta dishes, breads, local salami and a selection of three pastries for dessert. We each sampled all three and each came up with a different favorite.

Lamborghini was next and while it lacked a factory tour it had an interesting display of cars, especially for Carter. Nana and I are borderline clueless when it comes to models and features and history and whatnot, but Carter knows as much about cars as Griffin knows about football.

The factory is shut down for a year or more as they retool and reconfigure the line for the next model. They change models once every 10 years. The next iteration will include, gasp, a hybrid model.

The really great thing about the Lambo visit was that Carter took my camera from around my neck and insisted on taking all the pictures. It left me free to “enjoy the moment” and watch Carter take pictures from angles and compositions that interested him. You can see the results of his work in today’s picture gallery. Carter’s start after the picture of Carter and our guide.

Finally, Ferrari. Ferrari has two car focuses: roadsters that real people drive (including a few models that can be used as race cars) and Formula One cars that are exclusively racing cars. Ferrari cars have run in every Formula One race for the past 70 years and has won a ton.

We arranged for Carter to spend 20 minutes in a Formula One simulator, driving on a real track at speeds of up to 180 mph. It was fun to watch and even more fun to do. Carter took a couple of laps to figure out how to shift gears and learn the layout of the track. Once he got the hang of it, he did well. His best lap time was only 12 seconds from qualifying for the top 10 simulator times. The biggest challenge seemed to be figuring out how to slow down sufficiently to make turns that required speeds well under 50 mph to navigate without spinning out and hitting the wall.

The Ferrari Museum itself was somewhat of a disappointment. Too much of a museum for tourists attracted by the famous Ferrari name and not enough display aimed at car lovers as was the case for Pagani and Lamborghini.

Now we’re chilling in the room and getting ready for our last Italian meal. Tomorrow we’ll be stuck with whatever Swiss food we can scrounge up. Fondu and chocolate, anyone?

Dinner worked out just fine. Pizza and pasta followed by, you guessed it, our last Italian gelato.