The original Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles) ran between 1927 and 1957 and was one of Italy's most legendary endurance car races – it started in Brescia and took some 16 hours to complete. The race's colourful museum is loaded with some of the greatest cars to cross the finish line, as well as old-style petrol pumps and archive race footage.
The Mille Miglia proper was halted in 1957 after several high-profile fatalities. But the event (www.1000miglia.it) was revived in the 1970s as a Brescia–Rome round trip, held in May, open only to pre-1957 cars. The Museo Mille Miglia is housed outside central Brescia in the sprawling 11th-century Monastero di Sant'Eufemia della Fonte.
