After 20 galleries for a total of 1004 photos, the Vespatour 2006 went even live on the radio!
On Tuesday, April 30, together with Melly and Marti, speakers of the feature New Generation on Radio Codogno, and DJ Giancarlo, we talked about the solo journey around Italy I did on August 2006 riding my Vespa.
I love the radio as a communication medium, since it leaves a lot to the listener’s imagination, and in this case the challenge was making interesting an experience that I mainly reported through photos until now.
I think the number of questions and answers about the most curious elements of the journey, as well as the phone calls with Marco and Valentina, two friends I met during the stops in Tuscany, made the show pretty dynamic and interactive.
There were even some funny moments, thanks to the two brilliant speakers, and special touches such as broadcasting songs best suited to the main stops of the journey.
It was my first time on the radio, and that didn’t make things too easy for me, but I won’t tell you anything else, download the recording of the 1-hour show and enjoy listening it, ooh-yeah!

What’s beyond the hedge of the infinity?
The hedge “that excludes the greater part of my view of the farthest horizon“, as wrote Leopardi in his immortal poem, The Infinity.
The end of a journey? The beginning of another one?
For me it was just like that: on August 31, 2006, in Recanati, the last stop of the journey on my Vespa that reserved for me never ending emotions and surprises, I climbed the hill of the infinity, where is located the native house of Leopardi, and accompanied by a kind guide from the Centro Nazionale di Studi Leopardiani, I reached the hedge and… looked beyond it!
The quiet panorama beyond the hedge, with Monti Sibillini in the background, mixed with what eyes couldn’t see: the avalanche of sensations I felt along the journey and the uncertainty of the future that was waiting for me once back in Como.
Three years later I almost feel like being there again, thanks to the photo of the hedge I always keep on my desk.
The 52 photos of the twentieth gallery are dedicated to the last stop of the journey, between Loreto and Recanati, with the last one shot in Rimini before going back to Como.
I hope that through the report of the Vespatour 2006 I managed to give back a bit of the pleasure of traveling while discovering new people and things.
It’s also my Thank You to whom recommended me where to go before leaving, whom welcomed and helped me during the journey and whom, after reading the report on the blog, is willing to visit the wonderful places I described.
Bon Voyage!

My relatives from Bisceglie are deeply devoted to Padre Pio and they told me a lot about San Giovanni Rotondo.
So, on August 28, 2006, I went there with my Vespa to visit that holy place so important for all the devoted to the brother from Pietrelcina.
It was an important stop even for me, especially after having been in Assisi and at the Eremo delle Carceri of San Francesco a few days earlier, the other brother great example of humility.
Deep thinking and meditation are the words I could associate with my visit to the places where Padre Pio lived and received the stigmates, now valorized by the modern church designed by Renzo Piano.
After the visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, before going back to Bisceglie, I went to the beach in Vieste on the splendid Gargano coast.
When I was a kid I used to spend the summer holidays there, in a camping with my family, and there I learned to swim!
The 53 photos of the nineteen gallery describe the last two days in Apulia.
On August 30 I was going to leave from Bisceglie to the last stop of the Vespatour: Recanati, searching for the hedge of the infinity!

To the seaside, at last!
After 21 days of traveling at close stops, riding my Vespa for a total of 3000 kilometers, a week to the seaside in Apulia was the closing panacea of the Vespatour 2006.
I needed to rest not only physically, but also mentally, since during those 21 days I stared for the first time at some of the artistic marvels that Italy preserves, and for each one of them the emotion was deeply intense.
Using an effective metaphor: I got drunk with culture!
The welcome of my relatives in Bisceglie, in the province of Bari, has been special to say the least: for a few days they made me feel like a member of their family, they accompanied me on my visit to the town and its surroundings, and most of all they made me taste their culinary specialities. One day meat and the other fish: nothing was missing on our table at all!
During those days of relax at seaside, together with Nicola, I visited the misterious Castel del Monte, a strategic observation point of Frederick II, now depicted even on the 1 cent italian Euro coins.
To the castle, the welcome of my relatives and the seaside of Bisceglie, are dedicated the 41 photos of the eighteen gallery of the journey.

A garden extending for 3 kilometers, with an incredible sight both towards the hill and the royal palace!
The Royal Palace of Caserta really surprised me and I think that I definitely did a good choice stopping there in the morning of 23 August 2006, while I was traveling from Rome to Bisceglie, in Puglia, where I was going to spend a few days at the seaside to rest a bit after the long journey around Italy riding my Vespa.
The 54 photos of the seventeenth gallery are entirely dedicated to the Royal Palace of Caserta, to the sumptuousness of the royal apartments, visited while listening to an audioguide, and most of all to the marvellous garden and its fountains, a complex built by Carlo III di Borbone with the aim to rival with the magnificence of the Royal Palace of Versailles.
I’ve never had the chance to visit Versailles yet, but I think the astonishment I felt in Caserta will stand steady in my memories when I’ll do that. Who knows, maybe in the next Vespatour…

