Italian Grand Prix Advice
Discussion
Court, im guessing you've been to como before?
Is there any cruises that go around the lake and how much are they usually to ho on the day?
£60 per person to sit on a coach and be driven to como and then get a ferry and few tours of the towns..
or £18 to rent a fiat 500 for the day and go on our own adventure!
Is there any cruises that go around the lake and how much are they usually to ho on the day?
£60 per person to sit on a coach and be driven to como and then get a ferry and few tours of the towns..
or £18 to rent a fiat 500 for the day and go on our own adventure!
I've been on a boat tour a few years ago from Como - from what I remember it was a day trip, but there maybe shorter ones.
Try this website http://www.navigazionelaghi.it/eng/c_illago.html
I'd definitely encourage exploring yourself, coach trips are for the elderly
Hertz and Avis both hire Abarth 595s from MXP and LIN, shame they were both double what the SLC cost (!)
Try this website http://www.navigazionelaghi.it/eng/c_illago.html
I'd definitely encourage exploring yourself, coach trips are for the elderly
Hertz and Avis both hire Abarth 595s from MXP and LIN, shame they were both double what the SLC cost (!)
If you're driving you could skip the park and ride and park here for free: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Autodromo+Nazi...
I did this last year with no issues, and it's a 5-10 minute walk to the park, then another (lovely) 15 mins to the track entrances etc.
I was also on the "main straight bleachers" last year as well (right in front of P1 in fact!), and the advice about taking something to cover up with is spot on - it's very hot down there, and until the sun sinks low enough (~2:30 on race day) the grandstands behind provide no protection at all.
Beautiful place and fantastic race though, last year was my 2nd time and I'd go again.
I did this last year with no issues, and it's a 5-10 minute walk to the park, then another (lovely) 15 mins to the track entrances etc.
I was also on the "main straight bleachers" last year as well (right in front of P1 in fact!), and the advice about taking something to cover up with is spot on - it's very hot down there, and until the sun sinks low enough (~2:30 on race day) the grandstands behind provide no protection at all.
Beautiful place and fantastic race though, last year was my 2nd time and I'd go again.
That's a great tip - do you mean this car park here? What sort of time did you arrive on race day to get in there?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@45.6321703,9.280984...
ETA: Actually, it looks like the whole area has good street parking. Perhaps an 0800 arrival will net us a space...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@45.6321703,9.280984...
ETA: Actually, it looks like the whole area has good street parking. Perhaps an 0800 arrival will net us a space...
Edited by court on Tuesday 19th July 11:06
Definitely worth walking to the old banking and spending some time walking the curve - you will see just how steep it is!
They had marshals positioned down it during the weekend to stop you climbing up to the outer edge so maybe try and do that earlier in the week as they might not be so prevalent.
They had marshals positioned down it during the weekend to stop you climbing up to the outer edge so maybe try and do that earlier in the week as they might not be so prevalent.
For those in the bleachers, I have just picked up some stadium seats after a tip from an American friend who has more experience of such seating arrangements.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Highlander-SM026-BL-Outdo...
I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Highlander-SM026-BL-Outdo...
I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
court said:
For those in the bleachers, I have just picked up some stadium seats after a tip from an American friend who has more experience of such seating arrangements.
I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
I wish I had known about those! The bleachers are OK, but not exactly comfy...I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
Vaud said:
court said:
For those in the bleachers, I have just picked up some stadium seats after a tip from an American friend who has more experience of such seating arrangements.
I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
I wish I had known about those! The bleachers are OK, but not exactly comfy...I was sceptical but having just tried one out I'm pleasantly surprised at the excellent amount of back support and cushioning. At £10 they're almost disposable.
l354uge said:
Court, im guessing you've been to como before?
Is there any cruises that go around the lake and how much are they usually to ho on the day?
£60 per person to sit on a coach and be driven to como and then get a ferry and few tours of the towns..
or £18 to rent a fiat 500 for the day and go on our own adventure!
There are "Taxi" boats the go up and down the lake stopping at various towns, we went up to Bellagio that way.Is there any cruises that go around the lake and how much are they usually to ho on the day?
