Alberto Colle Conte arrived in Barga Vecchia on his slightly battered green Vespa this afternoon for a meeting with some of the members of the Barga Vespa Club.
As they sat down to a series of well earned beers, he recounted his story of the past few weeks .. Alberto Colle Conte has just ridden round the entire perimeter of mainland Italy and was on the last leg of his nearly 5000 km journey with just the few hundred miles back to his house in San Remo to complete the full circle.
Vespa is an Italian brand of scooter manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian.
The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy to a full line of scooters and one of seven companies today owned by Piaggio.
From their inception, Vespa scooters have been known for their painted, pressed steel unibody which combines a complete cowling for the engine (enclosing the engine mechanism and concealing dirt or grease), a flat floorboard (providing foot protection), and a prominent front fairing (providing wind protection) into a structural unit.
As you can hear in the interview recorded (in Italiano) at Da Aristos, bar in Barga Vecchia he had a few minor problems on the way with a couple of technical difficulties, broken cables and large lorries forcing him to use the very edge of the certain roads in the south but overall he appeared to have had few serious problem on his trip … that is until he arrived on the road to Barga.
He was stopped by the local polizia municipale who wanted to know why his Vespa was so overloaded and his rear back rack sagging.
The polizia municipale are the municipal police of Italy responsible to the mayors of the various municipalities of Italy. Traffic control is their main function in addition to enforcing national, regional and local laws regarding commerce, legal residence, pets and other administrative duties.
For a second it looked as though he was going to be fined but all became smiles when it was discovered that Alberto was here in Barga to visit his cousin – Don Stefano Serafini – the proposto di Barga, the Parish priest … maybe they could send the fine to him ?
No fine and Alberto was waved on his way.