Europe Trip Part 2
While riding with the
MSTCV last Sunday week, some of the smells and scenery reminded me of my trip
overseas. The smells reminded me of Florence and the
countryside reminded me of Scotland. But what
were different were Paris, Venice and Rome.
Venice doesn’t have
roads or motor vehicles, so you can enjoy the slower pace of the water taxis or
for even slower, a gondola. The souvenirs are about three times the price of
ones in Florence, which are
still pricey, but if you want something to remember the city by, you have to
bite the bullet and buy something.
Paris has en
extreme number of motor scooters and a few motorbikes. To see the amount of
business people, both men and women, coming out of
their offices, put on a helmet and ride off the footpath and into the heavy
traffic, was amazing.
At a road side café we
had two bread rolls and two soft drinks, $30 please.
An interesting
observation was noting how people parked their vehicles in any space available.
Even smart cars were parked nose to kerb and didn’t stick out any further than
the scooters they parked between. BMW enclosed scooters were seen in large
numbers. You don’t need to wear a helmet because you are wearing a seat belt
riding a motor scooter. With the volume of traffic and the way people change
lanes in little spaces, I was amazed at not seeing any accidents anywhere.
Paris has a lot of
police sirens. The riot squad was everywhere to be seen. Even at the Eiffel
tower we noticed machine gun armed, military personal, walking around.
In Florence, the riders
must have been to Australia or maybe
Danny has been there as I saw a lot of scooters being held together by duct
tape.
Rome was just a
mad house. It maybe a controlled environment to them, but I wouldn’t enjoy
trying to get around in the traffic on a scooter. At the coliseum people were
dressed up as gladiators and talking on mobile phones. They wanted $10 from you
to take a photo of them. Someone should have told them mobile phones weren’t
available back then.
Hong Kong was just a
stopover on the way home. Getting there at 7am and finding
the shops don’t open till 11am meant we had
a long wait in the 30-degree heat with very high humidity. I couldn’t find
anything to buy so I thought I’d pick up a bargain at the airport in the duty
free shop. I found some things but they were more expensive than in the street
shops, so I came home empty handed. After a long
flight with Cathay Pacific
Martin
Hastie