Lucca is a town of magic!
On August 10, 2006, when I visited it for the first time, fifth leg of my solo Vespatour, I immediately felt at ease, almost safe, protected by the 4 Km long wall surrounding it since centuries.
I appreciated it thanks to the visit around the town with the audioguide: the walk upon the walls, the towers with the roof-gardens, the wonderful churches, the oval square, the historical locals, the elegant Ostello San Frediano, the delicious Tuscan slang and a detail representing the style and the harmony of this Italian gem: the manholes shaped like the walls perimeter!
I think could live there and I’ll get back in Lucca for sure to be able to see it from the top of the Guinigi Tower, something I didn’t get the chance to do.
I hope the photos of the sixth gallery of the Vespatour will give you back some of the Lucca’s magic.
Enjoy the photos!

Every time I look at the photos of my Vespatour I feel much better!
It maybe due to spring or to the fact I’m finally riding my Vespa back again after the three weeks of the exhibition at the Iper of Grandate, but I have to say that I began thinking about the next tour.
Being able to watch the places I visited thanks to Google maps so that I can geolocalize every photo gives me a different perspective on what I’ve seen riding around Italy assisted by the GPS navigator.
The exhibition at the Iper was a success. On last Saturday the commercial director awarded the Vespa Club Como with a plate to celebrate the event.
The fifth gallery of the tour is now online: from Monterosso al Mare in the Cinque Terre to Marina di Massa and Colonnata, where I discovered the delicious Cioccolardini.
Enjoy the photos… and the chocolate!

The third and fourth galleries of my Vespatour 2006, one hundred photos I shot during the two days I spent in Genoa on August 6 and 7, are online.
During those two days I walked around the city, its Alleys, the Ancient Port and I visited the civic museum of natural history and the aquarium.
I also spent an evening in Rapallo and had a dinner in Chiavari with a couple of ex-colleagues from Trecision, the videogames development company I worked for in the past.
Someone even told me that looking at the photos of the tour made him wish to go on holiday: it’s a good sign I think, but only if you take into consideration that traveling shouldn’t be just escaping from ordinary life, but actually discovering and learning new things.
The exhibition of the 10 Vespas at the Iper of Grandate is doing great. On Saturday April 7 there will be the final phase of the contest and someone even asked if the Vespas are on sale…
Enjoy the photos from Genoa!

I uploaded the second gallery of the solo tour around Italy on my Vespa GTS, 60 photos shot walking among the most beautiful places of Turin on August 4 2006.
In the meantime the exhibition of the 10 Vespas at the Iper of Grandate is doing pretty well, people stop reading the descriptions out of curiosity.
Here you have the photos, everyone with its caption, georeferenced on Google Maps and with the possibility to rate it or even to leave a comment!

The chance has been really unexpected: the Vespa Club Como has been invited to exhibit 10 Vespas belonging to members of the club at the shopping mall Iper of Grandate in the province of Como.
Vespas going from 1957 to nowadays and… there’s even my Vespa under the big I!
For three weeks, up until Easter, my Vespa GTS 250 i.e. will be there with the graphics you can see here, made to explain the tour around Italy I did riding her on last summer.
The windshield is a bit scratched, but it’s the one I did the tour with, my sail actually, so I didn’t replace it.
The first part of the photo gallery related to the tour, 53 photos from Milan to Turin, is already online, while the rest will be up during the next days. It’ll be hard don’t be able to ride my Vespa for three weeks, but I think it will be worth the hassle.
I’d like to invite you to watch the photos of the tour, everyone has something to tell, and also they are georeferenced, this means you can see where I shot the photo thanks to Google Maps simply by clicking on the link Map This!
Along with the exhibition the Iper staff organized a nice Easter contest and the prizes are the new Vespas LX 50 and a huge chocolate egg.
You definitely should get there to have a look!

Do you remember Giacomo Leopardi’s poem The Infinity: “Ever dear to me was this lonely hill”?
Well, that in the picture is actually the famous hedge on top of the hill!
It’s the hedge, “that excludes the greater part of my view of the farthest horizon“, illuminated by the sun in August and with the brick wall partially covering the view towards the Sibillini’s mountains.
Last summer in Recanati, the last step of my Vespatour around Italy, I had the unexpected chance to climb upon the top of the hill which inspired Leopardi’s masterpiece, something made possible only since 2003 thanks to the Centro Nazionale di Studi Leopardiani.
The picture is now on my office desk, it’s a suggestion to look beyond and to ask myself what that hedge is hiding, what surprises the future holds for me.
I even shot what you can see behind the hedge and I’ll put that picture online in the Vespatour’s gallery I’m setting up.
Every now and then I shift my eyes from the monitor, I get lost in my thoughts while gazing at the photo and I naturally recall the Leopardi’s writings: “and sweet is the shipwreck in such a sea“…
It really helps having a pleasant and comfortable working environment with little important things such as this!

