It’s raining on the fertile plains of northwestern Italy. We don’t care. We just had a great lunch in Parma. Now we’re driving southwest on the A15 toward La Spezia. We’ll leave the A15 to head north toward Rapallo, then to Santa Margherita Ligure. Little did we know that before we’d reach our destination, we would have a close encounter of the Bugatti kind.
The Road to Santa Margherita Ligure
Santa Margherita Ligure is a beautiful little town on the Italian Riviera. At least, we hope it is. We’ve never been there. We chose it for a home base because it looks beautiful, its location works for us, and it doesn’t appear to be a major tourist destination.
We’re on the last leg of today’s journey that started out this morning in Bellagio. We’ve plugged the address of our hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure into the GPS, so now all we have to do is enjoy the ride.
It was raining when we left Parma, but up ahead, on the other side of some hills, it looked like the storm was breaking up. Sure enough, right about the time we made it over a ridge, the sun came out and we could see the blue waters of the Ligurian Sea. Neat!
We’d been moseying along at low speed during the rain, so I was anxious to speed things up. I moved over to the passing lane and went by some slower traffic.
Don’t do This…
There’s a rule for driving on two-lane highways in Italy. The left lane is for going really fast. The right lane is for everyone else. If you’re not passing someone or going really fast, stay in the right lane.
We were driving north along the coastline of the Ligurian Sea. It was beautiful. We were feeling good. I had been cruising along, going faster than most other cars, so I might have gotten a wee bit lazy about getting back over to the right after passing someone.
It was during this blissful moment that I noticed some wise guy right on my bumper, flashing his lights at me. He was close enough to read the odometer on my dashboard, and he was flashing his lights like crazy. I had no idea how long he had been there. I thought I had been the fastest guy around for quite some time. Oops.
On freeways in Italy, when someone wants you to move over, they flash their lights. You’d think that maybe they’d honk once in awhile, too, no? I’ve never heard anyone honk at anyone else on a freeway, but I’ve seen a lot of lights flashing. (Not necessarily at me). In town, it’s a different story. Those horns get a workout.
Close Encounter of the Bugatti Kind
Anyway, it was my bad. I shouldn’t have stayed in the left lane after passing the last car a while back. I moved over to the right lane to let him pass and, “psheeeeeooooo!” he was by me in an instant. Whoa! What was that?
There was a white flash of something wild and exotic, and then it was gone. Our comments to each other were something along the lines of, “Whoa! Did you see that? Wow! Oooooooo! Man! What WAS that?”
We had to try and catch up to see what it was. I was sure I’d never seen a car like that before. I increased our speed, but we were still losing ground to him. There was no way we were going to catch this guy.
Just then, from out of nowhere, there was another “psheeeeeooooo!”, and ANOTHER one sped by. It was the same kind of car, but this one was red. They were so neat.
In the rear view mirror I could see two more approaching. I cracked the window so we could hear ‘em. Ooooooo – such a sweet sound. And then they were by us in the blink of an eye. Wow. They were so awesome. I was thinking, “This could only happen in Italy.”
We figured they must be headed to that little enclave of the rich and famous, Portofino. I could see maybe one super-rich dude out for a spin on the Italian Riviera. But four of them? That was wild.
Hair Plug Warning
I found out later what they were – Bugatti Veyrons. “Bugatti Veyron W16.4’s,” to be exact — the most expensive production car in the world. How much do you think one costs? $250,000? $400,000? Nope. $2,000,000! Yikes.
Top speed is something like 250 mph. In one article about Bugatti Veyrons, the author advised men with hair implants to avoid going too fast with the top down. Forget about the toupee. It’s those implants that you have to worry about! Ha ha! The writer was probably in a good mood because he got to take one out for a test drive.
The engine is like two V8’s connected together to make a “W.” Two V8’s, 16 cylinders. That’s where the “16” in the name comes from. The “4” in the name is for it’s FOUR turbochargers. No WONDER those guys flew by us. They were probably in second gear.
Not long after our close encounter of the Bugatti kind, we exited the freeway. We descended down through winding streets towards the ocean and Santa Margherita Ligure. The scenery was beautiful. Our hotel was on the main street – easy to find, for a change. Finding the hotel’s parking lot would be more challenging.
To be continued…
Red Bugatti Veyron Photo Credit: Axion23/Wikimedia Commons