£60 per person to sit on a coach and be driven to como and then get a ferry and few tours of the towns..
or £18 to rent a fiat 500 for the day and go on our own adventure!
I thought I'd fill you in on my experiences so people can get some solid info if they are considering going next year.
We stayed by Linate airport with a hire car. We had absolutely no problem taking a car to the track. We got to the official FREE parking at at around 0900 on the Saturday and Sunday and had no trouble finding a space. It took us about 30 minutes each way on the autostrada with a €1.90 toll. We did pass a junction that had queues off it but Waze saw us right. There was also a non toll way that took us through an industrial estate which we tried once but hardly worth the bother.
We parked where the star is both days.
Notice the layby parking on the road.
It took us around 15 minutes to reach the gate then another 15 minutes to get to the 2e bleachers. These were great seats, well worth the small price increase over GA tickets. The commentary over the PA was Italian then handed to English and amazingly the F1 live timing app also worked on my phone. The screen opposite would have been perfect if it had been widescreen and didn't miss out on the important information outside the viewable area. We even had the pleasure of a fellow PHer next to us - HardtopManual who posted in this thread - what were the chances?!
They went into the shade around 1330 when the pit lane opened which was a bonus. We were actually in the top row so had back support on the back of the bleachers. That said the seats with back support we had got from amazon were perfect for relaxing away from the grandstand around the park.
We took a trip to Como on the Saturday evening for dinner as it was only an hour drive from the hotel. Smashing night out.
After the race we thought about joining the throngs the track, but the gate was so small it looked like it would have took hours so we made a break for it.
I would say you have to get down there with around 5 laps of the race to go. After deciding to leave all the foot traffic was going in the opposite direction to us which made egress slightly slower.
Our hotel very kindly gave us a super late check-out so we could go back and have a shower. This was BLISS! After freshening up we dropped the car back at the airport and then had a FOUR hour window till our flight departed. It was ok though, we were in the BA lounge and we basically people watched over a glass or few. Damon Hill was first in there, then Karun Chandhok and lastly of note Rob Smedley arrived. It was a great atmosphere as it was full of team members from McLaren, Manor, Williams and Red Bull all chatting together.
The actual race may have been a snoozefest, but I had an awesome weekend and recommend it to all.
We stayed by Linate airport with a hire car. We had absolutely no problem taking a car to the track. We got to the official FREE parking at at around 0900 on the Saturday and Sunday and had no trouble finding a space. It took us about 30 minutes each way on the autostrada with a €1.90 toll. We did pass a junction that had queues off it but Waze saw us right. There was also a non toll way that took us through an industrial estate which we tried once but hardly worth the bother.
We parked where the star is both days.
Notice the layby parking on the road.
It took us around 15 minutes to reach the gate then another 15 minutes to get to the 2e bleachers. These were great seats, well worth the small price increase over GA tickets. The commentary over the PA was Italian then handed to English and amazingly the F1 live timing app also worked on my phone. The screen opposite would have been perfect if it had been widescreen and didn't miss out on the important information outside the viewable area. We even had the pleasure of a fellow PHer next to us - HardtopManual who posted in this thread - what were the chances?!
They went into the shade around 1330 when the pit lane opened which was a bonus. We were actually in the top row so had back support on the back of the bleachers. That said the seats with back support we had got from amazon were perfect for relaxing away from the grandstand around the park.
We took a trip to Como on the Saturday evening for dinner as it was only an hour drive from the hotel. Smashing night out.
After the race we thought about joining the throngs the track, but the gate was so small it looked like it would have took hours so we made a break for it.
I would say you have to get down there with around 5 laps of the race to go. After deciding to leave all the foot traffic was going in the opposite direction to us which made egress slightly slower.
Our hotel very kindly gave us a super late check-out so we could go back and have a shower. This was BLISS! After freshening up we dropped the car back at the airport and then had a FOUR hour window till our flight departed. It was ok though, we were in the BA lounge and we basically people watched over a glass or few. Damon Hill was first in there, then Karun Chandhok and lastly of note Rob Smedley arrived. It was a great atmosphere as it was full of team members from McLaren, Manor, Williams and Red Bull all chatting together.
