Annual Italy Events

The 1000 Miglia classic touring car race takes place every year during the second week of May. The race starts from Brescia and does a return journey to Rome and back taking in Ferrara, Arezzo, Assisi, Roma, Viterbo, Florence, Modena, Mantova and many other locations in between.Mille Miglia means, of course, a thousand miless and this is a modern non-competitive, rally-style incarnation of the world famous race that in the 30's and 40's gave some of the top names in car racing their fame.

Each May, hundreds of thousands of spectators line the streets waiting patiently to hear the roar of 370 museum quality, finely-tuned unusual epoch cars rip past them in the space of a heartbeat. The course winds through countryside and villages that have inspired poets but begins and ends in the city of Brescia. Police block streets in Florence to allow passage through the normally traffic-banned Piazza della Signora as the drivers continue through Ravenna, Rieti, Viterbo, Assisi and Modena with each entrance and exit punctuated by cheering crowds.

The drivers bring their cars from 24 or so nations and have passed a rigorous selection committee that has examined and accepted the uniqueness and race worthiness of each vehicle...only the most special are chosen for the 1,600 kilometer race. But it's not the machinery that lures spectators to the Mille Miglia as much as the opportunity to gaze at le belle macchine (the beautiful cars)

SELECTED LINKS

www.1000miglia.eu

A briefd history of 1000 Miglia