Already sixty or seventy years ago it was the ultimate summertime dream of millions of Germans to cross the alps under the power of a horizontally opposed air-cooled piston engine and venture into Italy. My parents lived this dream with their Beetle as a very young couple in the late fifties and early sixties, long before I was born.

I have a horizontally opposed-air cooled piston engine too, I thought to myself a couple of weeks ago – let’s go to Italy! It wasn’t much effort to talk my wife Tina into this idea so we consulted Philipp Tiemann’s site and SD to find suitable airfields. The trip was completely uneventful, so not much to write about, but maybe some of you enjoy the pictures or can even get some inspiration for their next Italy trip.

We did it all low level and all VFR to enjoy the scenery – Italy is scenic, for sure. We didn’t preplan the whole route, but decided where to fly next spontaneously, mostly depending on weather. In the end we flew Mannheim (EDFM) – Ravenna (LIDR) – Fano (LIDF) – L’Aquila (LIAP) – Pavullo (LIDP) – Biella (LILE) – Mannheim (EDFM).

Ravenna is a touristy town and well worth visiting. However, it seems to be rather short of taxis. We couldn’t get one from the airfield to town, but a friendly fellow pilot gave us a lift. For the other direction our hotel arranged a private car but it was rather expensive for the short ride. Landing and parking for our Mooney was free, though.

The runway in Fano is compacted earth, most of the year but it was nice grass when we landed due to the rainy spring they had. You can walk to town or to the beachside hotels from the field as we did, but it’s not a particularly nice walk.

We rented a car in L’Aquila what turned out to be a bit complicated without speaking Italian but in the end everything went well. We explored the region ground bound for a few days and stayed at an Agriturismo (Italian farm stay, usually offering half board).

Landing 02 at Pavullo is quite interesting as the off-set final approach follows a valley and there is a built-up hill in the extended centerline, so one can’t see the runway until short final. It’s not difficult but you may want to be prepared to avoid surprises.

Pavullo has a really nice airfield with an excellent restaurant. The town is nothing special, but we found the exceptionally good Agriturismo Beneverchio where we stayed for a few days. If you don’t mind an hour’s walk, you don’t need a car.

Biella was the last Italian airfield we visited on this trip. Landing is free if you refuel and the fuel price is reasonable for Italy. The town is not a major tourist attraction, but it makes for a nice afternoon.

I hope these aren’t too many pictures but I haven’t even mentioned all the sites that can be found around every corner in Italy, let alone the excellent food and wine! Anyway, I found still, after all these years, a horizontally opposed air-cooled piston engine is the ideal source of power to explore Italy 😉