The actual race may have been a snoozefest, but I had an awesome weekend and recommend it to all.
Edited by court on Monday 5th September 17:01
Thought I would do a little write up of my own for people next year as researching stuff online before hand was a big help to me but I found some of the older info to be no longer true so here's an up to date experience.
As stated above we had tickets for the main straight bleachers. Bought the tickets about a year ago when you still got a proper amount of Euros for a pound so they worked out about £90 each which was fantastic value. The seats were inline with 6th / 7th on the grid so we got a great view of the start and there was a big screen pretty much straight across from us. Its probably easiest if I go through the weekend day by day, no photos at the moment, I'll maybe put some up later when I get round to getting the photos off my camera.
Thursday
We arrived in Milan on Tuesday night, we made a holiday out of the weekend so were keen to do plenty of other sight seeing too, went to lake como on the Wednesday for a trip which was nice and the train went on the same line so it was a useful recce of the station. We stayed in an air bnb fairly central in Milan, about 10 mins on the tube to the train stations.
We took a train from central station to Monza mid afternoon. As a general note the trains are pretty good and regular but I found it a bit difficult to know which one to go on as the fact they stopped at Monza wasn't always clear. There seemed to be a large train, the final destination escapes me now, running at 20 past the hour every hour that went to Monza. When we got to Monza station that's where the fun and games started. The shuttle bus does not operate on the Thursday and there were no signs or anything to indicate there was a Grand Prix on. We followed the crowd outside the station to the bus stop where we had to wait an eternity for a service bus. It drove for a while and we followed the masses again when people started to jump off. From there we just followed the crowd as there were no signs until you got really close to the track. All the roads in the park seem to converge on a kind of main entrance South of Paribolica, there, there's a road for cars and a road for pedestrians, they kind of do a half arsed bag search when they feel like it too. From there it was 10 min walk to the actual entrance (well the one we went to, like I said we were just following the crowd at this point) which turned out to be right behind the stand we were in beside the pit straight. The road continued under the track and took you out in the paddock. They weren't interested in seeing your ticket so I guess anyone could rock up.
As getting there took a little longer than we thought we went straight to the pit walk, again not much in the way of signage we found out where to go from a guy at one of the merchandise stalls. You do need your ticket to get into the pit lane and they search your bags a bit more thoroughly. The pit lane itself was a bit of a scrum as you can probably imagine, managed to get JBs autograph though! Up at the business end around Ferrari and Mercedes though you couldn't move. Worth noting, we spoke to a few people after that weren't allowed into the pit walk as they stopped letting people around 5 o clock even though the advertised time is 4 - 6, so be there early.
After that we walked past the paddock to the back straight found a beer tent and just chilled on some of the seats as it was a lovely evening, I went for a short walk to one of the straights of the old track. The security guard said I could walk round it anytime through the weekend though so I didn't bother going to the banking... Getting home was a bit like getting there, retraced our steps for a bit till we found a bus stop which eventually came and took us back to the station.
Friday
Went from central station again. Met a couple of lads on the train who had tickets for the shuttle bus. The shuttle bus isn't free as some older posts online suggest. You can either buy them from people outside the bus at Monza station or you can buy a combined train and shuttle bus ticket from the Trenord machines at the station. That works out a bit cheaper. As a bit of background there seems to be 3 train companies, TrenItalia, TreNord and another one, TreNord seem to do the more local trains, TrenItalia do the regional ones and the other one does the intercity / country ones. TreNord have blue ticket machines and they are the ones what do the combined tickets with the shuttle bus. I never did find out if you were allowed to buy a ticket from one company and go on a another companies train, the tickets generally don't have times or seats on them they just have A - B, never had a problem though as long as you remember to validate your ticket on one of the little boxes on the platform the conductors didn't seem to care.
