By Sion Dettra
I recently experienced the trip of a lifetime to Monza, Italy. As a lifelong racing enthusiast, attending the Italian Grand Prix had always been on the bucket list. Fortunately, The Grand Touring Journal gave me just enough justification, at least in my own mind, to start planning the trip. I could now die a happy man, having sat among the Tifosi as Formula 1 cars flew by less than 20 feet in front of me.
Convincing my wife, Carole, that this was a necessary business endeavor was a different pitch altogether. Luckily, over the past year, she, like many other spouses of hard core racing fans, had binged episodes of the Netflix series Drive to Survive and become quite the Kimi fan. The sell could have been much more difficult otherwise.
I did have a plan to seal the deal, however. A day trip from Milan to Lake Como and Bellagio. Of course, I had to do it in Grand Touring Journal fashion; therefore it could only be accomplished in a Ferrari.
Little did I know that renting one would be considerably more difficult than expected. Some of the companies I contacted quoted prices that bordered on absurd. I wanted to rent a car, not a yacht in Monaco. Others didn’t respond at all. There appeared to be very little interest in accommodating an American trying to give his bride a day to remember, with a little adrenaline rush for himself.
Ultimately, I found FLM and the difference was immediately apparent. They responded quickly, the pricing was fair, and despite my relatively short-notice request during one of the busiest weeks of the year, they worked with me to make it happen.
I booked a beautiful Ferrari Portofino for the day and paid a little extra to have it delivered directly to our hotel in Milan. Although convenient, there was another reason for the delivery; Carole had no idea I had rented a Ferrari. As far as she knew, I had booked an Uber to the train station.
The morning of our trip, I told Carole there was no reason to hurry downstairs. Take her time, have some coffee, and get something to eat. Then I slipped downstairs ahead of her.
The FLM team arrived right on time. They positioned the Portofino in front of the hotel valet area, where Carole would walk out and see it immediately, and gave me a thorough walk-around of the car. They explained everything I needed to know, and spent the necessary time getting me comfortable with operating it. They were professional, thorough, and easy to deal with from the beginning.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Carole finished her coffee and croissant and walked outside. Her chariot was waiting. I had been a little nervous about how she would react. Renting a Ferrari for a day isn’t exactly an insignificant addition to a vacation budget, but the worry disappeared almost immediately. She loved it! She understood.
We were blessed with a clear blue sky, so the roof stayed down. Somewhere between leaving the hotel and making our way through Milan toward Lake Como, the day began to feel less like a planned day trip and more like a scene from an old 1950s movie. For a few hours, I felt like Cary Grant, with a beautiful Audrey Hepburn sitting beside me, her silk scarf blowing in the wind. All we needed were the opening credits.
Driving a Ferrari through northern Italy is wonderful enough, but driving one through the tunnels on the way to Lake Como with the top down is something else entirely. Every tunnel became an adrenaline rush and we laughed as the Portofino’s engine note bounced from one concrete wall to the other, filling the cabin before disappearing behind us as we emerged into the sunlight.
The drive was everything I’d hoped it would be. As we got farther from Milan, the scenery became more impressive. Mountains, water, villages, and old buildings were everywhere, often crowded together along the narrow roads around the lake.
The Ferrari attracted attention everywhere. Italian kids shouted enthusiastically as we passed, and people turned to look. There was something quite entertaining about driving an Italian Ferrari through Italian towns and watching Italians get excited about it.
There was, of course, another side to navigating those small towns. The GPS occasionally seemed determined to test both my driving ability and my understanding of Italian traffic law. More than once, it directed us onto tiny historic streets where I became concerned that a tourist in a rented Ferrari probably wasn’t supposed to be.
There are cameras everywhere, and I’m reasonably certain Italy will eventually send me a few souvenirs in the form of €100 traffic tickets. But at the time, we didn’t care. We were having way too much fun.
Parking near Lake Como introduced another problem. I suddenly became hyper aware that I was responsible for somebody else’s Ferrari. Spaces were tight, streets were crowded, and for a few minutes I found myself worrying more about the car than enjoying where the car had taken us. Eventually, I had to make the decision to be as careful as reasonably possible, then let it go. That decision made the rest of the day considerably better.
We eventually found ourselves at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, one of Lake Como’s great historic luxury hotels. Opened in 1910, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo is a Belle Époque property overlooking the lake toward Bellagio and the surrounding mountains. It dates back to a time when grand hotels were destinations in themselves.
