Trip to Rome

In september of 1999 we took an one week trip to Rome (we being Hille, my girlfriend Yuska, a mutual friend Janine and I (Frank)). Being a frequent visitor to the beautiful country of Italy, I was ashamed that I'd never been to Rome. I can recommend Rome to everybody it is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever visited. But the main subject of this website isn't traveling or Italy, it's Alfa Romeo and of course we saw some nice alfa's over there....but most of them were newer types the older types are getting rare in Italy too! Below you can see a picture of one of the most impressive cultural sites in Rome.

We have to admit that we took the trip from holland to Italy in a not very italian car with belgian license plates. Do we have anything to bring forward in our defence? Well, it has a lot of space....!!!??? and burns a huge amount of petrol. Below you can see me driving this german wonder on wheels

But let's stop talking about german cars and switch to italian cars. For those of you who have driven from the northern part of Europe to Italy there's a very important site you pass near Milan......

I know it's not the best picture ever, but I think you all recognize the place! If you don't shame on you. But isn't there more in the world than Alfa Romeo's? Of course there is this is a picture of the famous Forum Romanum.

But there are more beautiful things to bee seen in Rome, what about this red 1750. As you can see it is so rare in Italy that it needs constant police protection. This is the only Bertone we saw during the whole trip.

We also saw a very nice Spider 'Coda Tronca' 1750 from 1970. This was in the coastal town of Tarquinia to the north of Rome.

Maybe you can read the sign 'Vendesi' with means 'for sale' in italian this of course drew our attention and we decided to take a look!

This is a picture of Hille and me inspecting this remarkably well preserved Spider from 1970. The top needs to be replaced and there were some minor technical shortcomings. Although there was a sign vendesi on the car there was no trace of the owner. Finally a worker showed up and told us that he would phone his boss 'Franco'. It took quite a while before he showed up and we had a very difficult conversation in italian. None of us speaks it fluently but we managed. To make a long story short the car was still for sale in september 1999 we have Franco's phonenumber if anyone is interested! Franco also asked if we had any Alfa Romeo's in Holland, so we told him enthusiasticly of our Bertone, GTV6 and 156. Then Franco surprised us with the question if we wanted to see his Junior Zagato and some other classic cars. So the four of us followed him and his father to a storage room on the other side of the town.

After some climbing over pinball machines etc. we saw 6 or 7 cars, including a Porsche 911, a Mercedes Benz from the '60, a Lancia Beta coupe and of course a Junior Zagato! Outside a Giulia and an Alfetta (and some french garbage) were slowly dying.

We spend something like 2 hours talking about cars but we didn't buy the Spider 'cause Franco really knew what to ask for the car. It wasn't really expensive but not cheap enough to take it with us. Later during the trip we saw a very nice Junior Zagato near a nursing home and we couldn't resist taking a few snaps!

This was in a small village near Viterbo in Lazio, Italy. The Zagato was in prime condition, one of the best I've ever seen. We want to finish off with showing you some nice shots from Rome just to promote this beautiful city!

The square in front of St. Peters cathedral in Vatican City (Yes, it was raining!)

View from the top of the Spanish Steps