Fiat 500: An Exposé

We had several of our friends in the US ask about my cute car, so Jeremy and I decided to do a full post just focusing on my vehicle and its features.

To begin with, it is a 1967 series F Fiat 500. It was designed as the "everyman's car," and it evokes a warm feeling in the Italian breast. Apart from being just as cute as can be, it's actually remarkably practical (depending, always, on your definition of "practical"). Here are the upsides:

• Great gas mileage for its generation...about 30 mpg (best guess, but not a bad one)
• Parks ANYWHERE
• Easy to repair, with simple mechanical parts rather than electronics
• Can seat four (rather uncomfortably, if the two in the back are large, though!)
• Tremendously fun to drive
• Corners easily in the narrow streets
• Turns heads because of its cuteness! It's a huge icebreaker with everyone around.
• Worth more with every year that passes, as long as you keep it in good condition. My car is worth probably double what it was when I bought it just a few years ago. 

Of course, here's where one's definition of practical can differ. The downsides?

• It's old. Meaning repairs are inevitable. On the other hand, repairs are often pretty cheap.
• Driving it really quickly is unadvisable (could be an upside: forces you to take time to smell the roses!)
• No air conditioning (although the sunroof does a great job)
• Not a whole lot of "storage" space...not a single cupholder in sight. Although you'd be impressed at exactly how much I can put into the thing...I've even transported a Christmas tree!
• Safety features are typical of the period, although there ARE seatbelts
• The whole family can obviously not fit into it (given how rarely we drive anywhere all together, not a major problem by any means)
• It's rather noisy, meaning cell phone conversations are OUT if you're driving (again, perhaps a safety feature?)

Part of what makes the car such fun to drive is that it IS so very basic. To start the car, you insert the key and turn it. Based on the outside temperature and when you last started the car, you lift the choke to provide the amount of air you think will work. You then lift the starter lever. Generally three times. If you have chosen an air-rich mixture and your foot off the accelerator and it doesn't ignite after three tries, do the opposite: fuel rich and pedal to the metal. 

Once started (with quite a furore, I might add), the real fun begins. Of course, there is no power steering, but you wouldn't need it really with a vehicle this small. This little car goes down the alleyways like nobody's business at speed, where most cars have to do three-point turns. 

Shifting? Of course, it is a stick-shift; beyond that, though, it is a double-clutch (or double-declutcher, depending on your preferred terminology). This means that you have to match the engine speed to the gear that you want. If you're upshifting, the method is: press the gas to get to the right speed (or a little above), depress the clutch, pull out of gear, release the clutch, depress the clutch, upshift, and release the clutch again...and you're good.

If you're downshifting, it's much the same, but with the added complication that when you've released the clutch for the first time, you have to press the gas before you depress the clutch again in order to downshift.

Of course, you have to keep up with the brakes. We live in a hilltop town, and the drum brakes are teeny. It's easy to know, though: the parking brake comes up progressively further as the brake pads are consumed. When the parking brake is hard to apply adequately, you know that it's time to get to the mechanic.

All in all, makes for a lot of fun.

And with that, I'll turn you over to Jeremy for the pictorial tour.

Love,

Alexandra

ignition key

door key

bear in mind that this was a wide angle view

I'll be using keys for scale.

Likewise wide angle

1 foot off the ground 3 feet away

the horn is behind that grille

great position for the turn signal!

yup, tiny

the signal's roughly an inch in diameter

No, I'm NOT fiddling with perspective; the house key's ON the wheel (16 in?)

The wipers are 10 inches long

This is the wheel NOT a hubcap

1 foot off the ground 3 feet away

Cute lights, huh?

licence plate- they have since changed the standerd

The number in the red circle signifies that the vehicle
normally won't be going faster than the number indicates (in km/h)

no lock on the engine

Lets see what's in here, shall we?

simple latch, heat protection for the external light, paint, etc,...

...wires leading to the light,...

