Modern Vespa

Pretty sure he means goat milk gelato.

Or a frozen goat ....

Ground frozen goat. In a cone.

Having never eaten a goat, I hadn't considered that you might make a gelato to taste like one.

I've eaten lots of beef, but I've never had a beef flavored gelato.

As my Italian friends would say, MINCHIA!!! The pull tab just failed on my zipper. Luckily, I also ride with a CamelBak, and I was able to borrow a pull from there.

The mechanic sent me away with a pair of pliers. I wonder if I should pry the pull off the side pouch and use it to replace the main one. If not, I'll be pull tab shopping in Zurich.

Minchia is the sicilian equivalent of cock ...

In the Lazio region you can enjoy goat meat and buffalo meat, but only in this region (and perhaps in Campania and Calabria) do they know how to cook they.

Zurich has the most Vespas I've ever seen in one city - both vintage and modern. Just counting GTSes with the HPE-style leg shield, I've seen dozens in the last day. Some are 125s. I don't understand why that bike exists - I would have guessed the only reason to have the wide body vs a Primavera/Sprint is to fit the bigger engine.

It's also a surprisingly hostile city to ride in. It's well understood that even 1kph over the limit is too fast. The traffic lights change very quickly, so sometimes only a few cars move at a time. It's the only place I've ever ridden that has both considerable traffic and no tolerance for filtering. I haven't been able to trust Google Maps to keep me off the autobahn, which means I sometimes add 10 minutes of traffic by missing a turn that looked like the autobahn, but was actually the road I was supposed to take.

Parking is also confusing. You're not allowed to park on the street. You are allowed to park at some bike racks and on some sidewalks, yet others have this ominous sign warning you will be towed if you park on a nearby sidewalk.

Unable to upload file. The given source has not been uploaded. (a)

This can happen if the image is too large or if you try to upload HEIF images (instead of jpg or png).

Ahh - I just checked and it was 9MB.

Would be awesome to integrate something like squoosh.app onto the server, to make it easier to post photos from mobile. 🙂

I've looked before at JS-based client-side compression, and it wasn't ready yet. That was a while ago, though, it seem like it might be more viable now.

I apparently went over my 5GB Swiss data allotment yesterday afternoon and promptly lost connectivity. After spending an hour or two this morning trying to get a hold of someone at Telecom Italia who could tell me if I could top it up, I started looking at Swiss SIM options. I stumbled upon an eSIM called Swype that has unlimited everything for the first month. After downloading the app on crappy hotel wifi, uploading a photo of my passport, and giving a credit card number, my phone magically works again without having left the hotel.

eSIM is pretty sweet!

That's good to hear! I haven't actually had an opportunity to use an eSIM yet, but will almost certainly need it in the near future.

As I recall BMW and Volvo had fly and buy programs. You would order from the states, pick up at the European factory location and drive around europe. When you were done they would ship back to US as part of the cost. When you register in US, it would be a used vehicle in some jurisdictions.

I frequented a Coffee shop and Gelateria in Ancona that was run by Lucca Buglioni (bad spelling) his brother was Tom Tattoo who had a shop near the water. That was probably in 1996, I was there with the US Army and we stayed at the Italian Naval Barracks.

It is true. The contrast between Italy and Switserland is huge.
Switserland is not how we humans are. It is super clean, almost everthing is forbidden, all what is allowed is super overorganized and crazy expensive.
Not my favorite.

The shortest route for us to Italy is through Switserland. The best the country has to offer is the scenery, the lakes, the mountains, fantastic. I ride through it admiring and enjoying the scenery but without even stopping for a short sanitary stop. A sigh of relief when I cross the Italian border: not perfect, definitely not, but back in a real human environment. That is each time my feeling.

I have my computer out for the first time in a while, but with apologies to the audience, I'm more interested in spending this time sharing thoughts than resizing photos.

But first, an interlude about SIM cards (that's hopefully helpful to some Googlenaut in the future):

We rode down from Interlaken to Lago Maggiore. As we crossed the border, I switched on my Italian SIM card, but it wouldn't function. I kept getting a Sign in to mobile network notification that directed me to some long-forgotten bowels of the telephone system. The vintage Android error page insisted that there were too many redirects to some WAP page from TIM. Even though TIM owns both the network and the MyTIM app, the app is useless without a data connection. Thankfully, I could use my friend's phone to contact the Airbnb. Once on wifi, I noticed I had -5¢ credit (presumably some glitch from when my Swiss data allowance had exhausted). I tried placing a phone call and heard an error about missing credit. TIM was rejecting both my cards (including the one they already had on file), but I eventually found a way to top-up via PayPal and restore my data plan. As an American, it's insane that they can lock me out of the data and calltime I'd already paid for, but that's why Jess gave us the Italian salute: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

