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BHPian Chandler Bing recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
The first thing that strikes me when I hear about the European countries is all the beautiful automotive brands that originated here.
Be it the Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Volkswagen from Germany or Buggati, Citroen, Peugeot, Renault from France or Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Fiat from Italy. It is a heaven for the automotive world. I did get a chance to visit Italy, Belgium, and France recently and all the while during my vacation I was only identifying cars and admiring how beautiful they look. For the first time in my life, I did not see Swifts or Balenos or Nexons and Cretas. Instead, I see cars from Dacia, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Seat, and Opel. It was a new world of cars to me
It was July 28, 2024, after a smooth landing at Brussels airport and completing immigration (which felt like it took an eternity to get through the rush due to the Belgian Grand Prix F1 race on that day) I was out at the parking lot with 2 huge suitcases trying to book a cab through Uber. I just took my eyes off the phone and looked up. All I see are BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Skoda, and Toyota in jet black colour with a Taxi board on top of their head.
Being used to seeing a Maruti Suzuki or Tata cars for Taxi in India, this was a sight to behold!!
And guess which car I took to my hotel? It was a Citroen C3. My Indian brain for some reason did not agree to book the black series cars! But my heart filled with love for cars and bikes, did manage to take control over my brain and I managed to roam around Brussels later in a Mercedes E-Class, Skoda Octavia, and a BMW 3-Series.
A visit to the Ferrari Museums:
Right from the day I started to plan my vacation in Europe, the first thing on my itinerary was the Ferrari Museums at Modena and Maranello. I purchased a combination pass for 42 Euros which permits entry to both the museums.
D-day :
I wanted to experience the high-speed Frecciarossa and had booked tickets from Florence to Bologna. This was the fastest train I had ever been on. It hit 250 Km/h and in no time I was in Bologna. BTW, what's the fastest train you guys have been on?
I reached the Modena train station before the shuttle's scheduled pickup time. First I visited the Museo Ferrari at Maranello. Being a weekday it was less crowded and also having booked the tickets in advance it was a cakewalk into the museum.
We were welcomed by a 250 LM and 812 GTS
It was now time for the iconic F40 followed by the 1984 GTO and F50
I won't go deep into each car, but I would divide the pictures into different sections and just add pictures to satisfy our automotive souls.
Cars:
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