Saturday, May 7, 2011

Bologna, Italy, Day 12

9am Breakfast, then planning the journey to the Lamborghini factory.  We had made a booking in advance for 2 persons at 3pm.  Using the public transport journey planner we found the bus and route that would take us there.  It's about 32 kilometres from where we are.

11am Set off on our journey to the city area to get some gelato before we leave.  On the way we saw numerous demonstrations (We found out later from the tour guide at the Lamborghini factory that today was a strike day organised by a union in protest for higher wages and lower taxes).


If you imagine hard enough, it almost looks like a huge army of people protesting in slow motion behind a gelato truck


More money required!  That will surely solve all our problems, until the next time!

We found gelato!  There was a shop selling it in bar form.  Looks like I am having two but really I am only having one.


Celebrating Super Friday

We walked through other parts of the square today and stumbled upon the market areas.


Families of fish ready to be eaten

1:25pm Walked to our bus stop and boarded the 576 bus after waiting for 25 minutes.  The bus conductor just told us to board when we wanted to buy tickets and he perhaps forgot to ask us to pay for the tickets so we got a free bus ride all the way to Sant’Agata Bolognese.  We didn't really know where it was but picked the right station to hop off.

2:30pm Arrived at the Lamborghini factory at Via Modena 12 but there was an event or something going on.  Apparently high level audi managers were on the scene and testing out the new Lamborghini Aventador model.  These aren't released to the public yet so it was cool to see them in action.  Anyway we weren't allowed to go in until 3pm so we just walked to the nearby shop to have something to eat.


Cotton everywhere!  This was visible everywhere where we walked.


The Lamborghini offices


Lunch, pizza and a chicken parmigiana

3pm Walked back to the Lamborghini offices.  It was still unavailable so we just took some photos and checked out the cars.


Lamborghini Aventador (Orange) with Gallardo (Black)


Gallardo


Lamborghini Aventador

3:15pm or so, we were finally allowed inside.  No photos are allowed to be taken in the factory so I couldn't get any photos but I got plenty of photos from the museum.  The factory tour was informative and since there was a strike going on today we could hear what the tour guide was saying.  She said normally it's really loud and hard to hear.  Tickets were 39 Euro per adult.  Good thing we made a booking because if you didn't you weren't allowed.  There are two buildings, one where the gallardos and aventadors are assembled, and the other is where R&D happens.  They hire about 1000 people in total.  We toured the one where the actual cars are assembled.  The aventadors are a twelve step process whereas the gallardos were less than that.  Gallardos take about 6-12 months before they are delivered to the person who ordered them so the ones we saw on the assembly line were already pre-purchased.  The bodies are dipped in paint.  Each part is supplied by vendors from the surrounding areas, it's like a "motor valley" to what "silicon valley" is to the US.  The Gallardo is the most popular model, about 3/4 of orders are that model and they push about 6 Gallardos a day.  The cost is 150K euros for the basic model and 250K euros for the aventador.  Excluding tax.  The Gallardo LP560-4 simply means 560 horse power and 4 for 4 wheel drive.  LP stands for the position of the engine in the car, in this case LP = Longitudinale Posteriore or "Rear Longitudinal" (updated from Lauren's comment).  The engine weighs about 400-500 kilos so that is inserted mechanically using a crane like device.  You can get them in any colour you want, they even delivered a pink one to a Japanese girl.  You can also get the seat colours in any colour you want!

The tour ended close to 5pm where we were guided back to the museum area.  I took plenty of photos.  There's two levels of the museum.  Ground level containing classic vehicles and the upper level, more modern ones.


Looks like the Back To The Future DeLorean...








This one was present in the Dark Knight movie, the Reventon


The family Lamborghini



Police Lamborghini, one of 3 produced





5:20pm We left and caught the 5:25pm bus back to Bologna.  Decided to have dinner at a place which apparently served really good food called "Trattoria Trebbi".  We were there too early, they only start to serve dinner at 8pm so we made a booking then and killed some time sitting at a nearby shop/cafe.  I found unsecured internet. :)  Shortly after 8pm we walked back and ordered dinner.  The menu was written entirely in Italian but we had an employee help us decipher the codes.


Chicken with potatoes and rosemary


Pasta with mushrooms, this was unbelievably tasty and if I didn't know better, I would swear it was an Asian dish if not for the cheese


Tortellini


Tender meat loaf with sauce


And gelato to sum up dinner, at a different place

11pm Back in the hotel and now it's close to 3am and time for bed!!  Today's walk count was 20K.



3 comments:

  1. You forgot this part of the name Gallardo LP560-4 — LP stands for the position of the engine in the car, in this case LP = Longitudinale Posteriore or "Rear Longitudinal".

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  2. Which Lambo did you eventually end up ordering for yourself?

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  3. I already have a mini model of the Gallardo. When the Aventador is released I'll get it too. They were selling mini models of the Gallardo in the shop for 150 Euros. For that amount I would rather spend 1000x more and get the real thing.

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