Keen to reconnect with its fanbase, Ducati is reopening its museum today (5 Oct) at their motorcycle factory in Borgo Panigale, Bologne, Italy.

The museum’s new coronavirus protocols mean that visitors have to book online and register a specific date/time slot in advance. The 15-min time slots are available, each for a limited number of ten visitors who will also have to have their temperature checked at the entrance, wear a facemask (which will be provided if you don’t have one), and maintain at least a 1 metre social distance from other visitors for the duration of the visit.

The Museum opens every day except Wednesdays from 0915 to 1600 and the adult price is 17 Euros.

Ducati had simultaneously announced that the additional hour-long guided factory tours at Borgo Panigale would also start again from today, but sadly that opportunity has just been withdrawn.

If you are thinking “It’s in Italy! This is good but irrelevant to me,” then you’ll be pleased to hear that from 15th October it will also be possible to discover the secrets of the Ducati Museum remotely thanks to a new digital experience, the ‘Ducati Museum Online Journey’.

These are real guided tours of the Ducati Museum that can be accessed from a PC, smartphone or tablet, virtually accompanied by the Museum’s expert guides. There are 4 tours per week at the following times: Tuesday 5.00 pm, Saturday 9.00 am, in English; Thursday and Sunday 5.00 pm in Italian. Interested users can book the tours directly on the ticketing platform of the Museum by selecting the date, language and time, then they will receive a code and a link to access the Online Journey.

This new digital experience, lasting about 45 minutes, is aimed at all fans of motoring history who, during the tour, will also have an opportunity to interact with the guide through the platform’s Q&A system.

The cost of the Ducati Museum Online Journey is 10 Euros.

And by the way…

There is also a new exhibit in the museum’s motorcycle galleries – a 1:1 scale Panigale V4 R motorcycle made of LEGO bricks.

Be still my beating heart! (Sorry, I can’t get enthusiastic about LEGO models. I’d rather look at the real thing.)

Bookings for both the physical and digital museum visits can be made at the Borgo Panigale Experience website.