It’s funny where a Google search will take you. Almost eight years ago to the day I typed in ‘Buying a Vespa in Italy’ and came across a guy who called himself ‘The Waspmaster.’
His real name was Filippo. He bought and sold Vespas. And his friend Marco restored them. Although they didn’t have a Vespa that matched my needs – as old as me and in roughly the same condition – they pointed me towards one on eBay Italy that did.
It was Sophia, the Vespa that took me from Milan to Rome in Vroom with a View.
I caught up with Filippo and Marco when I finally got to Livorno. We hit it off immediately and spent close to a week visiting festivals, drinking coffee, tearing around the ancient canals at midnight in Filippo’s boat, drinking ponce and basically living La Dolce Vita. More often than not I’d end up crashing on the sofa in Marco’s workshop, waking up the next morning not quite sure how I got there.
After the trip we all stayed friends. Marco took my Vespas under his wing and I came over periodically to visit them. When Filippo got married to the lovely Valeryia, I was there. And when Marco married the equally lovely Lucilla, my daughter Daisy was the flower girl.
Last Saturday it was Marco’s 50th birthday. And, naturally, me, Sally and Daisy were there.
Those of you who have read Vroom with a View and Vroom by the Sea know that Marco is a man of style and taste and likes to do things with a certain elan. His birthday party was no different.
It was held in a ramshackle fisherman’s shack hanging precariously over the lake where Puccini wrote most of his operas. It was reached by following a narrow path through a thick wood to the edge of the lake. Then we had to beckon a boatman to take us across the water. Sally commented that it didn’t feel like Italy. It was more like the bayous of Louisiana.
Dinner was prepared by the guy who owned the shack using ingredients he had hunted and caught that day. And as he cooked various pasta dishes with duck, crawfish and wild boar a small band played swampy blues from the Deep South. The sun set, candles were lit and bottles of wine from Simone’s vineyard in Bolgheri were cracked open. People danced in the shack and on the boat.
It was at once raucous and intimate, like we were all part of a big Italian family. At one point, around midnight, Daisy fell into the lake, but that is another story for another time.
It made me realise that one of the real joys of travel isn’t necessarily the temples or cathedrals or the market stalls or the sugar white beaches. It’s moments like these, where you connect with people and with their culture and become friends.
And then, of course, the crazy, funny times that flow naturally from that connection.
Just added: A video made by Francesco, an artist friend of Marco’s.
Sounds like you had a wonderful time. Now you’re back in dreich UK perhaps you wish you’d never left to come back!