Today I had planned on going to Monza to see the Italian Gran Prix.
I had never been to a Gran Prix before despite all the time I have spent
in Europe. 
I
headed down to the train station as I had looked up the schedule to get
to Monza on the internet and had to be there by 09h. 
I
bought my tickets and waited for the train. First I had to go to
Verona. There I changed for a train to Milano. From there I
caught a train to Monza. All in all, a long 3 hours on the trains.
I arrived in Monza, and the posters on the walls said that there was a courtesy train to the Lesmo Autodrome from the train station. Fantastic! But it was slowly getting closer to race time and the train wasn't showing. Finally at 13h00 the train showed up. This was one VERY crowded train.
The
train stopped in this field. The Lesmo station is not very big and
our train was longer than the platform so we were getting off in a field.
From the train station it was about 50 meters to the entrances of the autodrome.
Luckily for me, they were still selling general admission tickets. 
And
the tickets were only 75k lire (about US$30) so that was a reasonable entrance
price.
General admission at the park is the center portion of the race track. A heavily wooded area. And in general admission there were not very many bleachers to sit on. As the race started when I got there, there was no room to sit down. So I stood along the sides like most other people and took my pictures by holding the camera over my head.
I
think this photo on the left is Michael Shumaker in his Ferrari.
It is very difficult to tell who is passing by as the cars literally zip
right by you. Watching GP on television is nothing like seeing it
in real life. 
You
get a real appreciation for how fast these cars really go. Television
seems to slow down the action somehow.
The one downside to being at the GP itself is you have no idea who is in the lead or any other positions for that matter. There are some loudspeakers set up, but with the noise from the cars you couldn't hear them most of the time. And the GP folks don't set up any boards showing the current standings. There were a number of people that had brought portable television sets that were large enough so we could see who was leading. Very odd though, having to bring a tv set to see the race that you are at.
The race ended, and I headed back to the Lesmo train station for my
long journey home. 
A
lot of people came to see the race and the train station was packed with
people waiting to leave. Fortunately I got on the first train out
of there. 
The
picture on the right is about a half hour before the train arrived.
The train ride home was uneventful. I went back via Milano, caught the train to Verona and changed to the train back to Trento. By the time I got home it was 21h00 already. It was one very long day. And having stood on my feet for most of the GP I was exhausted.
Taking pictures of the GP race itself was a challenge. The cars went by so quickly that most of the time my pictures were only of empty roads. But with the preview feature of the digital camera I was able to delete those pictures and try again! That was a nice feature.
Copyright @ 1997, Alexandre POLOZOFF. All Rights Reserved.
