Vroom With A View

In search of Italy's Dolce Vita on a '61 Vespa

Drinking and riding In the summer I turned forty I bought an old Vespa on eBay and rode it from Milan to Rome.

The Vespa was a beautiful coffee coloured '61 model with saddle seats and a little too much chrome. I called her Sophia after Sophia Loren and the Italians loved her as much as I did.

From the Italian Alps to the hilltop towns of Tuscany she showed me a side of Italy very few people get to see.

READERS' VESPAS

Got a special Vespa in your life that you'd like to share with the world? Send me a pic to this email address and I'll stick it in my Readers' Vespas slide show.

FREE EBOOK!

Aug
29

A couple of years ago I wrote a story for the Lonley Planet anthology, Flightless. It was called The 40-Year-Old Vespa Virgin and was basically an abridged version of Vroom with a View, written in the present tense.

Anyway, I'm proud to announce that that story has now been released as an eBook and you can download it, DRM-free and in whatever format you like, right here >>

Favourite Photos

And the story behind them ...

This is me and Sophia outside the colosseum at the end of the trip.

I look happy and I am. I finally got to Rome and and spent a morning buzzing around the city, whizzing past the remnants of antiquity and ignoring a police woman blowing her whistle to tell me I was going the wrong way.

Check out more pictures from the trip here

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