A Personal Tour Inside Benelli Motorcycle with Giancarlo Morbidelli and Paolo Marchinelli

L.A. Nik Finds It All In Italy: Marilyn Manson, Bats and the Holy Grail of Motorcycles

Watch the revealing video at the end!

I am one hundred and fifty percent Italian. So naturally, I’ve always been interested in visiting the place that all of my great grand parents and grandparents came from. So, early this September, Nancy and I headed off to Italy with the goal of avoiding crowds of tourists and seeing the ‘real’ Italy whatever that meant.

Still on American time, we work up early our first morning in Rome and headed to the Vatican City by 7am. We were literally the only tourists at the Vatican. Us and two Vatican City police officers who quickly pulled up next to us in their mini-car. From his open window, the driver told me to “listen” and then turned up his car stereo loud enough for me to hear a Marilyn Manson playing. It’s seven in the morning, I’m at the Vatican City in Rome, Italy and two cops are playing Marilyn Manson songs for me! This is already too much!

Taking pictures with the Vatican City police.

Early morning in Italy is a truly special time. The big, orange sun is still low in the sky and casts long dark shadows everywhere. Monuments don’t look better at any other time of day. And it’s quiet aside from the occasional delivery truck zipping by. Italy can be very, very hot even through September but the temperature is perfect for walking around until about 11am. After that, find a place in the shade, it’s time for some Proscuitto and a glass of local wine.

Nancy and myself at the Vatican at 7am. We were the only ones there!

Proscuitto is served all over Italy in abundance; On melon, with mozzarella, by itself. It’s reason enough to go to Italy. That and the wine. Even I drank the wine and that is saying something because I don’t normally drink it. Wine in Italy was around $3 a glass wherever we went. We drank whatever was made locally.

Prosciutto is everywhere in Italy.

We left Rome for Florence that afternoon on a high speed train. We had Eurorail passes so in theory we had access to trains whenever we wanted. The thing is, trains in Italy are nothing like trains in Japan. In Japan, if you have a rail pass you jump on and off super high-speed trains, regional trains, city trains at will. No reservations required. In Italy, even though you have a rail pass you still have to make reservations for a seat on the trains; Especially, but not limited to, the high speed trains. And you have to pay for that reservation; About $12 if you have a Eurorail pass. To me, the trains in Italy were no where near as efficient nor as fast as the ones in Japan. Top speed in Italy was around about 150 miles per hour whereas in Japan it was common to exceed 260 miles per hour. 

Unless you’re planning to visit more than say 5 different cities in Italy, I don’t think I’d recommend the rail pass. Whether you have one or not, you will find yourself making reservations for all your trains. And at $270 for a five-day Eurorail pass, I think you might be better off just buying your tickets individually for around an average of $60 per leg per person. And on that note, make your train reservations a few days in advance if you can. Nancy and I had planned to travel from Bolzano in the very most northeastern part of Italy to Pesaro on the Adriatic Sea, normally a 3.5 hour trip but failed to realize that every Italian, like every American, heads to the beach (or the lake) on Thursday and so we ended up on a less desirable 5 hour train ride.  If we had made our reservation even one day earlier, we would have been riding on the trains we preferred.

So Florence is a Mecca for anyone who loves to shop and who loves designer labels. It’s all there. Nancy and I don’t get into shopping. We prefer spending our money on ‘experiences’ over ‘things’ none the less it’s there if you want it. My first day in Florence, I was a little put off by all the tourists after all that is who we were trying to avoid. So, the next morning we hopped on a regional train and took an hour ride to a mid-evil town called, Arezzo. I loved this little town. I’d finally escaped the tourists. When we arrived, locals were reenacting a mid-evil parade. A long line of people in mid-evil garb walked playing instruments or rode horses between the churches and plazas in the city. One guy on horseback signaled to me with his hands made into horns. I guess rock isn’t completely dead after all.  I couldn’t communicate with anyone on most of the trip because I don’t speak a word of Italian but that sign communicated loud and clear.