A as Avventura (adventure), B as Bagaglio (luggage), C as Cibo (food), D as Donna (Woman).. and so on till the last letter of the alphabet.
This is the original layout of the book by Anna Maspero, a traveler living in Como who turned into words her numerous adventures around the world.
A book which captured me for the many hints of reflection about the essence of traveling, which is the metaphor of the life, as Anna says. I read it while I was still elaborating mentally the events of the intense journey I did last summer on my Vespa around Italy, so it has been very useful for me.
I met Anna at the presentation of the book at the local library in Como organized in collaboration with the staff of Il Sole since the earnings of the book were going to be employed for the project Reborning Flowers.
Anna writes we travel “to escape from the routine, but even as habit; for pleasure as to live new experiences and emotions; to follow a dream and to forget an broken love affair; to learn or simply for a wish of freedom; for the joy to leave and for getting back.”
Well, there actually has been all of this in my solo Vespatour.
“For Davide, have a good road!” she wrote as dedication on my copy of her book.
It has been so and it will be again, thanks Anna!

For each month in 2007 a Vespa and the smiling face of one of the Vespa Club Como members’ sons: it’s the result of the nice photomontage chosen as theme for the club’s 2007 calendar which I’m now showing both at home and in the office.
Really a good job made by Brunella, supervised by Marco and Dario.
My favorites are January and August since they chose child with a pretty peculiar look.
The calendar is still available at the newsstand Cesana in Via Anzani in Como. An original calendar, especially for Vespa fans.
The Vespa Club Como, of which I recently become a member, is very active and with a lots of initiatives for 2007 so such a calendar is certainly a good wish!

Taking advantage of a couple of spring-like days to say the least, last week I went to Mantua on my Vespa where I’m attending a course by Regione Lombardia, the Saturn Project - support for the enterprise planet, aimed to support new entrepreneurial activities.
The course is intensive and well organized by the Centro Studi Castelli’s consultants. I’m appreciating the very practical setting and the direct application of the concepts to the entrepreneurial ideas of the twelve people attending it.
A really useful course for the administrative management of our i-muse™ project.
Since I had two contiguous days for the course I decided to sleep at the Ostello del Mincio, a really pleasant place and with the best website among the others of the Hostels in which I slept this summer during the Vespatour.
On Friday morning after visiting the exhibition devoted to Mantegna in Palazzo Te I had a walk in the Mantua’s historic center and now I put online a photo gallery with the title: La Vespa sul Mincio.

The Romans had a pretty deep knowledge about the research for the harmony between mind and body to keep ourselves in shape and feeling active and lively. So why don’t try listening to our wise ancestors?
I was really missing this kind of harmony, but since I tried going to the gym to put back in shape my back aching due to long hours spent working with the PC I finally understood the true meaning of that phrase.
Recently it has been thanks to the Palestra 100 that I realized how much a pleasant environment can make the physical training even more pleasant.
The three months I spent there before leaving for the Vespatour have been really invaluable to engage in such an intensive and often tiring journey.
Because of this I’d like to thank the people who made the experience at the gym so pleasant. From Angelo Sguazzero, the director, a former hundred meter runner and athletic trainer in some Serie A Italian football teams, who with his interest for psychology applied to physical training really surprised me about things very few trainers even take into consideration.
Also thanks to his daughter Silvia, a former dance champion, and to Elisa I learned to do stretching by breathing correctly, something that has now become a good early morning habit. Not to speak about the other trainers and the fantastic SPA (Salus per aquam) area, a real relax paradise. If the hydromassage, the sauna and the turkish bath are not enough, there are Veronica e Tania, the two massagers able to make your back melt!
It’s not the cheapest gym in Como at all but it’s really worth its cost in my opinion.
These aren’t words written for convenience or hidden purposes, this is actually an appreciation for a place where I find myself at ease, so I’ll be happy if this post will be useful in promoting the gym.
I sent them one of the only two postcards (the other one is a bit more personal) I wrote and sent during the Vespatour to thank them for making me understand what actually means Mens sana in corpore sano.