Recently, at the Piaggio Museum in Pontedera, Italy, I came across a story of scooters and true passion. We throw the word "passion" around a lot. But there is an intensity to the meaning of the word, an uncontrollable aspect that few of us sustain in our feelings towards inanimate objects.
But the man at the centre of a new exhibit at the Piaggio Museum did experience true passion for a scooter. In fact, once he discovered them, scooters shaped his life. While staying in Indonesia, the story goes, Italian actor and journalist Giorgio Bettinelli was given an old Vespa that made him rethink his notions of journey and freedom. For much of the rest of his life Bettinelli travelled around the world on a scooter. He went through five Vespas on his odysseys; the museum has four of them.
After riding in Indonesia, Bettinelli returned to Italy to plan his first trip. In 2002, he set out from Rome on a white Vespa PX and headed to Saigon travelling over 24,000 kilometres through ten countries including Turkey, Iran, India, Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam.
That distance should have been enough to prove he had passion to just about anyone. But it wasn't enough for him. He went on to do 36,000 kilometres from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego and in the mid-90s he rode from Australia to South Africa, a mere 52,000 kilometres.
Anyone who's ridden a scooter over uneven ground knows how bumpy the journey can be. But after all those kilometres Bettinelli still wasn't saddle sore enough to stop. In 1997 he embarked on a four-year worldwide adventure covering 144,000 kilometres and crossing the equator four times. During that trip he was kidnapped in the Congo, released and then robbed.
But he wasn't done; he set out for one major country he hadn't crossed: China. That's where he settled down, married and died in 2008 at the age of 53. His last scooter remains there.
Bettinelli wrote about his journeys but his books are all in Italian. If your Italian's good enough you can listen to interviews with him on the web. It's a wonder no one has translated his books or made a movie about his life in English; a tale of passion is a tale of passion...even for people who aren't scooter fans. And he looks like an appealing character: tall, lean and tanned.
A video found on Youtube illustrates a bit of Bettinelli's route from Rome to Saigon. (It's interesting to note how few scooters buzzed on the streets of Vietnam in 2002 compared to now. Did he inflame any passions there?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oruCcJZv7Ps
Next time: Parking Italian style: lessons for Toronto
No comments:
Post a Comment