Day Trip to Italy's Motor Valley

If you’re a car-lover, set aside at least a day to tour some of the exotic car manufacturers’ headquarters and factories in the outskirts of Bologna.

Because we had luggage with us on our trip down to Bologna, we checked them in to a baggage deposit location at the Bologna train station. Rates started from €3.80 per hour, or you could select the option to pay for the entire day. They accepted major credit cards if you didn’t have any cash on you.

We took the local train that runs between Bologna and Modena. Outside the train station we were lucky enough to meet another American couple who also happened to be going to Maranello, the town where Ferrari is headquartered, and was nice enough to split a taxi with us!

We purchased the tickets to both Ferrari and Lamborghini museums months in advance because they tend to sell out fast. Ferrari has an open-dated ticket, so all we had to do was show up at the entrance lobby and present our ticket to one of the agents.

The self-guided tour at the Ferrari museum allowed us to move at our own pace.

We left Museo Ferrari and luckily our taxi driver had agreed to wait for us. The next stop was to Sant’Agata Bolognese, which is where Lamborghini’s headquarters are located. The drive took us about 45 minutes.

Whereas Ferrari had open-dated tickets, Lamborghini requires that you select the specific date and time you intend to visit the museum. This is an important factor to consider depending on your specific travel plans as you cannot arrive late for your scheduled tour.

The Lamborghini tour was by far the best of the two luxury sports car manufacturers in our opinion.

Lamborghini offers a guided factory tour as part of the museum experience, and we got to watch the Lamborghini Aventador production line in action from start to finish - 23 stations in total.

We took a local bus from Sant’Agata Bolognese to Bologna, then got back on the fast train to Roma.