I don't speak Italian, but this sign translates loud and clear.

I loved walking around in this small town with its narrow streets. I ducked into an antique store at one point and found a pair of Nazi candle holders with spread winged eagles on them; Complete with the Nazi symbol stamped onto them. It would be hard to come across something like this in America but at one point, Italy was inundated with soldiers during WW2. I kept imagining what the streets might look like with soldiers walking down them and picturing the now-repaired churches with giant holes in them. 

Nancy and I found a mom and pop restaurant with a seat by the tiny front door. We probably spent two-hours sitting at this restaurant; We were finally getting onto ‘Italian Time.”  I had Tagliata which is a quickly seared and sliced thinly. Nancy finally tried Carbonara. It was one of our best afternoons spent. We always talk about putting cell service on our phones when we travel overseas but it really is nice to not be able to access any type of social media during a meal. I enjoy being disconnected for a while.

Tagliata in Arezzo, Italy.

We spend out evening back in Florence. Let me say this, in Italy, you’ll be hard pressed to find a cold drink, receive an alcoholic beverage with more than three ice cubes in it, sit on a bar stool as we know it, or do any of the aforementioned in any kind of air conditioning. So, if you are really missing any of these things, there is only one place to do it in Florence. The Hard Rock Cafe. I’m not recommending it but if you need a break, there, I said it. I walked into the place one late, hot afternoon and saw Minneapolis’ own Bobby Z on drums in a Prince video which was being projected onto a screen as big as a movie screen at the West End. It was surreal. 

Later that night, we crossed over the river Arno and stopped into a tiny, local rock bar for a drink. Then, we spent the rest of the night walking through tiny street after tiny street just admiring it all; The way Italians can park so many motorcycles in such a small space, the lack of police presence, the general feeling of safety  (or naivety on our parts), the number of locally and individually owned stores, the number of bats flying all over the place!

The next morning we hiked ten minutes back to the train station and headed for the very top of Italy. A town called Bolzano in which 80 percent of its residents speak German. The town is only a few miles from the Austrian border and located in the Alps. Now we were really outrunning the tourists. The town has three cable cars that take you nearly a mile up into the Alps. It’s worth every penny. You ride silently over little dairy farms and vineyards. At the top of one of the cable car lines is a tiny town called, Soprabolzano. At this point you can take a rail car to Renon plateau and hike though wide, green meadows. Although we didn’t have the time to do it, I think it would be cool to take the cable car up to the top and hike the trails back down to Bolzano.

Cable cars leading from Bolzano to an alpine town about one mile up.

By 8pm, Nancy and I were eating German food;  Beef with brown gravy and apple strudels. The German influence up here was insane. Even the alpine architecture was totally different from just a hundred miles south.  We drank with a local farmer, the only other person in the bar, and listened to Italian country music. Who knew there was such a genre. 

A view from our hotel as a storm made its way through the Alps.

The next morning we were up early. Why? Because it’s the coolest time of day. Remember? We hiked about a mile to the city center and ducked into every church along the way. No shortage of churches in this country. We spent the afternoon checking out the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. This is the museum that houses Otzi, the frozen mummy that the hikers found right outside of town in 1991. The guy lived in 3,300 BC. It was so amazing to see this guy and his belongings. To know that a guy was able to sew a bear skin hat nearly 5,000 years ago. That he carried an axe with a bronze tip. Seriously!  He is Europes oldest known, natural human mummy.

No shortage of churches in Europe. Lighting a candle at Florence's Duomo.

The farmers markets in this town were like nothing I’ve ever seen. Meats, cheeses, nuts, vegetables, fruits all hanging like they were a perfect display in Epcot Center’s version of Italy. Again, Nancy and I spent the heat of the day in a restaurant. I have an allergy to gluten and so I ordered a cheeseburger thinking I could ditch the bun. This Italian version of a burger was the best burger I’ve ever tasted in my life. It was like a combination of prime rib, veal and ground beef. One of the best burgers of my life. Nancy tried a pesto pasta. A totally green dish. She always tries the most foreign stuff she can find when we travel. She’ll eat almost anything. Me? I'm not quite as adventurous. 

