By Vespa through Germany in 1965

Our friend Paul Hart from the „Veteran Vespa Club“ sent us a story that is so beautiful and nostalgic that we have to share it with you. In 1965 the Swede Erik Anestad made a tour through Germany with two friends on a Vespa and a Lambretta.

Paul writes: „Spending too much time on Flickr looking at photos of old scooters, I came across this excellent album taken by Erik Anestad during his trip from home in Sweden to Germany and back again. Below is an English translation of a letter he sent home to his parents while on the trip. Thanks so much to Erik Anestad for allowing me to share this!“

Introduction

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ERIK ANESTAD

I had been given an internship at a ship forwarding company in Hamburg for the summer of 1965. I had also received a scholarship from the Swedish Board of Trade to finance the whole thing. My best friend from Hedemora high school, Per Forsling, had at the same time got an internship with a forest company in Austria. We decided to go together on our scooters down through Germany. Our mutual best friend, Ingemar Melin, wanted to come along and so the three of us rode on our two scooters. We started together from Norberg in early June.

After a while, when we had parted, I wrote the following letter to mom and dad. When Gärd and I cleaned up mother‘s house when she moved to the elderly home, we found this letter in the secretaire where she had saved it for all the years.

THE LETTER SAID: FRIDAY EVENING, BEFORE GÖTTINGEN, 11. JUNI 1965

„They say that when someone takes a trip, they can tell stories, and since it‘s been a few days now since I left, there‘s a lot to tell. I am about 20 kilometers from Göttingen, on the way to Goslar. The pub I am sitting in is an old, run-down village pub, and around me sit the old men of the village, playing cards and drinking beer. Also, they speak an unintelligible language, but I better tell it from the beginning. On the way to Olle (my brother) everything went well, but of course I was scatterbrained as usual, and when we did the tire check in Fagersta, my camera bag with my traveler‘s checks stayed there. When we got to Stjärnvik, I noticed this and immediately called Fagersta. Sure, the bag and checks were still there, but I now had to turn around and pick them up. Then I stashed the checks somewhere else so I would always have them with me. In the evening Olle served meat fondue and we had a nice time.

On Tuesday we started at 8:30 and everything went well until we arrived in Ljungby where something happened: We saw a dead man in the ditch, but there was nothing we could do, so we notified the police and continued the trip. Shortly after, Per‘s scooter started making a big noise. Then it stopped, and so did we. At first we thought something had happened to the piston, but we soon found out it was the fan rim scraping the protective cover. After a lot of back and forth, we got the cover off and were able to tap it out so that fan rim wasn‘t touching the cover. But why the fan ring suddenly touched the cover, none of us could understand.

As we passed Markaryd, we realized that it was high time to buy food for the evening, so we drove like a bat out of hell to Höör, where we arrived shortly before 6 pm. We then found out that the store had been closed since 5:30pm, but there were still people in the store, so we were able to buy something to eat. Finding Eje and Kaj‘s [my cousins] apartment in Trelleborg was not difficult with the help of the map, and there I made myself an omelet and meatballs with fresh potatoes.

The ferry ride to Travemünde went well, but when we left in the morning, my rear tire was flat. So I changed the tire in Travemünde. When we wanted to drive towards Goslar, it had started to rain and we were quite late, so we took the Autobahn towards Göttingen. By driving on the autobahn, we saved a lot of time. About 20 to 30 miles south of Goslar on our way to Fulda we found an inn. As we sat there eating, a drunken old man came up to us, sat down and started talking unintelligibly, but the more we talked to him, the more clearly he spoke and then you could understand what he was saying.

As the evening went on, it became so clear that he had been a soldier for 16 years, from 1929 to 1945, and in a POW camp in Russia, but what he was living on now we never understood. He bought us beers and then a cherry liqueur (or schnapps), which we didn‘t understand until the next morning when we paid the bill. We left him money for two beers and hoped he would get them the next night. That day, the ride was painful for our butts, but we went to Rothenburg, where we checked out the town. (I forgot to mention that it started raining so hard on the highway that we stopped under a bridge where we sat for about half an hour, during which there had apparently been an accident on the other side. Police cars, tow trucks and an ambulance arrived. As we drove off, we saw a truck lying on its roof and facing the wrong way, with a small former car underneath. We then spent about an hour and a half looking at Rothenburg and then continued on towards Nuremberg.