On the last day of the billing cycle, we did a lap around Lago Maggiore (which briefly crosses back into Switzerland). A bit of mild panic set in when my music stopped playing one song into Switzerland. I switched my data connection back to the Swiss eSIM and checked my TIM credit. Thankfully, it only deducted another 5¢ from my account, so I still had enough of a balance for the plan to renew without fighting the top-up demons again. The ability to toggle between SIMs roadside, without pulling out a paperclip, is a big victory for eSIM. (European roaming working in Switzerland would be an even bigger victory, but again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

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We're in Como now and having a rest day, which I haven't had enough of. The ride from Maggiore to Como was a grind through the smoggy sprawl of Varese. In the 3 weeks I've had the Vespa, I've slept in 9 different cities: Bolzano, Brunico, Trento, Bormio, Flims, Zurich, Lucern, Interlaken, Belgirate, and now Como. Zurich and Belgirate were the only places I spent more than a day in the same city. We ride to Milano tomorrow to return my friend's rental and see him off.

I'm burned out on touring.

This trip started because I've been emotionally exhausted. A couple years ago, I realized I was transitioning from "young adult" to (unadorned) "adult" - that the opportunities and experiences available to me would likely change, that my body was changing, and that time was much more finite than it had seemed before. (Incidentally, thoughts that my Vespa back home helped me process.) As someone who's almost always been solo, finding a romantic partner became an even higher priority. Then the pandemic happened, and I felt locked out of that waning time. I put more effort into dating apps, and eventually met somebody I could see a future with. I was excited to be with somebody for the first time. We were compatible on so many levels that a long relationship felt inevitable. Then, she panicked and left.

Her insecurities predate me, and have nothing to do with me. Still, I've spent my years pretending I was okay being self-sufficient, because I didn't have a partner to share life's burden with. That glimpse of a healthy relationship made what I don't have feel even more stark. It was like I'd spent my life wallpapering over this hole in the wall. Then she tore the paper down and filled the hole herself. Now that she's gone, I just have a big hole in my wall begging me to stare at it.

That was the mental state that motivated me to buy a one way ticket away from the everlasting pandemic gloom of California. I needed to go spend a week resting in some mountaintop spa. Instead, my trip inspired a friend to come join me, and I rushed through the Dolomiti to see them before he arrived and the weather turned Fall.

My rough plan has been to ride down from Genova to the Amalfi coast, then up through Bologna, Trieste, and Venezia before returning the Vespa and departing the EU. My visa expires on 11/11 - I have 2 months left. Google counts 16 hours to get to Pompeii from here. That's 4-5 full days of riding south, plus 6-8 more heading east and north. I can't ride the whole way and still spend a healthy amount of time in the places I stop.

Now I'm thinking I'll do a smaller loop: maybe riding through Genova, Bologna, Trieste, and Venezia. Then I can return the Vespa and take the train south. I can always get another one down there, and probably for a much better price.

Do you mean that you will not pass through Rome - Latina - Terracina - via Flacca - Gaeta and then the Amalfi coast?
PS: the weather in the north is getting worse ...

I do think it's worth stopping to dwell in a place for a day or two. Park the bike and relax a bit. Italy has fantastic riding roads, but also fantastic cafes and fantastic scenery and fantastic food. The joy of Italy is all of these things, taken in alternating measures.

When I looked this morning, Bologna was the only place in the north that isn't going to get soaked this weekend. (It's unfortunately smack in the middle of the route, and 5+ hours away unless you take the Autostrada. If I went straight there, I'd probably have to skip the Genova/Italian Riviera portion of the ride.)

I'm going to spend today figuring out what the next leg of the trip looks like. My current thinking is spend the coming weeks in the north, and then get to the south by train, where I can hopefully get another Vespa. That would allow me to see and spend time in Roma, Napoli, and Amalfi. It means I would skip the ride between Pisa and Roma, but also the ride east to Bari and north to Bologna. I'm sure both coasts are gorgeous, but "more time in fewer places" is the prevailing wisdom of traveling, and that wisdom is calling to me right now.

Time is a great tyrant.

A simple split ring for keys will easily get into the zipper loop.
Then you can feed it through thepuller as well.

You do not have to do the whole of Italy in one journey. I expect Italy will still be there next year and maybe even some years after. I think there is no need for rush.

We have been travelling in summer holidays to Italy for 10 years in a row. By now we have visited Toscana, Le Marche, Umbria, the northern part of Lazio, Roma, and Campania from Napoli south via Amalfi down to Paestum. Last time unfortunately due to Covid was 2 years ago.
Later this year we are going to visit friends in Austria and we plan to make a 2 or 3 days detour south on our way home via Milano and Torino and then back home via France.

