Modern Vespa

I'm currently in Porto, Portugal (with Mrs Jess and, until a day ago, DougL) and have been casually snapping pics of the scooters I see around town. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, and there are far more big-wheel scooters and motos that I didn't bother with. I can also tell which part of town is upscale by the number of GTSs I see moving (and parked) in that area — there really is a very distinct class difference, and it shows through in scooter selection.

More:

Those cobblestones look jarring. Must be especially dicey when wet.

As a general observation, what would you estimate the scooter to car ratio?

They definitely are. I can see the riders vibrating on the cobblestone parts. Fortunately, much of modern Porto has asphalt or concrete streets instead of cobblestone, but the historic parts are still very much cobblestone. It's winter here, so that may affect estimates, but cars outnumber scooters by a wide margin. This is a scooter town, but not a major scooter town. All of the food delivery service workers buzz around town on cheap plastic scooters (and are quite the riders, too!) and not nearly as many people commute to office jobs on scooter. But in the upscale part of town, there are some. Motorcycles are pretty popular too.

I would guess it's roughly the same ratio as San Francisco.

Nice photos. The order of the images is so close to being perfectly grouped by colour, the OCD in me is going nuts

Haha! Sorry. I didn't really notice, though I did notice that there seem to be more blue scooters here than I am generally used to seeing.

I'm surprised by the amount of older 2t Vespas. Or are those just the ones that you noticed amount all the modern scoots?

Nice pictures!

I went a bit crazy taking.photos of scooters in Portugal too...well, guess I do everywhere. My wife is used to it by now.

Porto did seem pretty Vespa-rich as I recall.

BTW, what is that green non-Vespa? Trying to decide what's on top of the exhaust...if not rust, I don't wanna know.

What got me in Lisbon is they experimented with putting asphalt over the old cobblestones. Didn't work out very well as you ended up with bits of cobblestone ranging from corners to big patches of them sometimes with asphalt still in between the actual cobbles, sometimes just splotches of asphalt in the middle of a section of cobblestones.

We did a private guided tour by scooter in Lisbon. I had an LML Star and Steve had some 110 Honda. Our friend who was with us had been insisting she could ride scooters as she had done so in Florida took one look at the road condition, steep hills and cable car tracks then decided she was happy to ride pillion with Steve or our guide

I'm hoping to get back to Portugal next year.

How exciting, I've always wanted to visit Porto. At least we can live vicariously thorough your journey

Hope you have a great time!

Yeah, I think there might be some selection bias going on there.

I grew up just north of Boston Massachusetts (Medford actually) and I remember when the city asphalted over the granite cobblestones (likely from New Hampshire) on one of the main roads thru the city (Salem St). Last time I was there, it seemed to have been holding up. But I haven't lived there in decades so perhaps it was torn up and repaved.

Miguel

Very nice pictures, Jess! I hope to get to Portugal in the next few years.

In the meantime, I have been to Barcelona a few times:

This is an example of what we saw in Lisbon

Jess,

Great photos. Much appreciated.

Side story cobblestones. Many of the old villages have cobblestones
in the center of town. Years of donkey and cow dung have made them
very slippery. Be careful out there.

Bob Copeland

Were you a little tempted to take the blue ET for a spin?

What does that say about theft there?

The roads in Lisbon are utter shite. It's one of the reasons that I (gasp) really dislike Lisbon. Yes, it's an amazing city. Yes, it's full of culture and diversity and food and color and sound. But despite being "Europe's first modern city" (a long time ago, after the 1755 earthquake) it is old and the streets are not well maintained.

Porto is quite a bit more civilized, and the scale is much more to my liking than Lisbon.

I honestly would advise anyone who thinks they want to go to Lisbon to go to Porto instead. You'll have twice the fun at half the size.

But if you do go to Lisbon, FFS don't get on the #28 tram! It's a ridiculously over-touristed attraction. Actually, all of Lisbon is a ridiculously over-touristed attraction. Best to just go to Porto instead.

We will have 5 days between when we arrive in Barcelona and when we leave it. I've been to Barcelona enough times that I prefer to go somewhere else for those 5 days. Steve suggested renting some scooters and going to Andorra. Porto is on the list, but I don't know if we will make it next year or not. We aren't traveling internationally this year due to cannonball.

Good to see there are still some old 2Ts about. On my recent trip to Madrid I was shocked that they've mostly disappeared as they've brought in pollution laws. What's that whacky old green thing?

I think all of us are intrigued but that "whacky" old green thing but whacky is not a word that comes quickly to my mind when I look at it. It is interesting.

Miguel

KTM Ponny II.

Thanks for the link

Miguel

It says either that the Portuguese are good people, or that the public health care system doesn't cover optometry very well.

Thanks for sharing those pics. I hope to make it to Europe someday.

A few more:

Taking photos of scooters is addicting!

My son's wife's family the pereira dela Sousa are from that area but unfortunately neither her or her twin sister and brother will go on my scooter. Their father bought them over here when he was looking for work after his wife died when he was 24 and bought them all up whilst working full time. He is very protective of his children and checked out my son before he was allowed to go out with Katrianna when she was 18 in case he was a local drunk or into drug's. Obviously Katrianna passed the test and her dad gave Owen his blessings when they got married.

Holy moly, that Helix looks pristine.

I don't think I've ever seen a Helix in Europe. Not a scoot I'd own as I prefer upright riding position but those who have all seem to love them.

It really was! Though I think they made them all the way up to 2007. Still, someone took good care of it!

Yeah, 2007 or even 2008, at least for the US. I can't recall exactly, but it might have been offered a few years longer elsewhere. It's easy to keep a Helix in good shape, but I'm still super impressed just seeing the outsides of that one in that condition. The plastics do start to deteriorate after a while. You can still get the vast majority of parts new from Honda, last I checked.

That green thing saying "Ponny" or so, can't read it. What is that? Never seen anything like that.

They made them up to 2010. I know someone who broke down and bought a new one that year after waiting on the "perfect" used deal.

Some more scooters of Porto, mostly Vespas:

Not Porto, but a city to the North called Braga. This scooter dealer doesn't look like it cleared the trees.

Beautiful pictures Jess. It doesn't even compare to Lisbon. I mean a lot fewer scooters in Lisbon