Road trip from London to Maranello and back

Had a bit of time free during the summer break, so I planned a week long excursion to Maranello and back from London.

The route was as follows:
Day 1
London->Folkstone for the Eurotunnel train to Calais
Calais->Arras for a lunchbreak
Arras->Metz where I stayed overnight. From this point on I saw the first police patrols

Day 2
Metz->Basel for a lunchbreak
Basel->Lake Como for an evening break. There was some spectacular scenery through the middle of Switzerland. I definitely have to revisit this part and possibly stay next time.
Lake Como->Milan

Next few days in Milan as the wife flew over for the weekend

Day 4
Milan->Maranello staying overnight

Day 5
Tour of the museums in Maranello, Modena and Sant'Agata, followed by a few laps around the Modena racetrack. Unfortunately, being August the Ferrari factory was shut, so I wasn't able to arrange an owner's tour. I did however see the Portofino (I assume it was)in stealth wrap exiting the Ferrari gates at 10pm!
Really enjoyed the museum:
- took a close look at the Scuderia to get ideas on how to mod my F430
- did research on the 599 to see if it was a viable candidate as the next car. I wasn't impressed by how open the front grill was to flying gravel
- saw an FF that resembled my previous FF and had a moment of nostalgia
- the Enzo still looks amazing
I did also go to the Lamborghini museum. There's some crazy stuff in there. Did research on the Urus as a possible next family car

Day 6
Over to Turin through some lovely Italian vineyards. By this time my F430 had wine bottles stashed behind the seats

Day 7
Turin to Dijon to stay overnight, taking breaks around the Chamonix area. This part of the alps was also stunning.

Day 8
Dijon->Reims/Champagne for a break. Also loaded up on more wine and of course, champagne
Reims/Champagne->Calais and then the Eurotunnel back home to London
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And here's a review of how my car performed. It's a 2006 F430 left hand drive in blu mirableu, so was perfectly suited for driving in Europe. I have AP headers, sports cats and a Kline exhaust. The car has aftermarket Scud style stripes. I also installed the Forza exhaust bypass controller as well as Scud-ing DRLs. Car had about 45,000km on it before the trip.

Was serviced at a main dealer at the beginning of the year. I fixed a few issues (wobbly rear light, new sway bar bushings, replaced an o2 sensor and new air filters) myself.

The car covered the 2000 miles with very few problems. Car always started and drove like a dream. Only thing that came up was a CEL with 420/430 codes, but I put that down to the recently installed sports cats. The code would come up maybe every 300kms or so and normally after passing through a town. I have some mini cats which I intend to install to remedy this. My previous 2197/2198 codes haven't come up since I replaced my front o2 sensor.

The valve controller was great as I opened up the Kline through the countless tunnels you get passing through Switzerland. Must have deafened everyone with that F1 scream.

I refilled a tank of petrol for every full day of driving. Range was decent.

I did find some of the slopes in and out of European car parks very scary for a car so low to the ground. Had to really drive carefully down them.

Car was covered in dead bugs and the alloys were full of break dust at the end of the trip, so I spent a full day deep cleaning and detailing the car after I got home.

Was a wonderful week of clear blue skies and scorching temperatures in Europe. As you can guess the picture of the rain was when I left the UK. The car's aircon did well to keep up although I did have a sweaty back at the end of the day. Do miss the ventilated seats in the FF.

Since I did a few laps on the Modena circuit, I took it easy on public roads as I had planned ample time between stops. I drove during the mornings and afternoons and avoided driving at night. The car was a blast on the circuit as I had the entire track to myself. I didn't go super flat out because I didn't want to completely strip the tread off my tyres.

I did unfortunately find a massive nail through the back tyre in Calais on the last day. Luckily it was a slow puncture so I made it all the way back home without issue.

I maybe saw one FF and a California during my entire trip on the road (excluding the museums)

Very positive comments were given about the car, especially in Italy of course. People admired the car at local service stations and commented on the colour. Cars following me would take photos with their cameraphones.

All in all a fantastic load of driving and thorough enjoyment of the car even though the additional mileage may have dropped the value of the car. Wasn't too bothered about that at the end of the day due to the great memories made.

 

Wasn't too difficult to plan myself. I knew how long I had and where I wanted to get to. I then planned morning and afternoon drives of 300km each (probably about 2-3 hours driving). After carving that up on the map, I worked out the places to stay overnight and interesting stopovers. Just a case of researching the local areas for points of interest after that. Certainly way less that 30K EUR!

BTW, the tree lined Italian road you drove through looks absolutely amazing. Perfect picture taking area.