Tuscan Loop - Museo Piaggio

We pulled into the driveway entrance of the massive Piaggio plant where our Vespas first saw the light of day. To a Vespa owner it's a little like the promised land.

We parked the bikes to the left of the entrance and prepared to tour the museum.

There was already one Vespa parked there which explains the four bikes, if you were expecting to see only three. We met the owner when we were getting ready to leave. She was a young German lady. Imagine her surprise when Sonja and Roland introduced themselves to her.

The thing that struck me most was how quiet the plant was for a weekday. I didn't expect to hear a 19th century cacaphony of hammers pounding metal amid showers of sparks, but I've seen more evidence of industry in the average hospital or even funeral home.

Entrance to the museum is free. And unattended. The only soul to be seen was the cashier in the museum gift shop. She was quiet and demure, to the point perhaps of seeming to be bereft of enthusiasm.

I didn't expect to be greeted by a delegation of Piaggio executives, much less to be offered some free Vespa swag. But hey, Sonja Mager and I are serious Vespa bloggers. We are volunteer ambassadors for the brand. Ken Wilson, Steve Williams, Dave Dixon, Orin O'Neill, Peter Sanderson, Bill Leuthold and others, are assets that Piaggio should at least acknowledge. And yet Piaggio seems officially and unofficially oblivious to the exposure we bloggers and ModernVespa.com forum participants lavish on their products.  I guess they don't get social media.  What they should be doing is monitoring the web and social media sites so that they know how the brand is faring for better or for worse.  They should know who their brand ambassadors are.

It's certainly true that the praise and devotion for the Vespa brand are well earned. But it seems to me that if I were the marketing manager for the brand, I'd make sure I had someone greeting visitors at the museum and finding out who they are.

When bloggers and serious brand ambassadors come calling at the museum, I'd find a moment or two to chew the fat, express some appreciation, and make them feel welcome. "Welcome to the Museo Piaggio! Where are you from? Do you own a Vespa or other Piaggio motorbike? If you care to, please sign in on our visitor guestbook."

Piaggio may own the rights to an icon, but that's where the story begins and ends. They built a decent museum and I guess they figure that's enough.

Anyone who questions whether Vespas have earned the top spot as the world's most iconic motorbikes will find all the convincing they may need at the Museo Piaggio.

I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking for a change.

As you can see I was drawn to the arty aspects of the experience.

Sonja and Roland on the other hand did a better job of revealing the museum and its collection. The following pictures are theirs.

 

You've come this far, and I know you are expecting this to be the end of the Tuscan Loop.

Geographically you'd be right, but there's still a little more virtual ink to be spilled before the Tuscan Loop can be considered officially closed.

Tuscan Loop - The Return

The return towards Pontedera to the northwest eventually took us out of wine and olive country to the river Arno valley bordered by Florence to the east and Pontedera and Pisa to the west.

While there were still plenty of twisties left to enjoy, I hailed Sonja on the intercom and suggested she pass me. I had my GoPro mounted on a RAM mount on the right mirror stem. Recording two bikes making their way comes closer to offering a glimpse of our experience on the Tuscan Loop.

My one regret was not having recorded more footage.  At one point earlier in the day I had neglected to switch the GoPro WiFi backpack off and its minuscule battery had depleted itself and a good bit of the camera battery too. I was able later in the day to record these segments because Bob very thoughtfully saved the day months before by giving me a Tenergy dual USB rechargeable battery pack.  With that I was able to plug in both GoPro components as long as they rode in the storage compartment.

A better solution would have been to have had the GoPro skeleton case and I would have been able to both charge and record. Sadly it seems now to be unobtainable for my Hero2 model.


The ride back to Pontedera was otherwise uneventful.  As much fun as riding the twisties is, it's also nice to be able to relax a little and just enjoy riding.

It was a nice ride back to Pontedera.  Just perfect, the way I had imagined it would be.

Up next: we visit the Museo Piaggio.  For legions of Vespa owners and lovers it's the shrine where the magic began, the birthplace of an icon, like Graceland for Elvis fans, Vegas for batchelor party animals, and Cannes and Hollywood combined for movie buffs.

Tuscan Loop - San Gimignano

The way to San Gimignano was as twisted, narrow and convoluted as any I have travelled. Susan and I, Andrew and Anuschka, Lauren, Jonathan and Vicky, had travelled in these parts just a few days before to get to Siena.