So, got on the shuttle bus, still no signs or anything but someone I spoke to on the Thursday said when you get off the train at Monza turn right at the bottom of the stairs off the platform instead of left to the main entrance and the shuttle buses are out the back in the car park. This turned out to be true so on I got. Dropped us off in the middle of the park, I recognised the bit from walking past it the previous day and walked to the same entrance. Went to find where our seats were for future reference to no avail as the stand and seat numbers hadn't been put up yet and the stewards had no idea (this is a recurring theme!). You can sit anywhere you like on the Friday apart from the main grandstand so I wandered around the whole track. Spent FP1 on the pit straight, first corner and the lesmo - ascari straight, watched some GP2 from the second corner and Lesmo corners. Went to one of the stands at Ascari for FP2 which had a cracking view (and the accompanying ticket price if you want there all weekend). From there I wandered down the back straight to Paribolica on the inside of the track where you get really close to the cars and finished up by the pit entrance. Got some good photos and its just generally a nice place to wander around, plenty of beer / water / food stalls on the go, watch which one you go to though as some are cheaper than others. For water there are also loads of taps dotted around, plenty of folk were using them and I'm still living.
On the banking front, on my travels I stumbled upon a hole in the fence around the bit where it goes over the current track but got promptly chased off, so much for the you can go on it all weekend! Probably fair enough as if you climbed to the top of it on the bridge there isn't much stopping you from falling onto the track below! I did get on it on Sunday though but more of that later.
On the way back to the shuttle bus, signs had miraculously appeared, seemed to my limited sense of direction to put us a pretty convoluted way but got there in the end.
Saturday
Didn't bother with FP3 as I had seen everything I wanted to on the Friday so we just timed it to go for qualifying. This is where the fun started. We went to central station as normal but there were no trains to Monza! I think there were a couple earlier in the morning but I heard from people later on that they didn't get on them as they were full. So we had to go back on the tube and go to Garibaldi station (the other main station in Milan). Garibaldi had a lot more of the local TreNord trains and was a treat, the ticket inspectors knew what train was going where and which platform we needed to go to, even advised us to run! After that it was as per we had been doing, shuttle bus from Monza, there were signs by this point and a walk to our usual entrance.
We found our seats (they had finally got round to numbering the stands) and watched quali. The view from the bleachers is ok, if you looked sideways you could pretty much see paribolica and nearly down to turn 1. The big screen positioning was great though and we could see who was coming out the end of the pit lane. We were pretty near the back of the bleacher though which helped, right at the front the view wouldn't be so good. For the money I couldn't fault them, I was quite smug knowing that the people at the front of the stand behind us a mere 6ft above us had paid several hundred pounds more!
On the crowd, I thought it was quite funny when I got home and watched the race on the TV all you could see were hoards of Ferrari fans, it didn't seem like that when we were there, there were a LOT of Brits there, not sure if Book F1 maybe get whole sections of the stands but pretty much everyone in our section was British!
Getting back wasn't a problem as we had kind of sussed it out by then, we stuck around for a while after quali to avoid the mad rush and it was pretty painless (apart from my feet which were killing me by this point, poor footwear selection!)
Sunday
Had heard various myths and rumours ranging from there are no trains from central station again to there are loads but they all go to the mythical Bissono station by the Lesmos that only opens on the Sunday. We opted to go back to the Garibaldi station again as it was closer on the tube and pain free on the Saturday. It turned out to be that way again and we got to the track on our train / shuttle bus combo (think it was €8 return).
It was a lot busier as you would imagine, think a lot of the locals just go for the race. We took a picnic on the Sunday as the food was a bit overpriced for what you got. We did find plenty of it though and the ques weren't as bad as I had imagined given some of the reviews I had read. What didn't help was you needed to pay for a ticket for what you wanted then que again to swap the ticket for the items, some people couldn't get the hang of this as well as a continental approach to queing made it pretty busy but nothing outrageous. Beer was cold and not too expensive, €5 for a pint or €8 for a big glass, think it was a litre, a bit more expensive than home prices but compared to Milan and Italy in general prices its about the going rate. There's a wooded bit behind our stand where loads of people were sitting / sleeping in the shade which was quite nice. While I'm on about facilities I didn't find the toilets too bad either, most of them are portaloo type things which do smell a bit in the 30 degree heat but nothing too hideous and the ques weren't bad either. If you're fussy there were a couple of proper portacabin type toilet blocks complete with a full time cleaner that were pretty sanitary.
