European Vespa road trippin’ : The Lee & Ronvik excursion.
06 Aug
This entry was published on August 6, 2013 at 8:16 am. It’s filed under Blog post and tagged 1950s, bike, cross country, eurotrip, excursion, lambretta, motorcycle, road trip, roadtrip, travel, utility, vespa, vintage. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
In 1953, Dave Lee and Rick Ronvik, both 20 and 21 at the time set out on an extended scooter trip through France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and England. The decision was made whilst they were both studying but had known each other their whole lives. The two of them set to work on the trip by working in the galley of a ship bound for France. There they bought two 1953 Utility Vespas, and set out on the trip that they would and did remember for the rest of their lives. This was their ‘euro trip’ – how standards have changed since.
On their return they got their degrees, served in the Armed forces, got married and then went on into academia. They both continued throughout their lives to go camping with each others families and held their annual slide show of their great Vespa trip of ’53.
In 2003, they made the same trip. 60 years older, visiting the same countries, driving the same roads, drinking in the same pubs and taking pictures at the same locations as the pictures below. For these pictures and their itinerary of their second chance tour visit ; http://www.genuinescooters.com
This has sparked the plan and desire to do something like this myself and I too will make steps in the next year to get out there and do just as these two did.
Leave a comment
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.