My skills were improving, but there was still little joy and much concentration to be found in those left hand sweepers.

The road began rising once more, twisting as it rose.

Roland spotted a secondary road veering left off the main road. We were in no hurry, and exploring was the order of the day. Off we went.

A fellow rider on a sport bike who had overtaken us impatiently, and in my estimation to his peril, fifteen or twenty minutes earlier, now swept by us in the opposite direction. I imagined he must be a courier and had made his delivery somewhere up the road. It turned out to be a clue and its significance was entirely lost on us until a little later on.

The sun shone brightly high overhead leaving few shadows and flattening the landscape. We rode at a moderate pace, swooping up, then down, left then right, with the road all to ourselves. Fields undulated with the road interspersed with olive groves and vineyards, farmhouses and isolated woodlots. The cypress trees stood like sentries here and there punctuating the landscape and making sure we didn't mistake the surroundings for anything but Tuscan countryside.

And then the dream ended. Rather the road ended. Well, it didn't actually end. We could have easily by-passed the unmanned road block and continued along. But for how long? Would we come to an eventual impasse? We confered on the intercom. We left it up to Roland. He thought about it out loud, weighing the explorer's thirst for adventure against the potential annoyance of having to undo the digression even more than would be the case if we turned around now.

With the slightest tinge of regret that drifted momentarily across his face, Roland made the U-turn and we headed back to the main road. The failed serendipity of the alternate bucolic route was well tempered, in fact entirely mitigated, by the obvious conclusion that the road was every bit as much fun to ride in reverse as it was on the way in. Somewhere along the way it dawned on me that Mr. Sportbiker had regretfully come to the same conclusion. We never crossed paths again. As I mentioned earlier, he was a clue, and we were clueless.

Somewhere between the roadblock and our return to the main road a snake made a mad squiggly dash across the road, about fifteen feet ahead of Roland's Vespa. That was a first for me, and I think a first for Roland. Certainly something you don't see every day. Roland came through on the intercom "did you see the snake??".

I'd say that snake was a good three-and-a-half or four feet long, and as black as the Ace of Spades. Skinny too. I'm guessing it was a nasty character with a mean disposition and irritable to boot. It made me think twice about how casually I had lain back in the tall grass to snap that shot outside of Volterra.

All thought of that incident melted away as we approached San Gimignano. I fear that words will fail to convey the wonder of that town. Don't bother heading to Google street view. Sure you'll find it allright, and yes you can stroll its street to your heart's content in the virtual world. I know, because I did that very thing in the weeks before our trip. But that experience pales beside the actual experience.

Once more we found the moto parking and stabled the bikes.

Sonja took charge of storming the town and led us up, and up, and up, until we found a path into the fortress. I'm not sure who was huffing and puffing most, but it wasn't Sonja. I believe that Roland and I were tied in the out-of-breath department.  The reward for the exertion was a terrace with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.

We continued to explore the town, following our noses as tourists are wont to do.

One of the remarkable things about this ancient walled city, is that it is very much alive and lived in.

Along its narrow streets are doors.  Some of those doors allowed tantalizing glimpses of beautiful gardens, and of the residence beyond.  I can't even imagine what it would be like to live here.

Not too long after taking the citadel by storm, and roaming its streets we stumbled on the world's best (if self-proclaimed) gelateria, serving what could be the world's best gelato. As fate would have it, we three were ripe for gelato. It was sorely needed to replace all the calories lost in the climb.

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

And so it was that we parked our butts on a convenient bench and watched the never-ending stream of tourists coming and going, parading to and fro in the early afternoon sun.

Gelato only lasts so long. Once you're done, you're done. Time to move on.

We made our way to the centre of town. Roland explained that San Gimignano is a town of towers. Competing families expressed their lofty positions of power in the citadel's hierarchy by building massive towers, that, well, towered over the city, more or less the way the family towered over the town in the social and political sense. A crude message yet no doubt an effective one in the days hundreds of years before social media.

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

While we busied ourselves trying to fit the towers into the viewfinders of our cameras, I spotted a truck perched at the top of a flight of stairs. It lurched forward. No... you're kidding... you can't get here from there I thought. But no, in Italy I guess you can drive a truck down a flight of stairs.

