I had a couple of house guests this weekend. Marco from Livorno and his girlfriend, Lucilla. They were in London to celebrate their third anniversary of being together. They’ve put me up so many times in Italy it was nice to be able to return the favour.
Marco is the Vespa restorer I meet in Vroom with a View. He has a fantastic workshop/museum in Livorno and helped me get my Vespa going again when she was proving a little bit temperamental. That Vespa, Sophia, currently lives with Marco in the workshop.
On Saturday I took Marco down to meet Nialls from Retrospective Scooters. Nialls is an Irish guy living in London who restores and repairs Vespas too. His workshop is just down the road from my place. He made us a proper espresso on a old Pavoni coffee machine – just like the one Roger Moore uses in Live and Let Die – and showed Marco his collection of specialist Vespa tools. That’s a photo of the two maestros of Vespa above.
Nialls told us about a special event the next day the British Vespa Club was putting on at the Ace Café. The Ace Café is a legendary meeting place for all kinds of bikers, not just scooterists. (You can read about the campaign that saw it restored and re-opened here.) Marco and Lucilla had the Big British Breakfast and didn’t need to eat for the rest of the weekend.
The party was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Enrico Piaggio lodging a patent for the Vespa. There was champagne and cake for everyone and Marco got to meet some proper English scooter boys with the obligatory shaved heads, big bellies and parkas. It was quite a culture shock. For both parties.
The weekend finished this morning in Bar Italia, an old Italian-style coffee bar that is another famous place to meet up in London. It’s in Soho and those of you who own Different Class by Pulp will know that it’s the place to go when ‘you’re fading fast and it’s nearly dawn.’ Marco reckons they served the best coffee he’d had in London.
As we speak Marco and Lucilla are on their way to Stansted to catch the Ryanair flight home. I’ve got an interview with David Westman from ScooterWorld Magazine at 7 pm so I’m off to get some sleep. Or a shot of espresso. Or both!
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This was delicious … it’s nice to know that life goes on after the bookman has passed through other worlds, and still better to read of that world coming to visit sometimes
Nice to read that Vespa friendship goes on after the initial contact several years ago. I have read your book last year with tremendous pleasure, and right now I am reading it again and it is equal of even more fun. I love Italy and I owned a P200 from 1983 to 1987 but was stupid enough to sell it then. Right now I am thinking about how I can arrange a journey through the southern italian countryside (Naples to Reggio/Palermo) on a Vespa, I shall probably have to rent it. But that does not seem to be easy. Alternatively I may buy a second-hand one like you did, but that does not seem to be easy. Would Marco be able to privide help? I speak a fair bit of Italian, and will be in Pisa next year May.
Best wishes,
Eric
:O So much info