The Eternal City on Two Wheels
“If I fall off this, would I die?”, I asked Mikele as he weaved in and out of traffic. This wasn’t ordinary day traffic, this was Roman traffic with vespas and cars in competition over who enters into pole position. As another car sweeps in front of us, “Second place is just first loser”, I thought.
Some backstory might help, so this is me recounting my not-so illustrious life on the rear of a Vespa in Italy. I grabbed onto the fabric of Mikele’s shirt. Mikele, the one in the driver’s seat is my driver-cum-tour guide - I do wish I could properly adorn on him a role of more importance since he did however, hold my dear life in his two hands. But I couldn’t, and I was hoping that my constant tugging at him would serve as reminder that I was at his rear. But this wasn’t exactly a drag race that I was participating, I was on a scooter tour that would take me to the depths of the Eternal City.
I have had experiences with walking tours on previous travels. Three-hour walking tours are fun, they are generally educational and light-hearted until my calves would ache at its sides. Leanne was undoubtedly pleased, those blisters would only haunt her in another city. For the next three hours, we were allowed to be lazy and sightsee on two-wheels.
The progression is as such, we would travel to different spots around the Eternal City and get off for a proper narration by our guide. Our first stop was the Baths of Caracalla. After clumsily getting off, I was still fiddling with the helmet for it just wouldn’t fit on my humongous head, but to be fair they felt redundant fifteen minutes in since I was in undoubtedly very safe hands.
On first sight, the Baths of Caracalla looked nothing like it once did, it even ironically pales in comparison with its British counterpart in Bath, on the countrysides of England. The skeletal structure barely remains intact and the mosaic decorations, that were meant to surround it, were all stripped down. But things that happened in the spa weren’t quite the conventional ones people went about doing their hygiene business. Mikele shared that it was one that was for the refining of both body and soul, people entered the spa for a variety of reasons, from intellectual discussions while receiving a massage to reading a book from the spa’s library.
Before our next stop, I casually asked Mikele about the proverb “All roads lead to Rome”, which he enlightened me as truth since all the roads were constructed from the center of Rome to the far out borders, cementing my beliefs. To feed our curiosity, we glided close to the curve of the neat tarmac, only stopping at a road in between two city walls. There were a few cobbled stones gathered along the side, discarded upon the introduction of the modernising tarmac roads. The path that we were on was known as the Appian Way and it was known to be one of the oldest and most important road construction since it connected the great Roman troops to the cities on the outskirts of Rome. Even the construction of roads were designed to specifically fit a marching troop of soldiers for practical purposes. But what was odd was to see the cobbled stones from 312 B.C. finding a place next to a bus stand, where locals and tourists alike look past then step past the dingy large stones to walk on perfectly-lined pathways.
Our next stop brought us to the outskirts of Rome after I implored Mikele to show me a different side to the Eternal City. After speeding away from the busy streets, we got off on the sidewalk to the decadent neighbourhood of Garbatella and its characteristically quaint architecture built in 1912. When placed side by side with the glitzy parts of Rome, the neighbourhood loses its lustre for its decision to stay as authentic as possible and step off the travelator to a modern (and more commercial-like) Rome like the rest of the city.
Garbatella is not for everyone but the little bordered herb gardens, small guzzling fountains and mini squares within each individual estate tickled us fancy for its décor exists on a plane between the Roman Baroque of the city and the traditional English countryside. You could hear mamma yelling out of the window for her dear son to return for lunch after his game of football on the streets, or peek into the windows and you will see Romans living in a temporal past, dangling their hand-washed clothes over the windowsill.
So far something seems to be working since we were working up an appetite sat on a vespa. Even though we weren’t expending much of the pasta we had earlier in the day, we were running on empty fast. Perhaps it was just another excuse to indulge in more suppli and chocolate cannoli, but who’s keeping count, we were on holiday! Taking the recommendation of Mikele who used to reside in the area during his childhood years, we dismounted at one of those old rickety osteria by the corner with an elderly clientele, servers with genuinely warm smiles and a glass enclosure of some of the purest Italian sweets. We swore on an oath to Mikele to keep the place untainted from the loud churns of the tourist buses and we shall hold our end of the bargain by keeping this brief.
Most tours that we have been on are history-rich but none share the colour and the vivacious personality of exploring the city on two wheels. As we strode off on the twisting trails down the seven hills, we were one with the city like we truly belonged as family, no longer eavesdropping on the outside in on the many stories of Rome.
Scooteroma has a number of tours all year round including the Foodie Vespa tour, the Cinema Vespa tour, the Street Art Vespa tour and our personal favourite, the Classic Vespa tour. For more information, chat with the ever-friendly Annie and Giovanni at www.scooteroma.com.
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