Actually, technically, it wasn't a flight of stairs, more of a ramp with stone ridges, but let me tell you, it sure looked strange.

Having explored San Gimignano as thoroughly as we were enclined to do, having seen its treasure trove of baubles and do-dads for tourists, it was time to head for the bikes.

Thankfully we didn't need to climb up to the bikes. The law of averages is kind that way. We had gone up, strolled down, so that was it. It was a pleasant walk to the motorcycle parking.

On the way out of town, we climbed a hill and Roland pulled over for the quintessential Tuscan photo op: riders with the town of San Gimignano in the distance as a backdrop.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Copyright Roland Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

And so we moved on. We had strayed as far from Pontedera as our agenda allowed. We had a date with the Museo Piaggio. The holy grail for Vespa owners the world over.

Stay tuned. There's more of the Tuscan Loop to come.

Tuscan Loop - Volterra

Al Gravola (Aviator47 on ModernVespa) was incredibly helpful and made a significant contribution to the planning for the Tuscan Loop.  Al and his wife used to live in the Pacific Northwest, but retired in the Greek Islands.  Avid scooterists, Al and his wife organize scooter tours of Tuscany and Provence as a hobby.  I had found Noleggio Moto Toscana on my own, but had no clue if they were a reputable rental outlet.  I know based on reviews on Trip Advisor for instance that Bici & Baci in Rome which looks like a great place to rent Vespas in Rome, has some serious reputation issues.

When I checked out the shop on Google street view, it looked a little sketchy to me.

I reached out to Al for advice.  He came through in a big way.  First off he confirmed that Noleggio Moto Toscana was the preferred scooter rental supplier for the Tuscan tours they organize.  He also introduced me to Roberto.

Al also very kindly suggested a moto tour looping route: the Tuscan Loop.

The first major stop on that Tuscan Loop is...

The starting point, Pontedera, is the opposite of Volterra and is not at all a tourist town. It's pretty much like every mid-sized town in America, with recently built residential and commercial properties, and thoroughfares that are paved with asphalt and reasonably wide. From a tourist's perspective it's not much to look at.

Roland, yours truly, and Sonja, in that order, with Roland leading the way and Sonja riding sweep, made our way out from Pontedera and south in the direction of Volterra, following the route that Al suggested.

Along the way we encountered roundabouts (in Montreal we call them traffic circles, and they are the exception in Canada rather than the rule).  Along our route there were too many roundabouts to count. I now consider myself semi-expert in the ways of roundabouts.

I have to say I'm a fan, but the Garmin GPS we used on our road trip in the rented car was not nearly as good at roundabouts as I am. "Enter roundabout and take the third exit." Sounds simple when you hear it, no? Counting to no more than three, maybe four, is a skill I pretty much mastered in grade two. Maybe grade three, tops. Brittany, our Garmin gal, must have gone to a different school.

From time to time she had to resort to "re-calculating". Sometimes she did this mere meters from the roundabout. Sometimes, even more irritatingly, she had to re-count within fifty meters of a fork in the road, where manifestly there were only two choices. At least in a roundabout I could just keep going round and round in the circle until I figured out the right exit all by my lonesome. Brittany in a similar fix, just stubbornly stuck to her original inaccurate guess, gleefully sending us off in the wrong direction. She figured she could always take her time recalculating later. After all, if we were on vacation and more laid back than usual, why shouldn't she be relaxed about the trip too?

Roland had no such issues. Following Roland was as reliable as the day is long. He had a TomTom. But I'm convinced it's Roland, not the GPS. Roland is just a damn fine navigator of Italian roundabouts. And that's that.

As the town yielded to the countryside, the straight roads yielded to twists and turns. I now firmly believe that Italian civil engineers are incapable of going from A to B, or Volterra to San Gimignano, in anything resembling a straight line. In any dimension.

We travelled left, we went right, up we went and down we went. Sometimes very nearly in circles. We traced corkscrews, figure twos, sometimes figure nines. Taking into account differences in elevation, I am reasonably sure we also traced figure eights.

None of this happened slowly. The prevailing speed limit was fifty kilometers an hour. By my estimation we pretty much always went faster than the government intended. Positioned on the road between the two Vespas, I felt like a learner.

And I was.

I had never ridden 'twisties' like this before. Well perhaps once and very briefly last summer in New Hampshire while riding through a notch behind a couple of motorcycles. But in all honesty, that was, as they say these days, a fail. And this day in Tuscany I was struggling as well.

