Although I didn’t do the driving on our recent trip to Europe, sitting in the passenger seat armed with a map and a plan for for the day’s adventures meant that I got to navigate. Our car, a little Fiat Panda, came with a GPS (for only 70 euros extra) which I called George. George took some getting used to, I like to have an overall view of the direction we’re heading in so I had one eye on the map and the other on George. I learned a couple of things from George, the taxi driver took us the long way to the rental car office and don’t always trust George’s shortcuts.
In Australia we drive on the left side of the road, In Italy it is the opposite but constantly telling my husband to drive on the right side of the road got a bit confusing because to us the left is the right (correct) side of the road to drive on. ‘Other side’ was the preferred option but thankfully it didn’t take too long for him to get used to. We only hired a car to get around Tuscany, Umbria and make our way down to Sorrento from Assisi, that was plenty enough excitement for me, the trip between Naples and Sorrento was a tad stressful even for a passenger. Country driving meant narrow, winding roads with regular photo stops, near Naples we got caught in a traffic jam as a result of a motorbike accident and in Sorrento you have to be mindful of scooters, cyclists, women with prams and the occasional horse and cart.
The ZTLs (zona traffico limitato) are areas of Italy that you are not allowed to drive in without holding a ZTL pass. Tourists can’t get these passes and are only exempt if your hotel provides all the license and registration details of you and the car to the relevant authorities. Thanks to a misunderstanding with George we almost ended up driving into Siena’s ZTL, I had a massive freak out because I thought we were bound to get a fine sent to us but we found a way out of the area we were in without entering the ZTL. In Assisi we were told by the hotel just to drive through and if we were stopped by police, to tell them where we were staying and all will be good. We didn’t see any police and I’m sitting here hoping that there weren’t any cameras either. Paying for parking was a common occurrence, anywhere from 6 euros for a few hours to 20 euros for a couple of nights. Our accommodation in Siena and Orvieto had free parking, Assisi provided a discount card for parking in the council car park because they didn’t have any parking for guests.
Would we hire a car again? Possibly, it certainly was handy getting to little towns such as Civita de Bagnoreggio and Volterra, public transport is available however it can be slow and not at all regular. Fuel didn’t cost as much as we thought, the Panda was an extremely economical car for the two of us and we probably spent a maximum of 90 euros over the 10 days of driving and that included the filling up of the tank before returning the car in Sorrento. The rest of the time we used public transport to get around, trains between the major cities are fast and easy to use, not to mention cheap.
Two Black Dogs 