29 October 2001 - Late breakfast
The day started with some confusion. Firstly we had a alarm call from reception at 4.00am in the morning, and secondly, being the end of summer time meant that there was some debate over what exactly the time was... Our plans for a leisurely breakfast were blown well away when we realised we only had about 3 minutes to get to the start line! Arriving only 30 seconds before our scheduled start time, we breathed a sigh of relief and raced off.

Just after leaving the hotel, we came across our first crash of the event. One of the other drivers had got a little frisky, and overshot a junction, and was promptly hit by another car. Fortunately no-one was hurt, apart from a little bit of lost ego.... Glad it wasn't us!

The first stage was to take us to the Ducatti factory near Bologna. Arriving characterstically early, we took some time out to enjoy an Italian pizza breakfast with lashings of espresso. Enjoying it a bit too much, we got a little delayed, and crossed the line at the Ducatti factory a little late, incurring a whole load of penalty points!

After a quick tour around the factory, we were back on the road, heading for a beautiful little town called Carpi, via a local vine yard to pick up some wine. Here we had to perform our first special stage. We only had to negotiate a set of cones in a figure of 8, in a set time. To be honest, you would have thought we'd already been drinking the wine, as Dan managed to do the stage in the wrong direction. Really embarrassing!

Pulling up into the town square, we were once again met by hundreds of bemused Italians trying to have a quiet sunday afternoon. They'll get used to us eventually!!' And what is it with ltalian ladies and small dogs?

The architecture of the area was quite astounding, baroque arches, beautuful towers surrounding the main square and numerous small boutiques (strangely, most of these sold ladies underwear..?).

After a fantastic lunch, the highlight of which were the pork scratchings the size of a pot-bellied pig, we were yet again back on the road. A combination of dodgy navigation instructions and that tired feeling you get after eating too much food, but mainly due to the fact that everyone was simply following the person in front, we immediately went the wrong way, and wasted some valuable minutes aimlessly roaming the back streets of Carpi. (They were quite nice though) A bit of luck, we spotted some other mini's in the distance, and we rejoined the route.

The next stage would take us to the Lamborghini factory near Ferrara. Once again, we nearly ran out of fuel... No-one told us that all the petrol stations in Italy close on a sunday! Fortunately, we found a fuel stop eventually, and not a moment too soon!

The lamborghini factory wasn't quite what we expected, the small collection of supercars was surrounded by tractors and central heating systems, we'll never look at a lamborghini in the same way again!!

The journey back to the hotel was a free run, meaning we weren't being timed. Not letting that slow us down, the journey back to the hotel took us through some beautiful countryside. The recommended route took us along the autostrada, but we decided that would be a little dull. Our own route took us straight through the middle of Bologna, (actually we got totally lost) where we were caught up in the rush hour! What a nightmare..

A couple of hours later, we were back at the hotel. Overindulgence for the past few nights meant that we took it easy (it was a sunday night!), and had an early one. (we weren't going to admit that, but in the interests of journalistic accuracy....). We will I'm sure wake ready and refreshed for yet another mini mission.

More soon....

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