Parma, Modena, Maranello (Ferrari Museum)

So Saturday morning started early..a bit to early to the likings of myself, and my friends Stu and Paul. We had a big night Friday and that train ride came up fast. It was a first experience with trenitalia. We got to the train station round 8 or so and got on r train..little did we kno we had r own seats and compartments..we sat next to some french guys. and to quote dumb and dumber "I don't know Lloyd. the french are assholes"' sure enough stu, paul and I are discussing the previous night and laughin about all the things we could and couldnt remember..just random train talk and this french guy just goes insane..he never said anythign to us but he was definitly was a bit anal about american talk that wasnt even loud. Also i believe his gay lover was also in the cabin...he frustratingly turned the pages of his french newsweek and kept grunting and mumbling..we obviously could care less what this guy thought and got some laughs out of it. So anyhow..it took 2 hrs to get to Parma...
Parma had a lot more to offer than I thought..real nice town. They had this phat open air market selling bunch of clothes(half that said were brand new but sure looked like theyve been worn 100 times) and several gadgets and kitchen aids. Unfortunately we only had 2 hours there and never had time to check out Piazza Garibaldi..well i mean we tried but we got lost. Very dissapointing but itsalright. Garibaldi is everywhere in Parma. Here is a picture of Parma Duomo

Next stop was Modena. This is south of Parma. we decided to go to Parma first then backtrack r way back to florence. Once again we had another fantastic train ride..so r train tix from Parma to Modena for some reason had so info on them as far as train time or seat location, or even train. So we got to the station and there was a train comin in 5 minutes goin to modena...Perfect..so we hop on and there was no seats. so we just stood. and then mr train man came up and asked for r tickets. guess we were on some special "very fast" train and we had the wrong tickets..so in his rude english he told us we had to pay the difference..which was 7 bucks..this guy hated americans and was just a total dick to us college kids..so whatever we didnt want to start trouble so we just paid.
the thing is..is that the train we hopped on was actually 20 minutes delayed..for if it wasnt delayed we never would have caught it and never would of had to paid. then again if we didnt get on that we would not have learned r lesson..i knew there were different types of trains but whatever, i know now,..sure we weren't the 1st americans to do that

Modena was a cool city and was crowded with bikes..reminded me of Davis. Here is a picture of the bell tower and some random church that looked cool

So after Modena, we took a bus to Maranello, about a 20 minute bus ride from Modena. Here is where those red sport cars called Ferrari's all started. We new beforehand but u r not allowed to go into the actual Ferrari factory unless u own a ferrari. so us less fortunate men got to go into the 2 story museum.. it was pretty cool. im really not one to get excited bout cars let alone know anything about them. but it was fairly interesting to be ther. After the museum we headed out to the practice track and saw some priveledged driver testing a car on the track..he was flying.sorry for the long post..peace