When we landed in Florence, it was immediately apparent. This is paradise for scooter lovers. Forget the wine, the pasta, the olive oil, the historic buildings, the sculpture, and the art. This city was made for me, a scooter man from way back.

Italy is full of motorscooters. It’s not hard to understand why: gasoline is over $8 a gallon, streets are very narrow, parking is minimal, and the center of most cities is pedestrian–only.

Vespa, Aprilia, and Lambretta are the most popular motorscooters since they originated in Italy, but there is a heavy presence of BMW, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha. Even a few of the new Chinese models.

This 600cc motorscooter is made for highway cruising. The Piaggio Company began producing ship fittings in 1884. By WWI the factory in Genoa was manufacturing train cars and truck bodies and engines. During both World Wars Piaggio produced airplanes in Tuscany. The plant was bombed by the Allies in 1944.

Enrico Piaggio, son of the company’s founder, turned to the transportation needs of his people after the war, first helicopters then motorscooters. His first two–wheeled scooter, the Vespa ( wasp), was made according to aircraft technology – unibody steel chassis, 98cc air–cooled engine, enclosed transmission, and front fork shock absorbers. By 1956, over a million Vespas were putting around Europe.

It’s the daily rush hour traffic in Italy. Lambretta had a similar beginning when Ferdinando Innocenti returned to his steel tubing factory after WWII only to find it in ruins. Seeing opportunity in destruction, he turned his attention to the production of inexpensive motor scooters. The first Lambretta hit the market in 1947. Lambretta created the first moped, a bicycle with a small motor. Innocenti was bought out by BMC (a British company) in 1971, and the factory was shipped to India where Lambrettas were produced until 1998.

She’s on the way to work on her trusty Aprilia motorscooter. Scooters are quieter, cleaner, and more gas–efficient than motorcycles. Generally speaking, scooters have automatic transmissions, fat tires, and step–through design. Even though highway cruising scooters are now in the market, motorscooters are primarily intown transportation.

It was amusing to see businesswomen in skirts and high heels scooting to work in morning traffic. Likewise, middle–aged men in Gucci suits dismounted their scooters, pushed them into tight parking spaces, removed their briefcases from the luggage box, and headed out to their offices.

This BMW motorscooter has it all. Italy is a scooter–driven country. As the price of gasoline continues to soar upward in the US, there will certainly be more scooters here. Join me in the scooter commute. I’m the man on the black Honda Helix 250.

This is the first Lambretta, produced in 1947. (Next week: Farewell

to Florence)