Abetone is the mountain destination associated with Marco Carrera’s years of skiing, training, and competition. In his adolescence it represents both an established family routine and an athletic path he eventually relinquishes for tennis and the freedom he expects from a Vespa; the 1973 fuel restrictions make that change sharply concrete.

Skiing and the Family Routine

Before turning away from skiing, Marco spends weekends and much of the winter and spring traveling to Abetone for training and competitions. By fourteen, however, he wants time to enjoy his Vespa rather than spend every weekend on the slopes. His wish to stop skiing marks a shift in how he imagines his own time: away from a demanding routine organized around practice and races, and toward a more independent adolescence.

A Different Kind of Competition

Marco’s reasons for choosing tennis are also athletic. Although he is not growing taller, he is becoming stronger, more precise, and more aggressive on the court. Opponents tend to underestimate him because of his stature, a disadvantage he can turn to his benefit; the text says that this helped him achieve surprising results the previous year. Skiing offers no comparable psychological contest, in Marco’s assessment: gravity and his physical dimensions, especially his forty-four kilograms, remain obstacles he cannot outmaneuver.

The Vespa and the Austerity Restrictions

The timing of Marco’s new freedom is ironic. After a year of working alongside his parents, getting good grades, and demonstrating good judgment and tolerance to persuade them to buy him a Vespa, he gets it just as Austerity takes effect and bans private vehicles on Sundays. The restrictions follow a sudden decision by OPEC countries to limit oil exports. Within a month, street lamps are switched off at night, television programs end early, home heating is restricted, and private Sunday travel is prohibited—including by Vespa.

Marco finds the suddenness of these measures difficult to understand: in his view, a commodity could not become scarce enough to ration without people first noticing an intermediate period of change. Instead, the new rules arrive all at once, frustrating his plans just as he intends to trade skiing weekends for rides. Abetone consequently stands for more than the sport he is leaving: it is the destination at the end of a routine he hopes to escape, while the fuel crisis shows how abruptly external circumstances can constrain the freedom he has worked to obtain.

A Destination in the Background

Later, Abetone appears in the familiar household dispute over Irene’s attempts to borrow the family car. She lists it among the places she wants to reach, alongside Bolgheri and a party in Impruneta, despite not yet having an unrestricted driver’s license. The exchange recalls the family’s everyday negotiation over mobility and rules, placing the ski destination in a wider map of adolescent plans and desires.