Just a charming street party in Rome—with 25,000 scooters

At Rome’s Stadio dei Marmion on what feels like the hottest day of the 2026 Euro heatwave, we’re standing surrounded by 60 gigantic Carrara marble athletes, squinting up at their impossibly muscular butts. Strangely enough, they’re not what the hundreds of people filling up the stadium are here for.

The location is a sporting landmark that pulls hordes of camera-toting tourists on any regular summer morning. Today, though, the crowd is almost exclusively made up of biker gangs. Well, sort of. For the next four days, the Foro Italico complex, which houses the stadium, has been turned into the Vespa Village, serving as the hub for the brand’s 80th anniversary celebrations, from June 25 to 28. The “gangs” in question are members of the Vespa World Clubs across the world who have travelled from their countries with their scooters to participate in a historic rally to commemorate the anniversary.

Among the Vespisti—the Italian term for Vespa enthusiasts—are nannas and grandpas, teens and even dogs with their prized two-wheelers. Inside the stadium, there’s a charming exhibit with archival scooters and photography curated by Giacomo Bretzel. There’s a shop with a winding queue that you see outside niche beauty stores when they are handling out free samples, but the enthusiasts waiting here are there to bag jackets, tees, and other fun knickknacks like dachshunds with helmets and the Playmobil Vespa collectibles. Around the food and drink stalls, tiny groups of people have found patches of shady grass to sit and lay down on, the kids are running around, and music is playing from someone’s portable speakers. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting, but this gathering feels more like a picnic than an intimidating army of tattooed men in leather jackets and snug bandanas.

“As we say, ‘You will never see a sad person riding a Vespa.’ That is why we organise our meetings…to have fun, share our experiences and jokes, and create a family-like bond.”—Quique Alcalde

For members, the riding club is exactly the kind of offline community that recent headlines say we’ve lost in our scattered, urban, social-media-addled, smart-phone-centric lives. Quique Alcalde, a chemical engineer from Spain, has been a member of the Vespa Club since 2018 and now serves on their board. “As we say, ‘You will never see a sad person riding a Vespa.’ That is why we organise our meetings…to have fun, share our experiences and jokes, and create a family-like bond.” He says it has given him a chance to meet like-minded people all over the world.

Then there’s David ‘SuperDave’ Baamonde from New Orleans, whose meet-cute may inspire you to hop off the dating apps and onto a bike. He had recently moved to the city after a few years in Paris and was a regular at the local riding club. “One day my wife came to New Orleans to a Vespa rally that my club was producing. She rode on the back of my Vespa, and it was scooter love,” he shares. When they met, they had three Vespas each; together they now own 13.

A day later, on June 27, David and Quique’s Vespas joined 25,000 others at Rome’s city centre in the largest ever rally to be organised by the brand. Presidents of the 67 global Vespa Clubs led the charge, followed by a swarm of colourful and whimsical scooters. One was completely covered in paper sunflowers. Another featured the head and appendages of a wasp, a hat-tip to the insect the brand was named after. One had a pooch riding pillion in a wicker basket. The enthusiasm of the thousands of spectators who showed up at Piazza Venezia in the peak noon sun was rewarded with these, and others customised with stickers, banners, and Pride flags. It all felt like a buzzy parade.

For Vespisti, dressing up their scooter is as much a part of self-expression as what they wear. The 65-year-old former president of Australia’s Vespa club, Julie Pond’s favourite is Valeria, a GTS300 2009 model with stripes and an ostrich leather seat cover. “I bought it from a man who had blinged it up for his wife, but she decided she didn’t want to ride it. I named her Valeria after my deceased mother. She is like no other Vespa I have seen.” Valeria and Julie have covered over 1,00,000 km of the Australian countryside together over 13 years.

While many do go on solo adventures on their Vespas (like Emma, who covered 30,000 km from the UK to Mongolia on her vintage scooter, Grettle, and made a cute friend along the way), for others it’s the part that combines their love for riding with community that attracts them to the clubs. Julie Pond’s club organises city rides, day rides to the countryside with a lunch pitstop, and even weekends with extensive itineraries. “Our club also has monthly breakfast meets for the social aspect, where people sit and chat and make strong bonds,” she says of her Vespa community.

“Usually, when we arrive at a destination, people see us smiling, and they often come over to talk about the Vespa because they used to have one, or their parents did,” says Quique, describing what is for him one of the best things about being a part of the club—the conversations. Finding life partners and puppies on the way are an incidental, but significant, perk.