The best meats and cheeses you'll ever taste at the Bolzano street market.

Pesto pasta. A local specialty.

The next day we were off to Pesaro. A small beach town on the east side of Italy along the Adriatic Sea. We chose this town because we knew there to be a museum dedicated to Benelli motorcycles. I rode a Benelli motorcycle for 33 years. For a while, my nickname was even Benelli. I rode a 750 Benelli SEI. A six-cylindar motorcycle with six separate pipes that sounded like something between a Ferarri and a boat motor. I’ve always regretted selling it because you literally cannot buy this bike. Only seven were ever even imported into America of which I got one. I sold it to a head at Honda motorsports while I was living in Los Angeles and it now resides in Japan. 

Everyone talks about the beaches of the Italian Riviera and Cinque Terre and Sorrento and Capri but no one talks about the Adriatic side so I wasn’t expecting much. Boy were we pleasantly surprised. The beaches on this side were light colored and sandy and not one single American. Beautiful and affordable hotels and some of the best restaurants of our trip. It was paradise. Early in our trip we had ditched plans to stay in Parma so as to avoid too many travel days and so we added an additional day in Pesaro. I could live there. Seafood is the obvious specialty in this seaside city and we ate our fill. One night we ordered a plate with fifteen different types of grilled fish on it. A great local wine blend is called Sangiovese. Nancy loved it.

Gorgeous beaches and smaller crowds on the Adriatic side of Italy.

Seafood is in every dish in this seaside town of Pesaro, Italy.

We spent the afternoon in the ocean - The water was as warm as a bath tub. Then we headed to the Benelli museum. I was overwhelmed. I’d found my Mecca. Two floors of a building originally occupied by the Benelli motorcycle factory and now operated by a club of Benelli motorcycle enthusiasts. Within about three minutes of being in the place I spotted my bike. It literally brought a tear to my eye. I’d spent so much of my life on that bike. It defined me in a lot of ways. It was overwhelming.

Me next to the bike I rode for 33 years. A Benelli 750 SEI.

We met a man named Paolo Marchinelli who spoke the most english of anyone running the place. He toured us around and then insisted we come back the next day. He wanted to take us to another museum owned by the founder of the Morbidelli Motorcycle company. So we did. We returned the next day and rode in a cab with Paolo to an unassuming looking building in an industrial area. Outside stood a man in about his 80’s with a big friendly smile. It was the man himself. Giancarlo Morbidelli. This man had started a company that made woodworking machines and grew it into a world wide company. All the while, his passion was motorcycles so in a back room of his factory he was building bikes. He ended up winning the Grand Prix with his bikes four times over. A few times with himself as the rider. 

Me with Giancarlo Morbidelli (center) of Morbidelli Motorcycles
and Paolo Marchinelli of the Benelli museum in Pesaro, Italy.

So, Paolo and Giancarlo lead us into the building and there it was. The Holy Grail of motorcycles. 350 motorcycles from the teens through the 80s. Every italian bike manufacturer was represented, every British make, Indians, Harleys. You name it. It was there. He even had the only car ever made by Benelli which was quickly shut down by Fiat with the help of the mafia. The collection was priceless. Not only had the guy built a machinery company and a motorcycle company, he had amassed the larges private collection of bikes in Europe. It was overwhelming.

Later that night, we sat down to dinner with about 50 members of the Benelli motorcycle club. The had pushed aside a center isle of bikes in the museum and set up a 50 foot dinner table. We ate ‘real’ italian food. Meat cooked over hot coals, bitter green salad with olive oil, proscuitto, Sangiovese wine, espresso and desserts made by all the wives of the members. And they sang to us! Who does that!! I’ll never forget it. We couldn’t have asked for a better send off. 

Dinner with the members of the Benelli Motorcycle Club.

Watch the Benelli Video