Onto the race itself, snooze fest, but the build up and start were great. As I mentioned saw plenty of the action on the big screen. The track invasion at the end was pretty annoying. The guards got all set up to open the gates but wouldn't open them, even when people were streaming up the road from turn 1 they wouldn't open them, I dont think they had the key, eventually they got the big outer fence open and people were climbing over the inner fence, by that time any hope of getting under the podium was lost. It did make me laugh, the locals had no problem with voicing their opinion and attempting to kick the gates down as the guards stood back powerless, you would probably get lifted for that here! Did get pretty close to the podium in the end though and got a good view.
After that we walked backwards round the track to Paribolica, got onto the small bit of banking behind paribolica before a fence and security guard where loads of people were trying to run up it, its damned steep, the photos don't do it justice! Continued walking round the track past Ascari, then we decided to go for this mythical Biassono station at the Lesmos. Conveniently for me that took us past my hole in the fence to the banking again (my better half wasn't best amused as she didn't understand my fascination with old concrete). No security guards this time (I had noted them and the feds making a mass exodus by Paribolica earlier on). There were a few folk walking, climbing and biking round the banking, it was a bit harder to get to the top without a fence to cling onto but I got there and got some good photos.
The mythical station turns out to be real, its actually beside one of the camp sites, and we got a train there back to central no problem at all. I never found out if it runs at other times during the weekend or if it's just Sunday but if you are sitting at turn 2 or the lesmos it would be closer than the shuttle bus. For where were were sitting and Ascari it would probably be 6 and half a dozen time wise.
All in all it was a cracking experience despite the snoozefest race, the atmosphere was good, people friendly and Monza park it just generally a nice place to wander around. The organisation is pretty typically Italian, that's to say a bit chaotic and no one really knows whats happening, we got by by hearing things on the grapevine and by winging it, plenty of fellow brits going about to ask. There is a fair amount of walking to do regardless of how you get to the track so wear suitable footwear (unlike me). Top tips would be take a picnic, its cheaper and while the food isn't bad its pretty samey after a while (pizza, foccica, burgers or hot dogs, usual kind of fayre although the pizza was good) don't take beer as the draught there is freezing cold and not too pricey. Go to Garibaldi station if you are staying in Milan, trains seemed more frequent and better organised than central station and TreNord have a ticket office there where you could ask about things and get the combined shuttle bus tickets more easily. That said if you like architecture check out central station as it is a beautiful huge and very impressive old building, more like a cathedral inside than a station. Final one would be, if possible, take a bike! Loads of folk were biking around the roads behind the stands and just chaining their bikes to the stand, no one seemed to have a problem with this and it would be great to bike a lap of the track afterwards, as a lot of people were doing.
As I said I'll eventually get round to downloading all the pics from my camera and will upload some of the view from various points. Hopefully this massive blurb will be of use to someone in the future.
As stated above we had tickets for the main straight bleachers. Bought the tickets about a year ago when you still got a proper amount of Euros for a pound so they worked out about £90 each which was fantastic value. The seats were inline with 6th / 7th on the grid so we got a great view of the start and there was a big screen pretty much straight across from us. Its probably easiest if I go through the weekend day by day, no photos at the moment, I'll maybe put some up later when I get round to getting the photos off my camera.
Thursday
We arrived in Milan on Tuesday night, we made a holiday out of the weekend so were keen to do plenty of other sight seeing too, went to lake como on the Wednesday for a trip which was nice and the train went on the same line so it was a useful recce of the station. We stayed in an air bnb fairly central in Milan, about 10 mins on the tube to the train stations.