Staring at the magnificence of the Sistine Chapel has been another of those so intense moments of the Vespatour 2006 that it’s impossible for words or pictures to describe it.
In particular I wanted to see the “hand of the creation” that, stylized by an artist friend of mine, I had chosen as logo for my blog.
Vatican Museums really deserve a visit, and the Sistine Chapel is the last stop of the long visit route, the apex of the wonders exhibited, as depicted in the sixteen photo gallery.
During the three days spent in Rome I couldn’t miss a romanesque-style funny evening devoted to the local cuisine: on August 21, together with Stefano, a Vespa fan who came to Rome from Como by train, I went to Ariccia, in the Castelli Romani area. The laughs and the juicy “porchetta scrocchiarella” (pork roast) of the “fraschette” (outdoor inns) have remained among the silliest things we did until now!
The stop in Rome couldn’t be complete without a photo in front of the Colosseum, shot by a passing girl wearing a t-shirt with “Monnalisa” written on it… thanks Monnalisa!
The next stop, on August 23, was going to be the Royal Palace of Caserta.

They say that all roads lead to Rome, and that’s what happened for my
Vespatour 2006, the solo journey on my Vespa I did in the summer of 2006.
After a long pause, the photo report of the journey continues with a three days stop in Rome, walking along the streets of the italian capital discovering historical places and staring at the most famous monuments lighted up by the August sun.
In a couple of days I walked among the “sacred monsters” of the Eternal City: from Piazza San Pietro to Villa Borghese, from Piazza Navona to Piazza di Spagna, from the Pantheon to the Trevi Fountain: memories so strongly impressed in my mind that I feel like being there again while browsing the 56 photos of the fifteen gallery, now almost 3 years later!
Still a few stops and the photo report of my Vespatour 2006 will be completed.

When I was in Toronto five weeks ago I didn’t miss the opportunity to go and see the Niagara Falls. This recalled me the impressive sight of the Marmore Falls I stared at last year during my Vespatour 2006.
On August 19th, after the visit to Assisi, my solo journey continued towards Rome, while discovering some of the Umbria’s beauties along the way. I visited Norcia, the town of San Benedetto, a place widely known for its sausages and ham made from wild boar and pork, and I spent the night in Melezzole di Montecchio, in the bed&breakfast section of the regal Palazzo degli Anselmi, where I met Paolo and Samantha, the friends who later produced the contents for i-muse™.
Actually I had the privilege to be the first guest of the bed&breakfast owned by Samantha’s parents.
Rested and restored, the following day I continued the journey on my Vespa and I spent the morning by breathing the fresh air surrounding the Marmore Falls area, the natural wonder I already wrote about on the blog.
Here you have the 51 photos of the fourteenth gallery of my Vespatour 2006.
As with each gallery the pictures are geolocalized, which means you just have to click on the map this! button in order to see their position on Google Maps.

Being able to see with my eyes the knight with the bowed head was actually one of the reasons which made me stop in Assisi for a couple of nights during my Vespatour 2006.
My Italian literature professor at Lyceum often talked about Assisi, San Francesco and his conversion from a venture soldier to a humble monk.
The sculpture placed in the area in from of the beautiful Basilica Superiore of Assisi symbolizes this conversion.
Not too far from there, the Eremo delle Carceri is a place where you can breathe the spirituality of the Franciscan lifestyle in every corner, from the openings in the surrounding woods where the monks used to gather and pray, to the cells where they rested.
At the Eremo I met a kind monk who told me “you walked a long way, I can see it!”, he showed me the ancient refectory and then he told me another thing, a sort of a compliment, a sentence I can’t forget and that I prefer keeping for myself until I’ll write the travel book about my Vespatour.
Here you can see the 45 pictures of the thirteen gallery of the Vespatour 2006.

I was in Cortona in the evening of August 16, the eighth leg of my Vespatour 2006, and while I was talking with a guy I met at the hostel he recommended me to visit Arezzo, a place I didn’t plan to visit.
When he told me that they filmed my favorite movie there, Life is beautiful by Benigni, and that there were panels marking the places where they filmed the scenes, I had no more hesitations and I spent the following day in that magic town.
The first picture shows Piazza Grande in which maybe someone will recognize the window of the famous scene “Maria, throw down the keys!”.
The second one is where Guido (Benigni) hit Dora (Braschi) while he was going by bicycle and then he greet her with the famous sentence “Buongiorno Principessa!“, while the third one is the park near the Cathedral where I rested for some time to write a postcard, the second of the only two ones I sent during the journey, a postcard beginning with that sentence since it was for a very special girl.
The other 70 pictures of the day I spent in Arezzo are in the twelfth gallery of the Vespatour 2006.

     

PS: On that postcard I marked down the wrong window in Piazza Grande. I did notice that when I was back home and watched “Life is beautiful” again…