...and engine.

muffler bracket

muffler

handle- note the dimple in the door for your hand

door latch

inside of door

openable triangular window

it can open pretty darn far!

closed

latch

seal on the main window

this bar makes for a nice handhold...

...assuming your arm isn't too long!

parking brake

Right- starter left- choke

stickshift

head

Like finger-food, you hold this with your fingers, not your whole hand.

horn

Those are bolts around the horn.

lots of dials to pay attention to
 (light goes on when gas gets low, for instance...
there is no graduated gauge)

dashboard controls-(left to right): interior lights (one light on the speedometer),
exterior lights, ignition, and windshield wipers

cute or what?

turn signals and brights-dims control

not overly large, the speedometer also includes suggested shift points
 (although no tachometer)

dashboard stowage; the button to the left is actually a pump to squirt water onto the windshield

there's no latch holding the seat down in the back

you can adjust the seat forward-backward with this lever

as seen from the front with the seat down

heating control, located just in front of the rear bench in the center

back seat

this latch can be undone and the seat back pulled forward...

creating a shelf with a lip- perfect for errands!

side mirror

wiper

rear-view mirror...

with a switch-operated light

yup, incandescent bulb

ashtray

sunroof latch

gas pedal- note the pivot point

this adjusts the minimum engine power

brake and clutch

this takes air to the wind shield for the defog...

unless you turn this knob to blow the heat on your legs

state-of-the-art safety equipment

steering column

this opens the trunk... partway

you then have to push that second latch

gas filter

20-liter (5-gallon) tank and other contents of trunk

water pouch for spraying onto the windshield

headlights and wiring

electronics

yes, that IS a spare engine belt!

full-sized spare

jack

jack attachment point 

spare lightbulbs

wrench for lug nuts

toolkit: second wrench for lug nuts, different tool for the lug nuts, wrench, and wooden-handled screwdriver.

space for spare tire and horn
The red case holds a collapsed triangle to place on the road behind the car.

and under a layer of the rubber mat, the battery

Each side has one of these in the back. the suspension spring's maybe a half-inch thick

There's one leaf spring in the front. Note the canting of the rear wheels;
they arc out under load to become straight.

Incredible Journey

It is such a pleasure to see your children increase in confidence and competence. Florence's commute to her summer swim camp is a case in point!

This morning at 2:30, Florence set off with Leonardo for Rome's Ciampino airport, about 2 hours from us. She had to lug one large suitcase and a fairly substantial carry-on bag (she was required to take all the swimming gear...kickboard, pullbuoy, etc., as well as sheets and linens).

Florence navigated the airport, no problem (it's fortunately rather small), and flew to Paris Beauvais on her own. Again, a small airport, but she nonetheless had to clear passport control and customs on her own...she was changing countries, after all! Beauvais has the common snag of low-cost airports in that it's a peripheral airport and therefore not very easy to access. 

We had previously looked up strategies for her to get from Beauvais to Paris Gare du Nord (one of the main train stations) but did not know exactly how it would be best. She had the options of a shuttle to a peripheral train station, an hour-plus bus shuttle to Paris center (which would then require her to take the metro), or (worst case scenario) a very expensive taxi ride.

She managed to get the bus shuttle which dumped her out at the metro. She found the correct metro line, got off at the Paris Nord station, and found out about actual train schedules.

The French train tickets cannot be bought online directly from the French trains authority, but rather have to be purchased through a travel agent. Each agent has completely different search engines and different ideas about which trains are available when. Before Florence left, she and I had tried to look up possible train times to have an idea of the trip...but of course, she knew to be flexible and to ask the booking agent at the station.

The clever young woman managed to find a direct train (the online schedules had all indicated a change in Amiens), and arrived at 3:30 this afternoon after 13 hours of travel with baggage.

I think she'll sleep well tonight. And then tomorrow? Three and a half hours in the pool, poor thing....

