Crowds look on and take pictures as Francesco Di Domenica drives the vintage Fiat 500 in Rome.Andrew Clark/The Globe and Mail
We are in the most admired car in the world’s most beautiful city, a vintage light blue Fiat 500 that’s been reborn as a convertible electric vehicle. People cheer and applaud as we drive past, as if we were heroes riding in a triumph through the streets of Rome.
“Che carina!” (How cute). “Spacca!” (It rocks). The Cinquecento (500) has been praised in Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and many other tongues.
It’s May and I’m seated next to the driver, 42-year-old Francesco Di Domenico, my guide on “Hurry Up, Marcello!” run by Facile Tours in conjunction with the Hotel de La Ville on Via Sistina. Launched in May, the three-hour trip retraces the locations of Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita. An hour into the tour, I’ve been photographed more than I have in the previous 30 years.
“Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, I’ve driven all kinds of cars,” says Di Domenico. “Nothing has the reaction of this one. You are a celebrity. When I get home after work, I want to go back out and drive it. That’s the essence of La Dolce Vita, once you experience the attention of being in the spotlight, you want it again.”
The “Hurry Up, Marcello!” tour is the last spin in a mini “Grand Tour” (an extended journey taken by young male aristocrats through Europe featuring stops in Paris, Rome, Venice and Florence about other cultural centres) that has been on my schedule since April, when I was approached to stay at three luxury hotels in the Rocco Forte Hotel Italy Collection.
Passers-by check out and take pictures of the vintage Fiat 500 in Rome.Andrew Clark/The Globe and Mail
Three stays over five nights. Two in Rome and one in Florence. The experience is a chance to finish a search that began seven years earlier when I spent a week on foot and public transit retracing La Dolce Vita’s locations — the Via Veneto, Cinecitta Studios, the Trevi Fountain and the EUR District — looking for insight into one of the most successful foreign films ever made. I’m here to pair Italian luxury with a myriad of motorized vehicles to see if can catch a glimpse of Fellini’s vision of “the sweet life.”
An episodic film that unfolds over seven chapters and an epilogue, La Dolce Vita tells the story of Marcello Rubini (played by the legendary actor Marcello Mastroianni), an aspiring novelist turned celebrity journalist. Author Shawn Levy sums the plot up perfectly in Dolce Vita Confidential. “Marcello is a man who got everything he wanted and lost everything he had.”
Mechanized modes of transport, particularly the automobile, are central to the film’s portrayal of the moral retreat triggered by the economic advances ushered in by Italy’s post-war revival. Rubini drives a Triumph TR3. His wealthy lover Maddelena drives a 1958 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible. There are countless automobiles, including a 1957 Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a 1958 Ford Thunderbird and a 1952 Fiat 500. The paparazzi swarm on Piaggio Vespas. A helicopter flies a statue of Jesus over Rome.
Pascal van Duijnhoven, who founded ETuk Tours Rome, stands next to a three-wheeled electric tuk-tuk in Rome.Andrew Clark/The Globe and Mail
At Hotel de Russie, I tour the Eternal City in a three-wheeled ETuk (electric tuk-tuk) from ETuk Tours Rome. Invented in the Netherlands and manufactured in Portugal, it’s 100-per-cent electric. With a cover to shield sun or rain, it’s ideal for Rome’s narrow streets and has a maximum speed of 45 kilometres an hour. The company was founded by Pascal van Duijnhoven, a Dutch ex-patriot with a passion for travel. The Etuk is unassuming and because of its compact size can travel down streets that can’t be reached by automobile. It is a nice match with the Hotel de Russie, a reserved spot located close to the Spanish Steps that dates to the 1820s. First it was a palace and then a hotel known for welcoming Russia aristocracy. I attend the launch of its summer cocktail list (curated by maestro mixologist Salvatore Calabrese) at Stravinskij Bar, a private piazza surrounded by mature trees, fountains and botanicals.
I take a high-speed train to Florence the next day and spend a night at Hotel Savoy. A trip that would take around 3.5 hours by car is reduced to 1.5. In some respects, it’s a miracle. According to North American naysayers, high-speed trains take 40 years and $500-billion to construct. And yet, here I am arriving in the heart of the city without spending one second in gridlock. Hotel Savoy is a short walk to all the most significant sites in Florence and a car is unnecessary. I visit the Museo Zeffirelli and Libreria Odeon, an Art Deco cinema that’s now also a bookstore.
The next day I’m back in Rome at Hotel de la Ville. A villa in the 18th century, it was popular with European nobles travelling on the “Grand Tour” and became a hotel in the 1920s. Today, it is a vivacious location known for Cielo, its rooftop restaurant and bar, which offers one of the best views of the city. A place to see and be seen, reservations are required long in advance. I bring a friend who is a professor of classics at the University of Georgia, and he is floored. He methodically picks out landmark after landmark. It’s a sweet view for the sweet life.
Andrew Clark snaps a picture while driving in the vintage Fiat 500 with tour guide Francesco Di Domenico and Vittoria Scotto Di Carlo from Hotel de la Ville.Andrew Clark/The Globe and Mail
The tour by Fiat 500 EV is the sweet ride. The cars are painstakingly transformed over three months in Sicily by master mechanics. Bodywork is done by Amarcord and electric motor by the Newton Group. I am riding in a work of art. Di Domenico is not exaggerating. Its effect is stunning. Everywhere we go we are showered with adulation. When we stop at the Piazza del Popolo for a brief walk, onlookers climb in to have their picture taken. Di Domenico takes this good-naturedly and politely asks them to exit. “It is the magic of the Cinquecento,” he says. “People cannot resist and forget it’s a private car.”
He tells me Facile Tours has three Fiat 500 EVs on offer. They are always driven by a guide. “It would be a disaster,” he says with a chuckle when I ask if the public is allowed to drive them. “They’d want to recreate Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.”
As we arrive back at Hotel de la Ville, I’m no closer to ending my search into the meaning in La Dolce Vita. I’m reminded of Fellini’s quip that “Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” Rome offers both in great supply. The Fiat 500 is certainly magic. I try to think of a car with more charm and charisma. I can’t. Di Domenico has an idea: “We are having a bright pink Barbie Cinquecento made that should be ready by June.”
Yep, that’ll do it.
The writer was a guest of Rocco Forte Hotels. Content was not subject to approval.
Andrew Clark