driving italy

Italians are just a little bit bonkers on the roads.

This will not come as a surprise to many but it did to me. It is not so much that the are angry, raged drivers but they drive really, really, really fast and come within an inch of your bumper to let you know that – well – that doing the speed limit is just a tad too slow.

Wise or not, I was the driver for a week or so on our jaunt from Venice-Spoleto-Orvieto-Casperia-Siena-Florence. The wisdom of the decision to have me as the driver was interesting…. I drive once a year and mainly on the left side of the road! But hey we had a laugh and I only crossed to the wrong side. Of course it was ever so unlucky that it was under the wise eyes of the Caberneri! Excellent.

We did invest in a GPS – when you a hire a car you no longer get a handy map – so it is either trust the signs (sometimes a leap when your language skills don’t extend beyond, hello, goodbye and please) or get a little black box that tells you when to turn left, right or go straight on in a calm, clear voice.

You can choose who you would like as a voice – you can have English Tim or Irish Sean for instance. In the most part Sean was a certain help. Well .. with a few notable exception. He went through a period of extreme optimism he thought that our Fiat Punto had some how morphed into a 4-wheel drive and would be able to drive into a gully with super steep sides, through a creek and up the other side , there were also the right hand turns that were in fact the tightest of hairpin turns and the one way street that would have preferred us to be facing in the other direction!

None the less it would seem we survived. the car was not scratched and we did see some gorgeous and beautiful places.