We took a train from central station to Monza mid afternoon. As a general note the trains are pretty good and regular but I found it a bit difficult to know which one to go on as the fact they stopped at Monza wasn't always clear. There seemed to be a large train, the final destination escapes me now, running at 20 past the hour every hour that went to Monza. When we got to Monza station that's where the fun and games started. The shuttle bus does not operate on the Thursday and there were no signs or anything to indicate there was a Grand Prix on. We followed the crowd outside the station to the bus stop where we had to wait an eternity for a service bus. It drove for a while and we followed the masses again when people started to jump off. From there we just followed the crowd as there were no signs until you got really close to the track. All the roads in the park seem to converge on a kind of main entrance South of Paribolica, there, there's a road for cars and a road for pedestrians, they kind of do a half arsed bag search when they feel like it too. From there it was 10 min walk to the actual entrance (well the one we went to, like I said we were just following the crowd at this point) which turned out to be right behind the stand we were in beside the pit straight. The road continued under the track and took you out in the paddock. They weren't interested in seeing your ticket so I guess anyone could rock up.
As getting there took a little longer than we thought we went straight to the pit walk, again not much in the way of signage we found out where to go from a guy at one of the merchandise stalls. You do need your ticket to get into the pit lane and they search your bags a bit more thoroughly. The pit lane itself was a bit of a scrum as you can probably imagine, managed to get JBs autograph though! Up at the business end around Ferrari and Mercedes though you couldn't move. Worth noting, we spoke to a few people after that weren't allowed into the pit walk as they stopped letting people around 5 o clock even though the advertised time is 4 - 6, so be there early.
After that we walked past the paddock to the back straight found a beer tent and just chilled on some of the seats as it was a lovely evening, I went for a short walk to one of the straights of the old track. The security guard said I could walk round it anytime through the weekend though so I didn't bother going to the banking... Getting home was a bit like getting there, retraced our steps for a bit till we found a bus stop which eventually came and took us back to the station.
Friday
Went from central station again. Met a couple of lads on the train who had tickets for the shuttle bus. The shuttle bus isn't free as some older posts online suggest. You can either buy them from people outside the bus at Monza station or you can buy a combined train and shuttle bus ticket from the Trenord machines at the station. That works out a bit cheaper. As a bit of background there seems to be 3 train companies, TrenItalia, TreNord and another one, TreNord seem to do the more local trains, TrenItalia do the regional ones and the other one does the intercity / country ones. TreNord have blue ticket machines and they are the ones what do the combined tickets with the shuttle bus. I never did find out if you were allowed to buy a ticket from one company and go on a another companies train, the tickets generally don't have times or seats on them they just have A - B, never had a problem though as long as you remember to validate your ticket on one of the little boxes on the platform the conductors didn't seem to care.
So, got on the shuttle bus, still no signs or anything but someone I spoke to on the Thursday said when you get off the train at Monza turn right at the bottom of the stairs off the platform instead of left to the main entrance and the shuttle buses are out the back in the car park. This turned out to be true so on I got. Dropped us off in the middle of the park, I recognised the bit from walking past it the previous day and walked to the same entrance. Went to find where our seats were for future reference to no avail as the stand and seat numbers hadn't been put up yet and the stewards had no idea (this is a recurring theme!). You can sit anywhere you like on the Friday apart from the main grandstand so I wandered around the whole track. Spent FP1 on the pit straight, first corner and the lesmo - ascari straight, watched some GP2 from the second corner and Lesmo corners. Went to one of the stands at Ascari for FP2 which had a cracking view (and the accompanying ticket price if you want there all weekend). From there I wandered down the back straight to Paribolica on the inside of the track where you get really close to the cars and finished up by the pit entrance. Got some good photos and its just generally a nice place to wander around, plenty of beer / water / food stalls on the go, watch which one you go to though as some are cheaper than others. For water there are also loads of taps dotted around, plenty of folk were using them and I'm still living.
On the banking front, on my travels I stumbled upon a hole in the fence around the bit where it goes over the current track but got promptly chased off, so much for the you can go on it all weekend! Probably fair enough as if you climbed to the top of it on the bridge there isn't much stopping you from falling onto the track below! I did get on it on Sunday though but more of that later.
On the way back to the shuttle bus, signs had miraculously appeared, seemed to my limited sense of direction to put us a pretty convoluted way but got there in the end.