We weren’t staying there, but across the road from the main hotel, right on the waterfront, was T Beach, the hotel’s private lakeside beach club, which combines the atmosphere of an Italian beach club with the elegance of one of Europe’s great hotels. We wandered down and asked whether they might have room for us. Although it’s preferable to make a reservation, they offered us seats at the bar, and it couldn’t have worked out better.
I made an enthusiastic attempt to speak Italian with the staff. I’m reasonably certain they understood almost none of it, but they graciously behaved as though they did. We ordered wine and an appetizer and settled in beside the water beneath the colorful umbrellas, looking out at the mountains, and the boats moving across the lake. In front of us were rows of the hotel’s orange-and-white umbrellas, Lake Como stretching toward the mountains, and, to our surprise, an aquamarine swimming pool floating directly in the lake.
Carole almost squealed when she noticed it. The hotel calls it the “WoW” Pool, short for “Water-on-the-Water.” It’s the centerpiece of T Beach. Carole immediately announced a newly-discovered life goal. We were coming back to Lake Como, staying at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, and she was going to spend an entire day in that pool. Looking out across the lake with a cocktail in hand, I couldn’t come up with much of an argument.
After drinks, I gave Carole time to browse the shops. This is part of traveling with my wife that I’ve come to love. Carole has revived the lost art of sending postcards. She seeks them out, writes thoughtful messages, addresses them, puts postage on them, and sends them to friends around the world.
Wherever we travel, we also send one to ourselves. We choose the card together, sometimes from a tourist shop, sometimes a vintage card discovered at an antique store or market. Then we both write a message to each other on it and mail it home.
There’s no tracking number or notification. It just disappears into the nearest mailbox. Sometimes it arrives before we’ve fully unpacked. Sometimes several weeks later. On occasion, months go by before one unexpectedly appears in the mailbox. Then we get to read what we wrote to each other when we were still there. In an age when every moment of a vacation can be photographed, uploaded, and shared instantly, there’s something wonderful about waiting for a small piece of the trip to find its own way home.
We found our postcard, then went looking for the ferry to Bellagio. The ferry ride across Lake Como is worth doing regardless of what you drove to get there. Leaving the Ferrari behind for a while changed the pace of the day. We crossed the water toward Bellagio, surrounded by mountains, villas, and villages rising from the shoreline.
Once ashore, we took our time wandering through town. We browsed shops, explored the narrow streets, and eventually started climbing Salita Serbelloni, one of the steep pedestrian lanes that rises away from the lake, lined on both sides with restaurants and small stores.
Near the top, we came across the wine bar, Aperitivo et Al. There were two small wine-barrel tables outside, and just as we arrived, a couple vacated one of them. Surprised by our good fortune, we sat down, ordered a bottle of amazing local rosé and enjoyed the view straight down the steep path toward Lake Como. There was nowhere else we needed to be.
Eventually, though, there was a Ferrari waiting across the lake. We caught the ferry back shortly before sunset, and there sat the Portofino, exactly where we’d left it. The roof came down again, of course, and we pointed the Ferrari back toward Milan.
The Portofino may not be the fastest, most aggressive, or most exotic of Ferraris, but it was loud and beautiful and perfect for this trip on this day. It carried us through Italian cities and mountain tunnels, along Lake Como, into villages we may or may not have been legally permitted to enter, and back again with the evening air coming through the open roof.
That’s what a grand touring car is supposed to do. The drive had become part of the destination.
Would I Do It Again? Without hesitation.
Renting a Ferrari in Italy isn’t cheap, and there are certainly more economical ways to reach Lake Como from Milan. But that’s not really the point, is it? On most trips, my travel expenses buy transportation. On this beautiful day, they bought memories.
Fortunately, FLM took an idea that had become surprisingly difficult to arrange and made it easy. After dealing with companies that were either prohibitively expensive or unresponsive, I found a company that answered quickly, charged what I considered a fair price, accommodated a short-notice rental during Grand Prix week, arrived at our hotel precisely when promised, and treated the entire handoff professionally. Most importantly, they helped me surprise my wife. That morning, Carole walked out of our hotel and found a Ferrari waiting for her.
By that evening, we’d driven through tunnels with the engine echoing behind us, gotten lost on tiny Italian streets, made children shout at the car, drunk wine beside Lake Como, mailed ourselves a postcard, crossed the lake by ferry, climbed the streets of Bellagio, found the perfect table at a wine bar, and driven back toward Milan with the roof down.
Anyone can rent a Ferrari in Italy. The question is what you do with it once they hand you the keys.
We took ours to Lake Como.
And no matter how many €100 tickets eventually find their way from Italy to my mailbox, it will have been worth every penny.
