Villa d'Este 2019
21-22 May: Villa San Michele (Fiesole)
Before Villa d'Este I was invited with a few selected guests to Villa San Michele in Fiesole, on the lovely hills overlooking Firenze
A splendid hotel of the best level belonging to the Belmont empire
After lunch, the guests were treated to a private visit of the magnificent 'Museo Stibbert'
Not only vintage European armoury; also Ottoman, Japanese, Chinese, etc
An awesome collection
Needless to say, the Martini cocktail at Villa San Michele was excellent. On the left pic, Antonio Ghini, the friend who was the mastermind of the operation, toasts with Fritz Kaiser, great classic cars collector and publisher, among many other things, of the supeb 'The Key' magazine
Night pictures are exceedingly good with the new Huawei P30/Leica camera and Summilux lens
22 May 2019
The 840 and the formidable Ferrari 812 of a great car collector shared the VIP parking in Villa San Michele. Amazingly, both were painted the same shade of battleship grey
Stefano Ricci (right) is the unestinguishable founder of the eponymous firm and treated us to a nice lunch in his factory, where the table is surrounded by part of his collection of classic Aston Martins
23 May
Arriving in Villa d'Este is always a pleasure
Thursday, the sun was shining...it was actually better than in most part of Italy
Heaven: this is what we saw from the window of our room
Exquisite
Alfa 8C 2900. A masterpiece
A very interesting Panhard CD and an Aston Martin hors Concours
A truly excellent Martini, and in such a civilized place
Classy ladies: Ms Fontana (left), Anna and Maria Leitner (with Giulio, right)
Friday 24 May
A splendid breakfast on the lake
Classic Rivas belong to lake Como
A Judge
Good friends: Giulio, Maria, Roberto, Anna and myself. Good friends, beautiful ladies
A slightly different group of friends: the chief designer of Nissan, Giulio,
Maria, the Duke of Richmond and me
A selfie with Charles during the discussion
Rock culture idol, car enthusiast, classic Riva collector and great chap: Simon LeBon
I've been told that there was also an interesting auction by R&M at Villa d'Erba in the afternoon, but I hadn't received an invitation to attend and besides the Jury had to go on discussing the 'Best of Show' (this year it was a tough choice...) so I didn't go. If you are interested you can learn something more about R&M at the page:https://www.partcatalog.com/page/the-craziest-cars-sold-by-rm-auctions
After a quiet relaxed dinner with Charles and his extremely lovely daughter Alexandra 'Atty', a picture of friends with Ilaria and Lorenzo Ramaciotti and Serenella Lagaaj
Sunday 26 May
With great friend and gentleman Patrick LeQuément
With Anna before the Sunday evening Gala dinner
Some Members of the Jury
Anna smiles (photo courtesy of Alberto Novelli)
Anna with Kimura-san and Tetsu-san
Two world-class collectors: Corrado Lo Presto and James Glickenhaus, the latter being a famous director. At the time I didn't know that he had been the producer and director of a movie I like a lot, 'The Soldier'. He owns two Ferrari P4s....
And the winner is....:
