Vespa Post

My Vespa 150  fired right up when I got  home and I had to go for a sunny  test ride...

The black Vespa 200 was looking tired with wires hanging out while the back tire was flat... oh well my orange bombshell survived my vacation in good shape. Vespa riders in the US tend to be enthusiasts all fired up about the brand and so forth so there aren't too many in the population overall.  And they go to Italy on vacation where they figure everyone must be starring in their own movie and thus riding Vespas not boring Asian scooters. Not so, but there are more well cared for Vespas than you might think especially as they cost a lot more than the Asian daily riders. I took this picture in Orvieto last week noting the three wheeled Ape ("ah-pay") in the scooter spot. The 50cc runabout is a Piaggio product, built by the Vespa people and can be driven without a licence:

Of course if you look around you'll see classic and current Vespas everywhere, some loved some simply ridden:

Italians sometimes take off the inspection doors from the side of their Vespas. Fear of theft is the main reason though some claim ther bikes run cooler with extra air flow. I think it looks ugly:

 A color not seen in nature I saw on a 125cc in Siena. It is striking though I'm not sure I'd ride it:

 In Italy there are tax and insurance steps over 125cc so not many adults choose 150  variants of small motorcycles. On top of that 125cc motorcycles can be ridden at 16 years of age, making 150cc versions that much harder to sell.

A new model 125 cc proving they still buy these overbuilt metal bodied scooters.

Older two stroke Vespas in daily use alongside two other Piaggio scooters in one lot:

 These Ape 50s are stil popular workhorses. I think hey would do well in Key West's narrow lanes and alleys, the land of the over sized Ford F150:

 I watched this delivery PX125 buzzing back and forth transporting food through the streets of Bolsena while I was having lunch:

An orange 50cc Vespa reminding me of my first ride ever in 1970 bought for me by my mother:

 I hope it was just an overdue spark plug change, roadside in Terni:

Not your average Ducati, an electric postal delivery vehicle, with two seats and mail stacked on the passenger side: 

The  more usual sight is a letter carrier on a Piaggio Liberty 50 like this one seen in Terni from my terrace:

My buddy Giovanni with whom I have been riding for half a century is not a fan of small wheeled Vespas and he gets mad at me for taking an interest in them. However he will concede the 300 series is a serious ride.

He is very fond of the BMW  R1200RT which I rode and found to be as delightful as he suggested to me. I've always resisted these large touring bikes but it was a delight to ride, light and surprisingly nimble and exceedingly comfortable:

A nice bike a fairing-free example of which we followed through the vineyards of southern Tuscany in our car:

This was what's known as a "large body" modern Vespa which covers the 200,250 and 300 cc models:

 These are the 300cc Vespas we rented in Rome, smooth powerful rides:

 Startling in scarlet:

 This out of context picture I snapped in Istanbul just as a Vespa riding couple turned the corner:

I saw lots of early model four stroke Vespas, the ET series which like my 2004 march on looking almost new:

I paused on a street in Terni to illustrate a point. I was driving Giovanni's BMW that I borrowed for a couple of weeks and never quite got used to it's bulk though the 520D is no bigger than your average US driven sedan. Scooters make too much sense in Italian cities so it's no wonder most riders aren't enthusiasts but sensible  city dwellers:

 And parking enforcement is on the prowl always as this photo taken by my wife attests:

Scooter parking can be as marginal as you like:

 And there's lots of it:

 All Italian cities now have limited access zones (ZTL- zone of limited transit) from which scooters and motorcycles are usually exempt. The sign says "except authorized and emergency vehicles" and you'd have to check the board in the back to see it motorcycles are listed as prohibited, otherwise they can ride right in. That and lane splitting and filtering are huge advantages on two wheels.

 Quite aside from their natural good looks...

 ...ability to lend style to the most urbane locations...

 ...and be ready to go at a moment's notice, even if thirty years old and considered a classic:

The Last Brother

Children are inclined by their age and Nature to assume that whatever is, is normal and whatever else they observe is not normal. It is only by growing up and hopefully maturing that they begin to learn otherwise. For me life as a child was a life of privilege where money not only didn't exist but my childhood was also a place where costly things happened as if by magic. We lived well, we traveled, we stayed in hotels and flew in airplanes when flight was rare and a privilege. In Italy I lived in a castle with servants and in England I learned manners ( say please and thank you no matter how low their social standing) and always we ate well, with our mouths closed using the proper cutlery.  I dare say that long before my mother died I was destined to take off on my own and tackle life by getting a job and earning my own way and turning my back on a world that even now, 50 years later seems embarrassingly anachronistic and out of place.  My belief that everyone deserves healthcare and poverty isn't a moral failing stems no doubt from seeing peasants live close to nature with bare bulbs, no homey luxuries and only bare light bulbs, cold running water and an outhouse to shit in. 

The kitchen in the sharecropper farm of San Pietro owned by my sister hasn't changed much since the last sharecropper left to move to the city half a century ago. It was a hard life farming my family's land for sixty percent of the product. My family got the other forty percent for the privilege of ownership, no sweat equity required. So when Americans talk about "hard work" this is what I think about, not the difficulty of investing the family wealth.

But one thing everyone had was astonishing food. Those old peasants knew how to grow crops, slaughter animals and preserve meats. We ate food with them and the memories of those harvest feasts and winter fireside snacks have not gone away.

