I travel a lot for work, and sometimes find a half day here or there to try to squeeze in some Alfa-related activities. On a recent trip, I found myself in Monza for a day of meetings, with the potential of an afternoon/evening on the day before, and a morning on the day after my meetings.

The Alfa Museum is always on the list, of course! For an Alfa nut such as me, a visit to the Alfa Museum is like a visit to Graceland for an Elvis fan. No matter how many times I go there, I’m always amazed, and always find something new. I did make it to the Museum, but I also got a tip that the day after my meeting just happened to coincide with the start of the Mille Miglia.

I made sure that my admin got me the last tickets out of Milano, and on the morning of May 11th I set out from Monza to try to find Brescia. Keep in mind that I don’t speak or read Italian, and I didn’t have a map, but I did know the general direction…

It turns out that Brescia was an hour or so from Monza and, once I found the downtown area, a non-English-speaking local was able to discern from my hand gestures (hands on the steering wheel, vroom vroom!) that I must be looking for something automotive-related. Or perhaps he just wanted me to go away in any random direction. Regardless, the area he pointed me toward ended up having a few hundred wonderful, historic cars.

Now, one note for anybody who hasn’t done this before: When they tell you that the Mille Miglia starts in Brescia, it doesn’t really start in Brescia. It actually starts in Venice. Maybe the following day, I don’t know; I was long-gone by then. However, they do stage all of the cars in Brescia. For me, the only disappointment was that I had kind of set my expectations for finding some good place not far from the start, camping out with my newly-purchased 6-megapixel camera, and catching the cars as they came roaring away from the starting line, in one minute intervals.

Well, the first car off the line was being pushed by a couple of individuals, and it didn’t appear as if they were in any hurry to figure out what had broken so soon after the start. That’s because all they really do in Brescia is stage the cars, announce them over the loudspeaker, hand them a number, and then have them idle slowly out of the staging area. While this made for less excitement, it did allow for better quality (and less blurred) pictures, so I don’t think it was a total loss. But next time I’m going to try to arrange my travels to coincide with the second day of the event, so I can see these fantastic cars at some level of speed.

Anyhow, it was an amazing lineup of cars, with more than a couple of gorgeous Alfas in the mix! I hope you enjoy these pictures, and should you ever find yourself in Italy for the Mille Miglia, aim for the finish line!

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