Love,

Alexandra

Summer Coffee Solutions

The joke about Italians is that they have a million ways to drink coffee, and each person has his or her custom beverage; I can certainly attest to the truth behind the mockery.

But what to do when it gets hot? And hot it has surely been these last two months.

While hot coffee is absolutely still available, the variety of cold coffees is extraordinary.

You have:
Cold "normale" (we would call it espresso) served in the usual little cup
Cold "cappuccino" made with cold (unfrothed) milk and cold coffee.

Espresso with a small scoop of gelato
(usually what we would call vanilla ice cream,
without the vanilla flavoring) and whipped cream

Coffee granita...
frozen diluted unsweetened coffee
served with whipped cream
to which you can add sugar as desired

"Cappuccino freddo" (you have to be specific, 

because that expression is also used for #2 above), 

a confection with coffee, frothed milk, and dunno what else.

"Nocciola," a version of cold cappuccino 

made with hazelnut gelato and coffee

"Crema," essentially a grown-up milkshake
made with cream, milk, coffee,
and sugar and then frozen

If that's not enough to suit your fancy, you can go straight to the coffee gelato.

With love and caffeine,

Alexandra

Steeplechase

Is there such a thing as a shrine chase?  Kind of like a traditional cross-country steeplechase except in a country that has shrines instead of steeples?

Yesterday I ran a wonderful race in Avigliano Umbro, a small town in the hills south of Todi.  It was the kind of race where you don't care about your time or even your place; finishing in reasonably good form is all you can hope for.

The race leaves Avigliano Umbro the most direct way, down a very steep gravel road.  And then over the next 14 km it climbs 500 feet, loses 600 feet and then gains another 300 feet to return you to town.  For you Atlantans, the most well-known hill in the Peachtree Road Race gains 150 feet.

Only the last 2 km are on paved surfaces.  The rest is on back-country roads normally traversed by farm vehicles and hikers.  The surface was optimistically called "breccia" (gravel).  The reality was a mix of washed-out gravel, larger stones that rolled under your feet, mud, grass, rock, sand, and lots and lots of water.

Water?  Well, the race had ideal conditions for the terrain: we departed in heavy rain and it continued to rain the entire duration of the race.  Anything with a slope had washed out gullies flowing merrily.  Any place flat had expanses of puddles.  And in places those puddle were really ponds.

I jumped puddles and dodged back and forth over the streams in the ruts for half the race.  But when the road leveled out along a high area halfway along I found that long, deep puddles filled the road from side to side and the terrain made it impossible to go around them.  There was nothing for it but to splash right through water up to my shins.  Over and over.

The downhills were adrenaline rushes.  This was a race, so you needed any speed you could get after grinding up the hills.  But running full speed down a steep, wet gravel road filled with ruts calls for faith in your legs to take it and for your eyes to spot places safe for your feet to land.  The worst downhill was diagonally across a pasture.  It had no gravel at all, and not enough grass to cover the mud.  Every foot strike was a slide and you were half expecting to end up flat on your back with one leg stuck out at a funny angle.

A very fun race!

Oddly enough my feet and every stabilization muscle below my waist are sore today.

Michael

Ben Tornati!

We haven't posted for a while because we had an extended visit to the US, and boy, what a whirlwind it was! Seventeen days, 93 people, and more than 1350 miles later, we are back in Todi ready for a bit of quiet. It was a great visit, and we loved having the chance to catch up with those we did manage to see...and look forward to another visit where we can hang out with others!

The flight arrived yesterday around noon, meaning we were home by about two. The others napped, but I went out and about. It was so nice to be greeted with "ben tornati!" ("welcome home") by so many people...in fact, everywhere I went, people obviously remembered that we'd been out of town and noticed that we were home!

And tonight? There's a concert in the Piazza, and Michael and I will be driving later to Massa Martana to enjoy the shooting stars. I hope we don't fall asleep in a remote field!

Love,

Alexandra