Visit Italy from Segni

Essentially, a lot of people would like to go around riding a scooter in Italy, but most people don't do it because they don't feel comfortable doing it in the city. Scooter rentals are in the city, and even if one wants to rent one to ride in the country, still part of the trip would have to be in the city. Then, supposing they rent a scooter and ride out in the country, there are pretty good possibilities that they miss the best places because they're not familiar with the place. My idea is to bring the people to the country, give them a scooter to ride and lead them around to the most interesting places. I do guided tours in the countryside, providing scooters, guidance, and any kind of assistance needed, including the possibility of doing the same tours by car in case of rain and hotel bookings.

Ninfa, an abandoned medieval town near Sermoneta

I've always wanted to show people the area where I live and I've always liked to ride a motorcycle or scooter.

I started to take people around this area when I first moved here from Rome, about 17 years ago. The first people I showed around here, were my Roman friends when they eventually came to visit me. They enjoyed it so much that it made think that, if though they were indigenous and they had a pretty good idea of what they were going to see they had a great time, then maybe a tourist from abroad would have enjoyed it even more for everything would be more unusual and surprising to him. The first opportunity came, several years ago, when a couple from USA hired me for a week. I took them to all the famous places and finally they had one day left that was open, no plans.

I proposed to them to tour in my area, off the beaten path: Fiuggi, Trisulti, Alatri and Fumone. I was hesitant to to make this proposition and I must have not sounded too convincing, though, There's a big difference between taking paying customers on a tour and showing friends your place! In fact they declined the offer and said they would have just strolled in the streets of Rome taking it easy. I was surprised when they later changed their mind and called me in the evening saying they decided to go on this tour.

Well, to make a long story short, at the end of the day they told me it was the best tour of their whole vacation!

I was so happy and felt so confident, that since then I started to advertise this tour on my website. It has been selling well ever since and, in spite of the fact that most tourists don't stay in Rome long enough to have time to go on a country tour, I still get to do it quite often and always with very satisfied clients.

Gate through the walls of Bassiano

Valvisciolo Abbey - The cloister

I only did this as a driving tour so far, Trisulti is a little too far for a scooter day trip from Rome. Especially because you have to ride through the city of Rome part of the trip and when you have people who are not well experienced riding it in traffic, that can be really unpleasant for them. Therefore every time I was asked to do this tour from Rome by scooter, I always suggested instead to go tour the Roman Castles and/or Tivoli which are much closer to Rome. But it's pity, because this tour is much more enjoyable by scooter. Even going on shorter trips though, the problem has always been the city part, getting out and then getting back in. That's why I thought that if I wanted to people on scooter trips, the city part needed to be eliminated, the trip had to start and end in the country. Consequently what I had to do was buy the scooters and I keep them at my place. Scooters are so popular here. You see them all over in Italy, they're the most common means of transportation, everybody has one.

In the cities you see girls wearing stilettos and business men in suits and ties riding them, so the tourists end up being attracted and want to try riding one.

Driving in the city with my clients, noticing the scooters whizzing by, I've often heard them say: "I'd like to try one!". But when I asked if they were serious the answer was always "Not in the city!".

It has also happened that my clients stayed in Segni. The first time it was a family that booked an apartment in Rome but the agency messed up with their reservation and they couldn't find another accommodation in Rome. In July the city is packed! I got them rooms at "La Pace", they stayed in Segni for a week and loved it. Another time it was a group of two couples who were going to stay in Rome for three nights but they only had rooms for the first two. So they stayed in at "La Pace" their third night and it worked out well because the final day I had to transfer them to Florence and it was a lot easier going from Segni than from Rome because we didn't have to drive through Rome's early morning traffic which can be really horrible. And of course "La Pace" cost them a lot less than the hotel in Rome did: 65 Euros instead of 240!

The castle in Gavignano

"La Mentorella" Abbey

So, after all these experiences, I decided to buy three scooters to keep at my place and use them to take people on scooter tours starting from Segni. This doesn't mean that if one wants to go on a scooter tour with me he has to stay in Segni, not at all! You can stay in Rome if you want and transfer to Segni for the day. I can send one of my collaborators to pick you up at your hotel and transfer you to my place and from there we would start the tour and than we would transfer you back to Rome at the end of the day. Wanting to save money, you can reach Segni by train, you would have to take a train from Rome's main train station, Termini, to Colleferro or Anagni. Both of these places are only a few minutes drive from where I live and the train ride is only about 50 minutes.

But the best would be to spend at least one night here.

My thought was: most of my clients stay in Rome three or four nights and the first two days they spend touring around the city of Rome (usually with my help) then the third day I take them to an excursion in the country. Finally they move to Florence or the Amalfi Coast. I thought that the third night could be spent in Segni, adding maybe a fourth or fifth night (the cost for two nights at "La Pace" would still be about half the price of one night in a similar hotel in Rome) and do the tours in the countryside from Segni instead of starting from Rome. This way one would also get an idea of what the country of Italy is like and not only the big cities or the most famous tourist attractions!

The main square in Paliano

	You might wonder why I live in Segni. Well, this is where my mother's family came from and when, back in 1990, my landlord wanted back the apartment I was renting because she needed it for her son, I decided to move to the country and chose Segni because I was very familiar with the place since, when I was a kid, often I spent my summers over at my grandparents'. The picture on the left shows their place, top floor right on the town's main street! Why I decided to move to the country? Because my wife had just told me, the same days I learned I lost my apartment, that she was pregnant and I thought the kid would have lived better in a small town than in Rome.