The Italian Grand prix takes place at the Autodromo de Monza usually the first weekend in September. We have friends who live ten minutes or so from the park where the track is located but this post isn’t about going to this race. In 1989 we scheduled our second trip to Europe and included the GP, planning to arrive the weekend before the race, travel mid-week to the East Coast near Ravenna to visit a group of students for whom my wife had arraigned home stays when they toured the US in June. We arrived in Monza Friday evening and the next day set off for the lake country where our friends have a condominium. The place we go is sort of our little secret, there aren’t a lot of tourists and the locals would prefer to keep it that way. We arrived Saturday afternoon, went grocery shopping, visited the wine shop and had a wonderful dinner at the local, upscale restaurant. Our friends condo is in a nice complex far enough from the main road to make it very quiet and we slept like logs. Sunday morning we were all awakened by the sound of racing engines, I thought there was a group of cyclists touring but when we went down to the road we found a hillclimb being organized. There was every kind of small capacity car represented from FIAT 600’s to a real (obsolete) race car with a monocoque chassis and a 1600cc Abarth engine. We had lunch and went back to the village to watch the event. The course went from the starting line on the main street up the mountain behind the town for about 4 miles. For the first half mile or so the road was lined with spectators. It was very much like going to the races at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in the 50’s. We found a safe (sort of) spot and were entertained for most of the afternoon by the cars being flagged off at 30 second intervals to race up the hill. My photos are something to see. Italy is the only country in the world where something like this could happen. Toss in good friends and the beauty of the lake country and nobody is as lucky as we are.
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