It’s 6:00am on the 8th of November and I wake up in Milan.
In four hours, my son and I are due at Autodromo Nazionale Monza for an off-season track tour that I had planned as a surprise gift for his 13th birthday. I had it all figured out, bus routes and connecting trams to take us there from our rental apartment.
What I don’t know yet is that every train, bus and tram in Milan has been brought to a standstill by a weekend strike. But don’t worry… I found out soon enough.
”Fuck.”
After wasting both time and patience trying to get an Uber along with the rest of the commuting citizens of Milan I finally managed to find a traditional taxi and we were on our way. About 45 minutes later (and 150 euros or so on the meter) we arrived at The Temple of Speed. And we got there with time to spare!
This time of year the track was nothing short of deserted. You could only hear birds chirping and the faint sound of construction work in the distance. Fog drifted down from the mountains as the sun came up, giving the place an almost melancholic stillness.
With a ”buon giorno” and a polite nod from the lady at the reception we were introduced to our guide, whose name I have forgotten, so let’s call him Super Mario. An elderly couple from the United States joined us and we were all set to get personal with the legendary circuit that has played host to countless defining moments in motorsport since 1922.
Super Mario walked us through the main building floor by floor. From the team garages and pit lane at ground level to the media center, race control and hospitality suites where all the fancy folks spend their time on a race weekend.
The walls of the corridors were filled with photographs, press clippings and portraits of champions that each told a chapter of the history of the circuit. Super Mario happily talked us through each one in detail. One photograph that stuck with me in particular was taken in 1945 at the end of World War II and pictured an armored brigade that drove past just outside the window from where we stood. It put things into perspective.
The tour was about to wrap up and we were ushered along out on to the podium that overlooks the start-finish straight. Super Mario, who evidently loves his job, brought us a plastic replica of a trophy and the tourist photo op was laid out before us. We took the bait and pretended that thousands of tifosi screamed our names from below as we raised the trophy to the sky.
Super Mario escorted us out of the building where there was a beat-up old minivan waiting for us. The burly Italian behind the wheel, let’s call him Luigi, was smoking a cigarette and glanced over at us from above the rim of his sunglasses. He exchanged some words with Super Mario, flicked his cigarette away and it was time for the grande finale: A ride around the track.
The American couple jumped into the backseat with me while my son, astonished by the fact that he would ride around his favorite circuit, got into the passenger seat. I don’t remember much of the two laps as I was busy playing nice with the Americans.
We exited through the gift shop (of course) and stocked up on some mementos, then we spent the entire afternoon exploring the enormous complex and surroundings on our own. As we walked along the track enclosure we spotted a hole in the chain-link fence and before we knew it we were on the oval part of the race track that hadn’t been used since the 1960s.
The decision was made instantly as we looked over at each other. There was no need to come to a verbal agreement: we were going to walk the entire damn oval. Of course we severely underestimated the time that would take.
We passed lunchtime, we passed dinnertime, we passed through time and realized that we had to wrap things up and get back to our apartment somehow — public transport was still out of the question, remember?
It was rush hour and with the strike the roads and highways were more or less at a standstill. Our taxi driver didn’t speak a single word of English and we had the pleasure of spending more than two hours in the back of his cab as he took us home.
As we stepped out of the taxi, exhausted, hungry and significantly poorer from the long ride back, I looked at my son. We both knew the day had gone completely off script.
Some days are expensive. Others are unforgettable. Every now and then, you get both.
Neither of us would have changed a thing.