When we filled up in Ausbach, they told us that it had been raining for three days and the roads to Austria were flooded. When we told them that we hadn‘t had a drop of rain lately, they didn‘t believe us. When we had been driving for about ten minutes, it started raining like crazy. We then wanted to stop at an Aral gas station, but before I could, my Vespa stopped. It wouldn‘t start anymore, and I feared that the ignition coil had gotten wet. I did at least get a spark at the plug, but it wouldn‘t start again. We then asked at the gas station where we could spend the night, and they told us where to go. While I was unpacking my stuff, they called an inn and asked if there was room for us, which there was. Then one of the guys drove me, while Per and Ingemar followed us on Pelle‘s scooter, who also didn‘t want to drive anymore. But it was downhill all the way, so it was no problem to get to the inn. Very wet and grateful, we were able to settle into a very clean, neat and nice inn where we ate and drank beer in the evening and got very full. Here in Southern Germany the beer is tastier and served in bigger glasses than in Northern Germany, but da beer was also very good and cheap, at least I think when it costs a German Mark for 0,25 L.

This morning both scooters started very nicely and well-behaved, which had failed yesterday because of the too high humidity. The hydrometer showed over 100%, but we were on dry land anyway. We parted in Heilsbronn. Per and Ingemar continued towards Austria, while I went back to Hamburg. From Würzburg I took a beautiful road towards Vogelsberg, high mountains and deep valleys. Then I continued towards Kassel, but I found an on-ramp to the highway and took it to Hannover to gain some time. With a leaky tire and a puncture on the spare wheel, I continued on my merry way. I found a company that sold scooter parts, but they didn‘t have a suitable tube, but referred me to the largest tire company in Göttingen. They didn‘t have a tube either, but sent me to a company that was on the way to Hanover. So I drove in the direction of Kassel, but discovered my mistake and instead wound my way back through the whole city towards Hanover, where I finally found a company that had closed for the day. However, an employee was still there and was able to help me, so I got a new hose. Stupid as I am, I didn‘t change the tube right away, but kept trying to find an inn on the way to Goslar, because the air in the tire didn‘t escape that fast. The only answer I got everywhere was „all occupied“, and in the end there was no more air in the tire and no gas station nearby. I changed the tube and had to hitchhike to the nearest gas station to pump up the tire and then back, but it was fine. Finding a room for the night was not easy at eight o‘clock, but I finally found one.

The main thing was that I had a roof over my head. As I write this, I had dinner, drank three glasses of beer as usual, and realized that the quality of a room and the food can be different. It is surprisingly difficult to judge rooms from the outside and sometimes you have to take what you get.

Tomorrow I‘m going to Goslar and then Hamburg, which should go well if there are no problems with the Vespa. It has run perfectly except for the problems mentioned above that had nothing to do with the mechanics. I have now done over 1,100 miles and my butt is pretty sore so I am taking more breaks and I am sleeping more soundly. I understand if you are having great difficulty understanding my letter, but this way you will get something out of it longer. But it was very long anyway [seven handwritten pages], and now you know more about what happened during my trip. Could you please send me a copy of my report cards so I can look at them. It is now after 10 o‘clock and it is time to go to bed.

Greetings from Erik.“

POST-SKRIPTUM

Per and I had agreed to meet in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance after we finished our internships. The night before I left Hamburg, my colleagues at the company took me to an amusement park, where I lost the key to the scooter. I only noticed this the next morning.

After considerable problems, I finally found a locksmith who was able to drill out the lock and I was able to get on my way. After a „wild“ ride south, Per and I met at the right place at the right time. We then continued north to Kiel, where together with our scooters we boarded a ship that took us to Västerås on Lake Mälaren.

There is no letter from this part, but one incident is still in my memory: We mostly took smaller roads in Germany to avoid the fast traffic on the Autobahn, and at one point we were driving at full speed (70-75 km/h) through a small village and were stopped by a policeman for speeding. We told him we hadn‘t seen any speed signs, and he explained how the signs worked. In the end he imposed a fine of 3.50 DM for „speeding“. I had kept the fine notice for a long time, but it has since disappeared. Sad.

More pictures and information you can find here: sip.shop/anno65