This almost sounds like an alternate-timeline version of Peter Moore's Vroom with a View/Vroom By the Sea books, with a few twists and turns of your own. And I certainly grok the life-stuff you've been grappling with.

The SIM card nonsense reminds me of the ordeal Le Wife and me suffered for the month we were in Europe late in 2017 (chronicled in near-real-time here on MV). Bought SIM cards at Madrid airport while waiting for a connecting flight to Vienna, which was our first and worst mistake. Bought different SIMs in Vienna, where we were staying for about two weeks…almost seemed a mistake, but somehow got things to work. I actually forget what we did for the week we were in Prague, and, other than via wi-fi, I don't think we even touched our phones the four days we were in London.

On the subject of shrinking photos down to size for posting online: I don't recall you mentioning whether you have an Android or iPhone, but in the case off the former, there's PhotoCompress, an app I've been using for years now, and does a great job (which for me was a big deal when we were in Europe, as we deliberately left our laptops at home for the sake of traveling light.

I agree with Jess and the gang about not burning yourself out on the road: we all love to ride, of course, but there's this thing about having day or two to just stay in one place and rejuvenate…and you're in one of the most terrific places to kick back.

Thanks for all the dispatches, and have a ball.

I am in Venice until 22 Sept. If you get here pm me and I will buy you a grappa.

I think sim cards are more for GPS and information than for talking, so they are indispensable.

Can't believe it, you're speaking of my cousin

Thanks all! I wasn't there until October, so I feel better about having missed this. Still, thanks for the offer, and sorry to have missed you!

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I'm past due for an update - apparently it's been a month. I've drafted some posts in my head from the road, but clearly haven't taken the time to type them out. Let's see what I remember.

After my friend departed, I ended up riding through Bologna, Firenze, Rimini, and Venezia before returning the Vespa and taking the train to Genova, and then Napoli/Ischia. There was a transit strike the day I meant to leave Genova, so I ended up splitting the trip in 3: Genova to Milano, sleep near the station, Milano to Napoli, sleep near the station, Napoli to Ischia.

I rode the Autostrada from Pavia to Bologna, and again from Ravenna to Rimini, and from Venezia to Garda. It's expensive (like 20EUR per day!), but the road surface is really good quality. The speed limit is often 130kph. The unmodded HPE tops out at 120kph, so there's an interesting dance of letting cars pass you when traffic is light, and then splitting past them again when traffic gets thick.

The gas light comes on at 6 liters, which is usually 10EUR. It's a convenient number to know if the gas pumps won't take your credit card, because the convenience stores close at 7PM. You won't be able to get change after then, even if the attendant is still chilling inside. Gotta be careful if you find cheap gas though, because then 10EUR will overfill.

I didn't really do anything Florentine: I just used it as a base to do daytrips to places like Pontedera/Pisa, Lucca, and San Gimignano.

I saw the Ducati and Piaggio museums. I really liked Ducati, but Piaggio was a disappointment. Ducati's origin story is similar to Piaggio's: the Ducati brothers were engineers who built a factory making consumer electronics like radios before the war. After the war, they started motorizing bicycles to help Italians get around as Italy put itself together. Those evolved into some absolutely stunning machines before they got all supersporty.

Pontedera was a cute town, but Piaggio was poorly curated and poorly organized. It almost felt like they did it because they knew riders would show up asking for a tour, not because they want to teach you anything about their history. It's only 3EUR to get in. They tell you you have 90 minutes, but they kick you into the gift shop after an hour. They have some older models with really subtle differences between them, and they have whole sections of novelty crap like "here's one painted with Disney characters for some event you've never heard of." Would have been cool if they taught you the mechanics: have a blown up one and show how all the parts fit together, how the CVT works, etc. They totally missed that opportunity.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in Marina di Pisa, which was one of my favorite stops of the whole trip. There was a nice piazza/promenade, gelato, and the sea. I was sad I only had a couple hours there.

I've found many of my favorite rides have been surprises: I didn't know what to expect at Passo Gavia entering Bormio, and it was much more magical than Stelvio. I didn't even know I'd be crossing the mountains to ride from Firenze to Rimini, which made Passo Muraglione a pleasant surprise.

San Marino was another highlight. The ride there from Rimini was on a narrow country road that wound up the side of a mountain to some absolutely epic views. Great history too: one of the oldest republics in Europe, which avoided the conquests of Napoleon and of Italy largely out of respect for that history.

I've definitely had my share of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ moments, but I'll save those for another post. Returning the Vespa was its own adventure.

On the first one, I rode north to Zurich, west to Pisa, south to Pesaro, and east to Venezia. All told, it was about 4400km over 40 days (2750mi). Considering I've also gone up to Crater Lake and back in 2000mi over 12 days, it doesn't sound like a lot, but riding in Italy is slower and more tiring.

