There are occasions when howling into the wind is a profoundly therapeutic experience. The moment when you’re trundling along a motorway and your vehicle rocks in the slipstream of a passing truck is one.
I didn’t expect that my driving holiday to Lake Como would be like this. Indeed, when I heard that the tuk-tuk specialist Large Minority was expanding from escorted driving tours in Asia and Italy to private trips from its base near Milan — a tuk-tuk to yourself for three days, a hotel booked and back roads yours to discover — I made a number of assumptions.
First, I assumed the company would provide sophisticated versions of its Piaggio Ape three-wheelers. Nope. Enzo Ferrari said “aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines”. The Ape — pronounced “Ap-ay” (“bee” in Italian) — is a three-legged donkey compared with Italian thoroughbreds such as Ferrari. Farmers buy them for their doughty, rudimentary mechanics. They go from nought to 30mph in ten seconds. Nought to 60mph isn’t possible.
Still, there was always assumption number two: that a tuk-tuk would provide endless road-trip freedom, an idea that made Large Minority’s affable director Mark van Rossum frown. “It’s not a gran turismo,” he told me as we completed the paperwork in Mozzate, a 20-minute taxi ride from Milan’s Malpensa airport. “You’ll need to stop every couple of hours to let the engine cool.”
No complaints from me. Besides, I hoped the tuk-tuk might prove a conversation opener. “Si signore, tre ruote va bene,” I practised — three wheels is fine. Anyway there was assumption number three to rely on: that a tuk-tuk would reinvent the usual tour of Lake Como by hire car. It did. Just not quite how I imagined it would.
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I get the first hint of this when van Rossum introduces me to the Ape. First thought: cute! At 9ft by 4ft it makes a Fiat 500 look like a Range Rover. Second thought: I hope it doesn’t rain. Unlike most Apes, Large Minority’s Ape Calessinos are open-sided. Their half-doors are covered in canvas. On the plus side, so is the roof, so you’re driving a convertible like the sports cars in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Almost.
The Calessino has a bench seat for two plus a luggage shelf behind the driver. Operation remains agricultural: moped handlebars with a twist-grip accelerator; a clutch on the handlebars, twist-grip gears that change with a hefty ker-thonk; reverse engaged by a lever in the footwell; a finger-switch for indicators and a horn like a throttled squawk. That’s about it.
The 200cc engine starts with the throaty purr of a large lawnmower. I twist the accelerator. I’m wondering how far I’ll get going at 5mph when van Rossum suggests I take my foot off the brake — it’s a pedal located where a car’s accelerator is.
There are three things to remember about tuk-tuk touring, he says. Don’t drive in the dark; an Ape doesn’t like potholes. Second, go easy when cornering; three wheels and all that. Finally, avoid motorways. Explore, he advises.
I improvise a route north to Como via back roads. And what back roads. Church bells are pealing as I rattle past old boys sipping coffee alfresco in Tradate. Cyclists wave en route through bosky hills of the Pineta di Appiano Gentile e Tradate regional park. The smells of wood smoke and freshly cut grass fill the air. Open to the elements, a tuk-tuk brings everything closer.
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I realise that I’m navigating not by destination but route. A-roads are too busy, too direct. What you’re after are roads that follow older, slower itineraries — the lanes are tangled across my map like spaghetti.
The problem is how to avoid the A9. It slices like a barrier between the park and Como. Google Maps works brilliantly on its “cycling” setting until I find myself reversing apologetically out of a pedestrian underpass. I try Apple Maps with “motorways” deselected. I’m halfway down a sliproad west of Como when a lorry thunders past along the motorway below. It’s too late to reverse.
For two miles I buzz along the hard shoulder, howling impotent abuse at any driver who honks. Piaggio states an Ape’s top speed is 35mph. Reader, it is wrong. A scared driver can do 45mph before he is spat out at the next junction. Not fun.
It’s such times that make you glad of Lake Como. Italy’s deepest lake has been associated with relaxation since Pliny the Younger wrote about the eternal springtime of his villa garden. It launched Lake Como as an idea of pleasurable living as much as a destination. You visit to eat, drink, do nothing in particular. I expect that’s why George Clooney bought Villa L’Oleandra near Laglio.
Past the ballooning cupola of Como cathedral, the lake appears — a sheet of silver between wooded slopes. The sunny west shore beckons.
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Only someone who arrives by tuk-tuk can appreciate the profound serenity of Cernobbio waterfront. There’s little louder than the soft slosh of water and tinkling conversation from cafés. A chap fiddles with ropes on a wooden speedboat as glossy as a conker. After two rattling hours, it is blissful.
From here it’s onwards, north along Via Regina, the old Roman road that tracks the shore below the fast road. It burrows through villages that seem to have ripened in the sun — burnt orange, saffron, pale pink — and cuddles up to neoclassical villas among palms. Occasionally a flash of brilliant light announces a tiny harbour of nodding boats.
Shelley, Byron and other poets visited Como in search of the sublime. You can only hope they saw 17th-century Villa del Balbianello in Lenno. If Hollywood created CGI of the panorama of silver-blue water and snow-dusted Alps beyond its garden terraces, no one would believe it.
Finally, the Ape is in its element. In a vehicle that refuses to be hurried, there’s nothing to do but settle back for the ride. I potter happily, the engine burbling, cyclists and walkers staring then smiling. It’s slow travel at its finest.