I'm not entirely to blame. I countersteer pretty well. I understand the principle, and the practice. But my Vespa, like Sonja's Vespa, suffers from a significant disability. Left turns are a huge psychological challenge. It's all the fault of the cursed Vespa side stand. On a good left hand sweeper, that @#%?% side-stand does its level best to scrape a furrow in the asphalt. If it sounds terrible, and trust me it does, it feels even worse, and the mental image it conjurs of the bike vaulting off the side stand into a high side spill, is psychological torture.

I knew I was riding what is quite possibly, outside of the moto grand prix circuit, the most stable motorbike ever built. I knew the MP3 can out-lean most motorbikes. I had seen the videos on YouTube of MP3s in the Los Angeles canyons heeled way over with showers of sparks trailing from the centre stand. But Pavlov and his susceptible hound had had their way with me. Curses.

On the right-hand sweepers I was countersteering with brio and leaning just right, following Roland's impeccable line with assurance. On the lefties (how ironic for a southpaw), the Vespa side-stand-o-phobia got the better of me. Looking in my left mirror, I could see Sonja's side stand and the narrow sliver of daylight between the stand and the asphalt dwindling away. Her sidestand was psychicly grafting itself onto my MP3 and it was taking a lot of conscious effort to shake the feeling as it sapped my confidence in left-handers. I guess they call them sinistras in Italy for a reason. Yikes.

Some of my left sweeps went wayward, taking me into the left hand lane like a rookie. I had discussed my sidestand issues with Sonja back at the shop in Pontedera. She candidly offered that she hated her sidestand for it, and admitted to cringing when the bad scrapes rattled the bike. But Sonja is a seasoned rider with years of experience earned since before her time in Canada. I am not.

Still, I did my best to earn my keep. At one point, after a decent section of tight S turns, Sonja hit the intercom and remarked that my line in that series was near perfect. Coming from Sonja, it meant the world to me. Roland offered similar words of encouragement. He said that the MP3 looked amazing leaning deeply into the turns. With fellow riders as gracious as Sonja and Roland, any moto tour would be memorable, with or without the unending moutainous twisties.

This tour was nevertheless heaven on two wheels.

A sharp right turn at a T in the road followed by a series of climbing twisties brought us to the ancient walled city of Volterra.

Remarkably, Italians allow motor vehicles right into the heart of these patrimonial treasures. Riding through the massive midieval city gate, and cruising sedately through the narrow passages, I felt like we were crusading knights on trusted steeds. The visor on my helmet raised, I surveyed the town with what I imagined to be a knight's noble gaze from the saddle of my MP3.

Roland found the dedicated motorcycle parking and we parked as the rules suggested we should. Roland is characteristically Teutonic in his appreciation of, and respect for, society's rules. They exist for a reason, and they deserve to be heeded. If only he knew what a passionate scofflaw my inner Vespisti is. He might blush.

We strolled Volterra's by-ways, finally settling on a tiny little restaurant. The intriguing feature of the place was the glass floor revealing the structure of foundations from a long ago and otherwise forgotten past. We settled into an outdoor table, and I followed Sonja and Roland's cue, opting for bruschetta and a soft drink. In my case, an order of cheese bruschetta and a fizzy lemonade.

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

I was not disappointed. The bruschetta was broiled to perfection, the ample cheese melted over the four crusty slices of bread, with crisp lacy edges all around. My mouth waters as I write this on the plane to Paris for our connecting flight to Montreal.

We indulged in a relaxed friendly chat, comparing notes on Tuscany, the value of fresh locally sourced ingredients, temporarily forsaken diets, the unsuspected wonders of Vespas as touring vehicles, and the beauty of the Tuscan countryside.

We slowly made our way back to our bikes, saddled up once more, and followed Roland out of Volterra. Roland pulled over so we could record the view of the Tuscan valley spreading out below Volterra.

 

I crossed the road to snap a properly framed shot of our little group. I lay back on the grassy embankment, taking up as little space as I could. A large transport van loomed into view, passing me with what seemed to be inches to spare beyond my toes. There is enough room on these two-lane provincial stradales for two vehicles to pass abreast. Just.

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

Copyright Sonja Mager

We had settled on San Gimignano as the next stop on the journey along the Tuscan Loop.