I love it. But I can see how it could divide opinion. What do you think? You’ll find more images here on Vespa’s Facebook page.

Piaggio gave me one of their new PXs for a week. They’re the same as the old PXs but with a new euro-compliant engine. It was tutti-frutti blue and had Italian plates. I rode it to and from work all week and on the last weekend I had it I decided to venture forth to  Read more »

Commuting isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with over the past decade or so. There may have been the odd crowded bus or train in some foreign country every now and then, but mostly my ‘daily’ commute consisted of going from one room to another. Most recently, up to a cubby hole of  Read more »

The eBook version of my journey from Milan to Rome on a ’61 Vespa is now available on Amazon worldwide. It’s currently only available as a Kindle book, but with the vast range of free reading apps that Amazon offer you’ll be able to read it on any device you own. To download your version  Read more »

I was watching The Expendables over the Christmas break. Hardly high brow entertainment, I know. But it was either that or the cricket. About 28 minutes in a beautifully restored Vespa appeared on the screen. Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham have flown in to rescue some unnamed tin-pot country. And there, in a scruffy town  Read more »

Exciting news! This morning I popped over to Crystal Palace and picked up another Vespa – a creme 2001 ET2. The ET2 belonged to Gareth, a friend of a friend. He had got himself a new GT250 and just wanted to get his old Vespa off his drive. He said it was mine for a  Read more »

Menaggio, Italy. 2002. First week into my grand Milan to Rome adventure and Sophia was already giving me trouble. This shot was taken at La Primula, the amazingly situated youth Hostel at Menaggio, up on Lake Como. Sophia had just thrown a hissy fit and I was studying the Haynes manual I’d bought for some  Read more »

The new tricked out Ape Calessino! I’ve always had a soft spot for apes. There’s something so quintessentially Italian about them. When I spot one, usually early in the morning, buzzing about the cobbled streets of some medieval hilltop town, I know I’m in Italy. So imagine my delight when one of my readers, Thierry  Read more »

Swedish industrial designers invent the Hövding, an airbag collar for cyclists (and scooterists?) Full marks to Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin. They’ve tried to make the Hövding look as stylish as possible. (Well, before it inflates!) But not all of us have a stylist at hand to make us look as chic as possible. Or  Read more »

Lorenzo ‘Frank’ Franchini runs a website called Chilometri di Parole in Vespa. (Roughly translated: ‘Kilometres of Words about Vespas’.) He keeps track of books and articles written about Vespas, including his own fantastic book, Hasta la Fin del Mundo … in Vespa. This morning he sent me a link to an article in Il Messaggero  Read more »