Can't remember where this book has come from, but somebody has paid 1,49£ for it. I've read Vroom with a view last month, perhap's I'll continue with this IF it is on the waitinglist of somebody coming to the Falkirk Convention in June.

It obviously wasn't, but I think I know who would be the next reader.
I would have been furious, if my Vespa was lacking a motor when I came all the way to Italy to start a new journey with it and had to buy another one. Well, in this case hopefully the new one is more reliable than Sophia (Loren) was.
I just met an old client who had become a covid-19 widower. She was left with ten eastern motorcycles (six in shape and four projects) and a Buick with some electrical fault and a shed full of all sorts of electrical tools. Must be a nightmare trying to sell / get rid of those.
Peter is just arriving to Elba. I was there in 2018. Soooo hot. And so many steps (oops, the picture went sideways).

The map of Portoferraio, Elba.

Villa dei Mulini, Napoleon's palace when in exile in 1814. Not a bad place to be "imprisoned".

He had a vroom with a view...

Where was police during the Vespa-gathering in Elba, where they had birra a fiumi (a river of beer) two nights of dancing and all the driving around on their Vespas - very accident prone I would say. Apparently nobody died.

Our ship never made it to Sardinia, too windy for embarkment ☹️.
Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister and Italy's richest man mentioned. I guess he wasn't jailed yet in 2007, when this book was published [goes to check]. Oh, thankfully I don't live in the corrupt Italy, because Berlusconi, once the 25th richest man in the world, had been convicted several times and denied the right to be elected to parliament due to his long convictions, but I think he never actually ended up in jail, but spent time in home arrest, his travelling was restricted and sentences shortened. And he was able to enter politics again and was even elected. He was convicted at least of tax fraud and buying sex from a minor. He sounds very much like the rich cousin of Donald Trump. Well, Berlusconi died last year, so eternal life was something he could not buy. He is currently somewhere where it is even hotter than in Italy.

I've never been to Sicily and probably will never travel to the cradle of Mafia. The Capuchin catacombs sounded so weird that I had to google them. The only mummy worth saving was the two-year-old Rosalio Lombardo, who had died of the Spanish Flu in 1920, who really looks like a sleeping infant. Mummyfication had been banned in 1881, but hey, in Italy anything is possible if you've got the money.

The hotelier in Favignana reminds me of my stay in a B&B in York back in 2015. Our landlord had been very nice, but on the last day said he would like to be paid in cash. I had actually noticed people paying cash to him when leaving, but hadn't thought more of it as the B&B had a VISA-sticker on the door. I said this is a bit late to tell to bring cash when we already were in the UK. He pointed out that I could get cash from a bankomat and I said taking cash from VISA is more expensive for me than would have been taking cash from my bank in Finland. I said that he had told me to bring slippers, but there had been no word of taking cash. I pointed to his VISA-sticker and asked what was that for. He gave in and pulled out a credit-card device. He said it might take a while for it to update itself as it had not been in use for a while. He knew we had a train to catch, so when 20 minutes had passed and the machine was still uploading files he said he could write down my friend's credit card number and charge it manually when the machine was ready. I said to my friend in Finnish that he can't do that anymore, but my friend said we will miss our train unless we go now. He can bill us later by email.
In the old days, before cards had chips, you could charge a credit card manually, if the magnet on the card was too worn out or even if somebody gave you the number and expiry-date over on a phone, but I guess it was misused so often that nowadays you have to read the chip to get the transaction done. It had been like that already a year or two before our trip to York, so the landlord had not used the card-machine all that often (to avoid taxes, I guess), if he didn't know that. My friend's card was never charged and we never heard from the landlord again, so I guess I am wanted in York if I ever return there. Five nights unpaid.

I got as far as page 188 before I wondered WHEN he is going to get to Corsica, which is where our boat managed to land and I liked it a lot. If you ever go there, dear reader, remember to buy lots of tea. I bought several brands and they are all very tasty. It's a shame I probably won't travel there again.
This trip has been much easier than the previous one with Sophia, which needed CPR on a regular basis. Yet I think I won' miss anything really important, if I take another book as a travel read to Turku tomorrow, where this book will be left in two days' time.
Enjoy your vespa-ride in Italy!

This title & author sound so familiar, but I can't find it in my "books read" -file. I was wondering if I might mix it up with "Vroom with a view" which I'm sure I've read, but even that doesn't come up in the file... I'm confused. But anyway, this goes to the TBR pile for now (sadly, I've probably missed a chance to "win a trip for 2 to the Amalfi Coast" as advertised on the cover of this book!)