Saturday
Didn't bother with FP3 as I had seen everything I wanted to on the Friday so we just timed it to go for qualifying. This is where the fun started. We went to central station as normal but there were no trains to Monza! I think there were a couple earlier in the morning but I heard from people later on that they didn't get on them as they were full. So we had to go back on the tube and go to Garibaldi station (the other main station in Milan). Garibaldi had a lot more of the local TreNord trains and was a treat, the ticket inspectors knew what train was going where and which platform we needed to go to, even advised us to run! After that it was as per we had been doing, shuttle bus from Monza, there were signs by this point and a walk to our usual entrance.
We found our seats (they had finally got round to numbering the stands) and watched quali. The view from the bleachers is ok, if you looked sideways you could pretty much see paribolica and nearly down to turn 1. The big screen positioning was great though and we could see who was coming out the end of the pit lane. We were pretty near the back of the bleacher though which helped, right at the front the view wouldn't be so good. For the money I couldn't fault them, I was quite smug knowing that the people at the front of the stand behind us a mere 6ft above us had paid several hundred pounds more!
On the crowd, I thought it was quite funny when I got home and watched the race on the TV all you could see were hoards of Ferrari fans, it didn't seem like that when we were there, there were a LOT of Brits there, not sure if Book F1 maybe get whole sections of the stands but pretty much everyone in our section was British!
Getting back wasn't a problem as we had kind of sussed it out by then, we stuck around for a while after quali to avoid the mad rush and it was pretty painless (apart from my feet which were killing me by this point, poor footwear selection!)
Sunday
Had heard various myths and rumours ranging from there are no trains from central station again to there are loads but they all go to the mythical Bissono station by the Lesmos that only opens on the Sunday. We opted to go back to the Garibaldi station again as it was closer on the tube and pain free on the Saturday. It turned out to be that way again and we got to the track on our train / shuttle bus combo (think it was €8 return).
It was a lot busier as you would imagine, think a lot of the locals just go for the race. We took a picnic on the Sunday as the food was a bit overpriced for what you got. We did find plenty of it though and the ques weren't as bad as I had imagined given some of the reviews I had read. What didn't help was you needed to pay for a ticket for what you wanted then que again to swap the ticket for the items, some people couldn't get the hang of this as well as a continental approach to queing made it pretty busy but nothing outrageous. Beer was cold and not too expensive, €5 for a pint or €8 for a big glass, think it was a litre, a bit more expensive than home prices but compared to Milan and Italy in general prices its about the going rate. There's a wooded bit behind our stand where loads of people were sitting / sleeping in the shade which was quite nice. While I'm on about facilities I didn't find the toilets too bad either, most of them are portaloo type things which do smell a bit in the 30 degree heat but nothing too hideous and the ques weren't bad either. If you're fussy there were a couple of proper portacabin type toilet blocks complete with a full time cleaner that were pretty sanitary.
Onto the race itself, snooze fest, but the build up and start were great. As I mentioned saw plenty of the action on the big screen. The track invasion at the end was pretty annoying. The guards got all set up to open the gates but wouldn't open them, even when people were streaming up the road from turn 1 they wouldn't open them, I dont think they had the key, eventually they got the big outer fence open and people were climbing over the inner fence, by that time any hope of getting under the podium was lost. It did make me laugh, the locals had no problem with voicing their opinion and attempting to kick the gates down as the guards stood back powerless, you would probably get lifted for that here! Did get pretty close to the podium in the end though and got a good view.
After that we walked backwards round the track to Paribolica, got onto the small bit of banking behind paribolica before a fence and security guard where loads of people were trying to run up it, its damned steep, the photos don't do it justice! Continued walking round the track past Ascari, then we decided to go for this mythical Biassono station at the Lesmos. Conveniently for me that took us past my hole in the fence to the banking again (my better half wasn't best amused as she didn't understand my fascination with old concrete). No security guards this time (I had noted them and the feds making a mass exodus by Paribolica earlier on). There were a few folk walking, climbing and biking round the banking, it was a bit harder to get to the top without a fence to cling onto but I got there and got some good photos.
The mythical station turns out to be real, its actually beside one of the camp sites, and we got a train there back to central no problem at all. I never found out if it runs at other times during the weekend or if it's just Sunday but if you are sitting at turn 2 or the lesmos it would be closer than the shuttle bus. For where were were sitting and Ascari it would probably be 6 and half a dozen time wise.