At Cadenabbia ferry ticket office there’s good-natured confusion: should they charge a tuk-tuk as a car or a scooter? (Answer: a car, the rotters.) If there are better ways to arrive at Bellagio, “The Pearl of Como”, than in the front seat of a tuk-tuk watching its harbour resolve from pastel smudge to distinct buildings, they’re keeping it quiet. Within the hour, I’ve checked into Hotel Bellagio and am outside the elegant Bar Rossi with an Aperol spritz. An elderly couple — he wearing a cravat, she in pearls — bask in the sun like cats.
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My tour’s going swimmingly: no Apple Maps, the Ape and I firm pals.
Exploration is in order the next day but the Ape has the hump. When I press the ignition it coughs and falls silent. I try again. No dice. Yes, I have fuel. No, the lights weren’t on overnight.
Large Minority’s support is en route to Bellagio when I beg a spanner from a passing motorist (there wasn’t one in the tool kit) to open the engine tailgate and dry the chamber of the sparkplug (singular). I utter a quiet prayer. The engine chokes, splutters, catches.
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I’m pondering routes — you’re free to tour wherever you fancy — when Luca Negri emerges from his cycle shop, Bike It! Bellagio, to gawp at the tuk-tuk. The lake roads are lovely, he says, but for a real experience head into the hills. “It’s a sacred ascent for cyclists,” he says of the road beyond Bellagio. “The wheels of every champion have gone up there.”
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Let’s just say the Ape is no champion. It growls up 14 per cent inclines in second gear. Tight hairpins prompt some panicked downshifts. But at the top is the Sanctuary of Madonna del Ghisallo. In 1948 the church’s cycle-mad priest dispatched race heroes Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali to charm the pope, which is how the Madonna del Ghisallo became the patron saint of cyclists and the church a pedallers’ pilgrimage. Vintage bikes, the jerseys of legends and sepia photos of heroes cover the nave walls. Eccentric, sentimental, it is endearingly Italian. I cover some decent ground the rest of that day. There’s the circuit through farming villages — because, well, why not? There are the narrow alleys of Caglio, where the Ape barely squeezes between crumbling medieval houses — rare is the lane a tuk-tuk cannot tackle. There’s also the moment I pass a battered Ape loaded with firewood. I wave. Its driver scowls.
I wind up at Torno, its houses stacked above the lake. A chap sculls a boat from its tiny port watched by a couple sitting hand in hand on the harbour wall. It’s a gilded image and it crosses my mind that I’m only seeing it because of the tuk-tuk. In brake horsepower, or whatever it is that petrolheads nerd over, a tuk-tuk is clearly no Ferrari. Yet in a way it’s better. It encourages you to explore for the simple reason that it’s a blast to drive. I had no plans to visit Torno before I bumbled a route there. In an age of ever-increasing speed, going slowly seems almost radical.
Yes, the motorway was alarming (navigation app Waze on “motorbike routes” is best, apparently) and the breakdown irritating. Large Minority says it’s exceedingly rare for Apes to fail and that tools in private rentals are now double-checked.
I’m sure a tour by hired Fiat Panda is simpler. But consider the choice: a predictable weekend, or a spontaneous miniadventure. I know which I’d prefer.
James Stewart was a guest of Hotel Bellagio (hotelbellagio.it) and Large Minority (largeminority.travel), which has two nights’ B&B from £545pp, including tuk-tuk rental with mechanical support and insurance. Drivers require a full licence. Fly to Milan Malpensa
Three more Italian road trips
1. Go slow in Sicily
Where many tours set strict schedules, this week down the southwest coast of Sicily offers flexibility. You could cover its 110 miles from Nubia to Agrigento in three hours. But is that any way to sample marzipan pastries in Sicily’s best hilltown, Erice, or discover the Tunisian kasbah of Mazara del Vallo harbour? Does a whistle-stop tour allow you time to ponder Agrigento’s Unesco-listed Valley of the Temples or factor in a slow lunch in a pretty square at Salemi? It does not. Nor do many tours offer the option of an extra day in Palermo.
Details Seven nights’ B&B from £965pp, excluding flights (inntravel.co.uk). Fly to Palermo
2. Dolomites driving
Head to the Dolomites for vrooms with a view in this unashamedly high-end trip with fellow petrolheads. A choice of supercar provides the vrooms; you’re in Italy, so it would be rude not to drive a Ferrari or Lambo. The Dolomites take care of the views. You’re here for five days of hairpinning through Europe’s attic on alpine roads from Verona to Lake Garda, gourmet dining in five-star resorts. It’s a specialist tour with an optional grand finale in early September — three days at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, a highlight of the F1 calendar.
Details Seven nights’ full-board from £12,250pp (ultimatedrivingtours.com). Fly to Verona
3. Tuscany for hedonists
Here’s a driving holiday with a difference, one that recognises there’s more to the ripe wine-hills of Tuscany and Umbria than the fun of getting behind the wheel. En route between Florence and Orvieto via Val d’Orcia, you’ll taste pecorino cheese with a farmer and ebike through Chianti’s vineyards. Private guides will explain the artistic significance of Renaissance masterpieces in Florence’s Uffizi gallery and reveal the secrets of Perugia and Assisi. Hotels are luxurious period jobs: elegant villas, manor houses, a medieval castle near Perugia.
Details Eleven nights’ B&B from £4,705pp, including flights and car hire (audleytravel.com)
