TheScooterScoop

Here’s a nice long piece from a UK paper that’ll give you a taste of an Italian Scooter Travel Tour. If you got fiddy Benjies burning a hole in yer pocket, you should check it out. Sounds like a hoot! Click the title link to read the whole story.

The Observer | Travel | Tuscany on two wheels: “‘Riding a Vespa, you’re not just travelling through the scene as you would be in a hire car, you’re part of it,’ says Brett Naisby, boss of Scooter Bella, whose guided Vespa tours we’ve come to trial before they begin for real next month. What’s amazing, given the popularity of Tuscany, is that scooter tours aren’t offered by every hotel and travel company. Until now there’s been only one firm running them, an American company that markets them to the folks back home at more than $5,000 a week.

Brett’s a Canadian, but his Mr Benn moment has been going on for more than a decade and by now he’s gone so native he shows annoyance by pursing his lips, raising his hand and pressing thumb against second finger. Since 1994 he’s been living in Tuscany, running Customwalks, a cycling and walking specialist, and this summer is branching out into Vespas for the first time. His idea is not to traverse the region staying at different places each night, but to have one base in the heart of the Chianti hills, and from there to pootle about on little-known backroads like a local.

Each day the scooter rides and the liberal doses of epic scenery that come with them are broken up with activities like wine tastings, cookery classes, a look round a traditional ceramics studio, or a talk from a top winemaker delivered sitting amongst his vines.”