See Rome first, then die – column

The livelihoods of the inhabitants of Rome are the ruins, Italian ice and money. The ruins were already there. The ice they make there and at that moment. The money is landed in the pockets of tourists. Many of them are high school students on a trip to Rome and Asians. The Romanesque traffic stands out because of the 101% occupancy rate of the public roads. The approach is that if something can be done, you will do it. Immediately and without hesitation. The rest of the traffic reacts sharply to this. While they honk madly. That again.

That 'do or die' approach applies to coaches, cars and the billions, mostly Chinese and Japanese, swarming scooters. We didn't see many real Vespas. The first impression is that the scooteristi all ride blindfolded and have a spastic throttle. So left and right you see crashed scooters and plastic sheeting remnants of them. You can hear sirens constantly in the background. Maybe police. More likely ambulances.

And guess what?

As a tourist in Rome you can simply rent a scooter to experience it all for yourself! Intuitively, this resembles renting a Kalashnikov during an organized trip to Uruzgan. At the scooter repair shop opposite our hotel, the rental action turned out to be much cheaper than through normal rental. The two blocks to the main road were enough to get used to the scoot. After that, the world turned into a daze of just turning right in and accelerating. Near-death experiences lose a lot of their charm if you have five a minute. The other traffic turned into a vague cloud of shapes, colors and horns and the megalomaniac howl of ambulance sirens.

Seeing Rome first and then dying came very close

Since the ride was the goal, it didn't matter what the course was. After an hour, a one-hour CPR stop in a quiet side street was required to bring blood pressure and pulse back below Olympic level. A thermometer cheered that it was 30 degrees. It felt warmer.

Behind a fence to the right of the terrace we saw a motorcycle

A Honda CB 175 from the 1965s. Completely ZGAN minus a mirror and a flashing light. And with twenty years of dust on it. When someone came out of the gate, we dove in. We used all the loose receipts and papers from a purse from a lady's purse to folder all the mailboxes with our email address. To leave the portal again we needed someone with the keys to the gate. The way back by TomTom was just as amazing as the way out. We told the garage owner our experiences. “Ah, uno Honda the 175?”. He still had that one too. But that was a Black Bomber. It was bought immediately. The email response about the CB XNUMX came two weeks later.

We'll be back soon to pick up the new acquisitions. By car.

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