All in all it was a cracking experience despite the snoozefest race, the atmosphere was good, people friendly and Monza park it just generally a nice place to wander around. The organisation is pretty typically Italian, that's to say a bit chaotic and no one really knows whats happening, we got by by hearing things on the grapevine and by winging it, plenty of fellow brits going about to ask. There is a fair amount of walking to do regardless of how you get to the track so wear suitable footwear (unlike me). Top tips would be take a picnic, its cheaper and while the food isn't bad its pretty samey after a while (pizza, foccica, burgers or hot dogs, usual kind of fayre although the pizza was good) don't take beer as the draught there is freezing cold and not too pricey. Go to Garibaldi station if you are staying in Milan, trains seemed more frequent and better organised than central station and TreNord have a ticket office there where you could ask about things and get the combined shuttle bus tickets more easily. That said if you like architecture check out central station as it is a beautiful huge and very impressive old building, more like a cathedral inside than a station. Final one would be, if possible, take a bike! Loads of folk were biking around the roads behind the stands and just chaining their bikes to the stand, no one seemed to have a problem with this and it would be great to bike a lap of the track afterwards, as a lot of people were doing.
As I said I'll eventually get round to downloading all the pics from my camera and will upload some of the view from various points. Hopefully this massive blurb will be of use to someone in the future.
Edited by dazjstuart on Thursday 22 September 11:00
Edited by dazjstuart on Thursday 22 September 11:23
Edited by dazjstuart on Thursday 22 September 11:36
I was going to do a writeup about by weekend but you two have pretty much summed it up!
Thursday was a mess, being on that packed public bus is the nearest I've ever come to fainting...Id recommend driving there, traffic wasn't bad atall and they let you use the track parking for free on Thursday.
Milan was lovely in places but generally quite disappointing, hectic and full of rude people, I also dislike London so that may just be me being a country boy.
My seats were parabolica intera A (inside of the exit of the parabolica) had a great view of the big TV and there was no fence obstructing my view of the cars. for less than £100 for a weekend you cant complain.
At the end of the race we walked out of the stand after Nico finished and tried to follow the locals to the track, turns out they were just vaulting a fence and going through a marshall post, so eventually we copied. After a fairly long run (doesn't look that far but it is!) and fireman lifting my girlfriend half the way we made it just in time for the presentation, and what a view we got!
That, and walking the banking by the parabolica and the whole new track made everything worth it, even with the dull race.
Id recommend it wholly, but if i did it again i think i would drive and park like mentioned above, my feet were ruined come Monday. (went to Bergamo and Belliagio on Monday/Tuesday and I recommend them wholly, gorgeous and not completely ruined by tourists like Como)
Thursday was a mess, being on that packed public bus is the nearest I've ever come to fainting...Id recommend driving there, traffic wasn't bad atall and they let you use the track parking for free on Thursday.
Milan was lovely in places but generally quite disappointing, hectic and full of rude people, I also dislike London so that may just be me being a country boy.
My seats were parabolica intera A (inside of the exit of the parabolica) had a great view of the big TV and there was no fence obstructing my view of the cars. for less than £100 for a weekend you cant complain.
At the end of the race we walked out of the stand after Nico finished and tried to follow the locals to the track, turns out they were just vaulting a fence and going through a marshall post, so eventually we copied. After a fairly long run (doesn't look that far but it is!) and fireman lifting my girlfriend half the way we made it just in time for the presentation, and what a view we got!
That, and walking the banking by the parabolica and the whole new track made everything worth it, even with the dull race.
Id recommend it wholly, but if i did it again i think i would drive and park like mentioned above, my feet were ruined come Monday. (went to Bergamo and Belliagio on Monday/Tuesday and I recommend them wholly, gorgeous and not completely ruined by tourists like Como)
Not much to add to the great above posts, but will state that if you arent in the main straight grandstands we used the Lesmo train station on Sunday a few years back and provided you get up there sharpish its a fast and easy journey back to Milan. The shuttle can be a pain especially as Italians dont always like queueing...
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