Day 23: Florence/Venice

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Surprise! I left later than I should have. I intended on leaving at 7:30 am but didn't get out the door until 8:10 or so. The plan was to take the scenic route through the mountains up to the Ferrari Museum in Maranello (3 hours, 30 minutes), and spend a maximum of an hour and a half there. Then ride to Bologna to the Lamborghini Museum (spend another hour and a half), and come back down to Florence by 5:30 pm to return the bike. If I had time, go snag some real deal arancini and cannoli from Arà is Sicilia, then go back to the apartment to shower and grab my bags, catch the 7:54 pm train from Florence to Venice. I had a hell of a time trying to exit Florence. I ended accidentally going on the autostrada (the quicker route) on the way up. It actually ending up being a good thing as I found out. This route goes north, then goes west to Maranello. So this changed the order of things. It was more direct but I still had a lot of difficulty choosing the correct exits to take. I probably had to stop and check my phone at least a dozen times on the way up. The Italian highway system is quite confusing. I didn't have that many issues in Germany. I made it to the Lamborghini Museum around 11:00 am. The ride up was somewhat cool until 10:00 am, where it became scorching and then some. The Lambo Museum wasn't that big but it had some very interesting cars, plus an exhibit on a race car driver named Ayrton Senna which was pretty cool. I kind of got screwed on gas with the bike. This bike doesn't have a gas gauge except for a low level light. He guessed that it “almost” had a full tank. By the time I got to Bologna, the light was on. So I had to fill up after the museum. This was painful because the deserted Esso didn't have any gas, only diesel, same with the next one. I had to ride into Bologna. Finding gas took 45 minutes. I initially pulled into the Ferrari headquarters thinking it was the museum. I got to the actual Ferrari Museum ten minutes away at 2:00 pm. I knew now there was no way I'd be able to take the scenic route back. This museum wasn't large either. It did have some neat cars as well. When leaving, people in the parking lot were circling in a car, looking to see if people wanted to drive a Ferrari through their third party service. Riding down was insanely hot. I thought my ankles were being cooked by the double sided exhaust. It was actually the sun burning my ankles, the only exposed part of my body. The heat made that ride quite possibly the most demanding ride I've ever had. Some signs with temperature readouts said it was 39 degrees. I gassed up before entering Florence. This is where I found out I only had about a half a tank when I first got the bike. I put more in than I should have. I was expecting to put at least 15 litres in and it only needed eight. During the entire trip, I'm going to guess I had to stop to check my phone to see where I was going 50 times. When you're on a motorcycle, pay for the GPS folks. I had to have the bike back by 6:00 pm and with nine minutes to spare, I got back to the garage. Because of getting turned around so many times, I put way more kilometers on the bike than I thought I would. I caught a bus to the apartment quickly showered, ate, and packed. Alessio just told me to leave the keys in the apartment and lock the door behind me. I bussed to the train station. Sort of. I went one stop too far. I walked back, got sweaty, and bought some food at the station and boarded the train at 7:52 pm. Remember the what time the train was supposed to leave? I really need to stop doing this. On the train, I wrote, while being irritated by the obnoxious family near me and a crying baby. Finding the hostel was easy even in the dark as it's quite close to the train station. I had to rent bedsheet for 3.50€. most hostels included them. When I went into the room, I was expecting no one to be there because it was Saturday night. All three guys were tucked into bed. I had to quietly make my bed and get settled in. I showered and went downstairs for a couple of hours taking advantage of the excellent WiFi.

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