As a Californian who started the trip in the Dolomiti and the Alps, I've found a lot of riding in proper Italy to be underwhelming. We're spoiled in California both by the epic coastal views with big crashing waves, and by the single coastal road: it's really easy to plan a tour when you only have a handful of roads you can take. Italy is a spiderweb of roads, and even if you tell Google to avoid the Autostrada you'll often end up on roads that are neither scenic nor fun on two wheels. Even Via Panoramica into Pesaro sounds like it's going to be an amazing coastal ride, but most of the time trees are obscuring your view of the water. One of the challenges of the trip has been finding good places to ride. Sometimes you get really lucky, like on the ride up to San Marino. But for a lot of the trip, the moto has been more of a transportation tool than its own form of leisure.

That said, it's interesting to be in Europe with an independent vehicle. It's enabled me to take daytrips to places I wouldn't have otherwise seen, like Dozza: a town that's been inviting muralists to decorate its walls every September since the 60s. I was there as they were finishing the 2021 entries. Was a really cool place to walk around for a couple hours.

Tomorrow, the local rental shop opens in Napoli. I can get a Beverly 300 HPE for about 500EUR for 25 days. (I've never ridden a Beverly, but it seems like a better choice than the pre-HPE Sei Giorni the other shop has for 800EUR. Nice opportunity to try something new. Hope it's spacious under the seat!) I think I'll take the boat to Sardegna for a week or two, and then take a peek at Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast in early November.

Then I run out of Schengen visa time, so I'll be in/around London for a month before heading home. (Unfortunately Brexit killed VAT refunds, so it'll be more complicated to score sweet deals from Urban Rider or Bike Shed.)

And a couple random shots from Switzerland that I downloaded trying to find a good example for amateriat's post about forgoing reflectors.

125s in Europe and many other jurisdictions are a rule conformance size to get the most bike in the smaller displacement licensing and registration category. The 125 GTS gives you a liquid cooled 125 with a large frame which is probably as much scooter as you can get in that category.

Surprised to hear this about the Piaggio museum. Both times I've been (in 2010 and 2016) it was free -- you just walked in, and you could hang out all day. In fact, I did hang out there for about half a day at the tail end of the 2016 trip.

The first time we went, we hired one of the staff to give us a verbal tour of some of the important bikes, and that was useful. I knew the history of most of them already (the special racing bikes, in particular) but it was still a pleasant tour.

It is because of the driving license, up to 125 you can drive it with the car driving license; above 125 cc it takes a separate course and a separate exam with various types of driving licenses (A1 - A2- A3).
MP3s and the like (except mine which is homologated as category A1 anterior double-wheel but motorcycle) are tricycle homologated and can be driven with a car driver's license.

I understand why Europeans would buy a 125, just not why you'd put a 125 in a GTS. I thought the whole point of the wide body was to fit the bigger engine.

...now that I say that, I realize the PX has GTS lines and a small engine. Maybe it's a throwback thing.

I almost forgot:

I rented a scooter in Ischia. The guy told me it was a Vespa, but it was an LML Star: a weird PX knockoff that's basically a modern Vespa from another timeline. They licensed the PX and evolved it with a CVT and digital dash.

It was missing a mirror, the speedometer didn't work, the rear brake was useless, and it handled like garbage (probably the tires). I rode it once before it got swapped for a much more trustworthy Yamaha Xenter.

Still, thought you'd find it interesting.

Those are all authentic parts of the vintage Vespa experience, though.

The experience of LML (made in India) did not last long in Italy, the metal they are made of is of low quality and once scrapped, the body parts are used to restore the old PXs.

We had that here. It was sold as the Stella Automatic. The ECS was related to the electronically controlled carburetor; it's a factory glitch...er, feature.

It is a bin with the appearance of a Vespa, as already mentioned the quality if there, is inside and not in sight.

Let us know what you think of the Beverly and how you experience the Amalfi coast.

As a suggestion: maybe go a little bit more to the north to Ercolano. Not so huge and touristic as Pompei but when you are at what used to be "the beach" you can see what thick layer of lava from the Vesuvius compeletely flouded the old Roman city of Herculaneum. Most of the old city is not yet excavated because the present Ercolano is on top of it.
And then maybe go a little bit to the south to Paestum. There you find the remains of an authentic, ancient Greek city in Italy, abandoned somewhere 4th century because of malaria.

+1 on both. I'm not familiar with the 300, but it should be quite roomy under the seat.

Pompeii is definitely cool, but Herculaneum being preserved differently was equally interesting, and IIRC appeared more intact..... but that was a looong time ago....

To visit in the summer.