My brother-in-law lived like this before he married my sister, far above his station to widespread disapproval.  50 years later they still live happily together and their sons continue the work in the fields. But he is the one still in charge at age 71 of raising the cows that will one day become beef.

I was never cut out for this life, as a half breed product of English boarding schools and summer vacations at our country estate in Umbria...there's that snobby voice of privilege again. I prefer even today to go to see the brothers in Orvieto and buy the products of others' labor.

Erminio's brother has retired and after 51 years running the shop at Via del Duomo 11 in Orvieto Erminio is pinning his hopes on his daughter taking over one day, maybe soon. 

Soft spoken and quiet he offers tastes of this and that, packaging cheese in vacuum sealed bags for flights home to the US. You can't import meat through US customs but you can bring cheese. Lucky us at least for that. 

Seasoned and fresh, milk from sheep or cows, aged in ash, wine or with truffles or without...the choices go on. For local consumption there is meat from wild boars hunted locally:

I discovered only a few years ago how delicious lard is when spread on a slice of bread:

Or packaged sauces and spices and pastas which come for Italian nights in our Keys home on a canal:

Spending three hundred bucks here, one night of overtime at work, is easy, a reminder of privilege, a support for a small local business, never franchised never sold out over half a century of being here.

Driving To Orvieto

It's a world class cathedral in Orvieto and its quite spectacular especially from the outside. Inside they charge three Euro for an adult admission and frankly its not worth it in my opinion. the beauty is here for all to see:

This is the opening paragraph of the English language Wikipedia entry for the city: Orvieto is a city and comune in Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The site of the city is among the most dramatic in Europe, rising above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are completed by defensive walls built of the same stone called Tufa.

The Romans called it Urbs Vetus but archaeologists say the city was an ancient center of Etruscan civilization predating even the Romans by a good bit. Unlike the typical Italian hill town, Orvieto is flat once you have driven up the side of the mountain it sits on.

Orvieto was something of a frontier town being the first large city in the Papal States on the road from Florence to Rome. It was also a papal refuge in times of trouble as the place had its own water supply and could be rendered impregnable. Nowadays the St Patrick's well is a tourist attraction and the city has reverted from a cultural center (St Thomas Aquinas taught here in the Middle Ages) to a dozy little town of twenty thousand with a summer influx of tourists.

I'm not sure why Orvieto is my favorite town in Umbria, and Tuscany too maybe, but perhaps it has to do with topography. The level streets and narrow alleys don't have expansive views, unless you are on the edge of the city, and this gives them an unusual intimacy. Claustrophobia perhaps but I never feel hemmed in, in Orvieto.

I used to come here to escape rural life, to see a movie and people watch much as I do nowadays. Every time I go back to Umbria I like to pay at least one visit to Orvieto. The white placard shown below prohibits vehicles from entering the city center so walking is required, with only a very few exceptions.

I used a driving lesson for Giovanni's daughter Eleonora to come to see Orvieto, and as, in all of her 19 years she had never seen the city we went for a walk to look for a late lunch. Which we found off the main drag and she told me about her studies for her MBA at Perugia University with graduation she hopes in 2015. She wants to have a career and be independent she says and she wants to be in business. Her main drawback? No English to speak of. Perhaps I should have given her English lessons rather than driving lessons.

In my defense let me point out it was Eleonora who directed me to the odd sight of people lined up patiently waiting for...the loo. For some reason it seemed odd to us. perhaps we have smaller bladders or more imitative but it seemed to us there were easier ways to take a leak in a town filled with tourist venues. On the other hand it seems laudable that the city has put out at least one pay toilet for public use, as over worked as it is.

Ancient water systems still produce drinking water on demand, and it tastes good too. I do see a lot of people weighed down with plastic bottles but public drinking fountains are still quite common in Italy.

The Tiber Valley as seen from the ring road descending from Orvieto.

Which ring road led us to the New Town of Orvieto at the base of the hill an agglomeration of modern apartment complexes and commercial buildings called Orvieto Scalo where we saw a beetle industriously scuttling down the street:

He put on an impressive turn of speed.

Further on we resumed our driving lesson with a vengeance as traffic got all blocked up Key West style. "What do I do?" the student asked. Press on I said but slowly and don't panic. It was close but she did fine.

We had satisfied my desire to see Orvieto again so then I felt honor bound to let the student report on her progress to a bevy of her aunts at home in the village where I used to live and they still do. How's school? How's driving? How are your parents, washed down by the inevitable espresso and with all the howdy-dos done we went on our way. A driving lesson as driving lessons should be for everyone.

When I was a kid I used to marvel at American tourists who seemed to walk around with their eyes on stalks and their heads permanently turned up to stare at buildings that I as a callow youth took for granted. Now that I am the American tourist I get the other point of view and these villages are pretty.

"I love that sign" Eleonora said, "like there's a Hard Rock Capitone" an insignificant little spot on the map at the top of a steep hill to which it has given it's name. I obliged by taking a picture.

The Alfa Romeo Mito driven by the learner is not an easy car to drive, certainly not to drive well. It has six speeds which can be confusing for one not used to a close cluster gearbox, the engine is small but the car is light so it isn't hard to slide around if you aren't careful. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I don't usually spend a day with a 19 year old but perhaps I should widen my horizons. It wasn't all bad, not at all.

 

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