My wife and I took a two-week vacation in Italy this year: our favorite country to visit. We love almost everything about Italy: the weather, the food, the wine, the scenery, the history, the culture, the language, the passion its people exhibit for living. It is a place where life is relished, cherished, and gorged upon with feverish delight.
It is also a place where death is cheated every day.
Evidently, there are few rules of the road in Italy, and those that do exist aren't enforced with any rigor by the Carabinieri. Aggravating this fact, Italian drivers aren't nearly as serious about the craft as German drivers. They are all over the road, exhibiting the lane discipline and speed limit observation of drunken frat boys with the keys to Daddy's BMW M5. Which is why, when I rented a 2007 Fiat Punto Grande from the Avis lot at Amerigo Vespucci Aeroporto di Firenze, I paid for the full insurance. Hey, I've been to Italy before. I've seen how banged up the cars are.
Before our trip, my State Farm agent told me that my policy's rental car coverage didn't include overseas trips. I figured the chances of scraping a bumper or denting the Punto's sheet metal were high, and because our trip included plans to drive south of Naples where, rumor has it, vehicle theft is a problem, I wanted to make sure that if I returned the Fiat with no doors, sagging bumpers, and smoke rising from the engine bay that I wouldn't owe a dime toward repairs. Full coverage, baby, no deductible.
As a pedestrian, you cannot take crossing the street lightly. Rome ain't Los Angeles, where people will step out into traffic and just assume cars will stop—and then get indignant when they're almost mowed down for forgetting what their mothers should have taught them: Look both ways before crossing the street.
Like L.A., Rome has crosswalks, but Rome also has swarms of bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, taxis, cars, trucks, and buses vying for space on narrow streets and alleyways. Eventually, enough of them will stop, or slow down, long enough for you to create a few inches of clearance between their bumpers and your legs, but this is not a place where one can blithely assume that the pedestrian is guaranteed safe passage. I watched an elderly tourist ignore a crosswalk signal near the Forum, and when she was halfway across the street, a horde of vehicles came ripping around a corner, filling pavement that had been vacant for as far as the eye could see just a moment before. She froze, traffic zipping and buzzing by all around her, until finally a group of scooters stopped to let her hobble the rest of the way across the street. If you're vacationing in Italy, my advice is to obey the signals or be ready to run.
As a motorist, Americans driving in Italy must adopt an entirely new mindset and driving style. Manhattan cab drivers would fit right in. Everyone else needs to buckle up, grit their teeth, grip the steering wheel until their knuckles turn white, and compete. Yep, I said compete. Perhaps appropriately—considering the proximity of the Coliseum, where man and beast regularly slaughtered one another—driving is often a brutal competition. Don't bother talking on your cell phone, don't listen to loud music, don't try to sip your Lavazza latte, and don't try to scarf leftovers from the Autogrill while you're driving in Italy. Your senses must be keen, and you've gotta be ready to react to almost anything.
Lane markings? Italy don't need no stinking lane markings! At a traffic light, Italians squeeze as many cars into the front line as will fit, and then the bicycles, scooters and motorcycles back-fill the remaining space. When the light turns green, everyone goes at the same time, and goes as fast as possible because there's a stream of vehicles six lanes wide trying to be first across the intersection and into one of two available traffic lanes. The winners are those who took no prisoners. Everyone else is getting honked at.
Think you'll be a nice guy and let somebody merge in front of you? That's a big mistake, because it's not as simple as letting someone have a turn and then assuming you'll get yours. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile, the old saying goes, and if you let anybody into traffic in front of you, plan on letting at least 10 more cars behind that first one in, too. And while you sit there, inching forward, eventually not caring about tapping another car, all the traffic behind you will be honking and yelling out of open windows.
Passing traffic is fun. Italy is ribboned with lots of two-lane, twisty roads that have little to no shoulder. The solid center line is a suggestion that passing slower traffic might not be prudent, but Italians just don't care. Vroooom, off they go, around the tour bus or the ugly American who hasn't yet mastered a manual transmission. And if they're passing on a curve and someone comes around the corner right at 'em, everyone somehow squeezes together to make enough space and avoid an accident. And yes, if you don't have the guts to risk a pass, people will honk at you.
Drivers can't worry about all those people on motorbikes, either, though I did go easy on a family of four that was puttering through downtown Naples on an ancient scooter during the insanity that is the Corso Umberto in the hour before siesta. Most of these bikers aren't wearing helmets, and they ride their Vespas and Ducatis and Moto Guzzis as if death was not a possibility. At one point, while traveling the coastal road between Sorrento and Positano, we watched a bare-headed motorcyclist zoom around a cliff-side curve, bike leaned way over, head skimming mere inches from the rock and concrete barrier between the road and the huge drop to the ocean below. Scooter drivers are just as bad, passing on the left and whizzing past oncoming traffic with little margin of error between their handles and the side mirrors of moving automobiles.
You've gotta watch out for the tour buses, too, especially on the Amalfi Coast, where tight blind curves are the rule. The buses frequently take up the entire road, and sometimes all oncoming motorists will get is a toot on a loud and irritating horn before tons of sheet metal appears, taking up half of your lane. Be ready to brake and dive, keep the stereo turned down, and keep the windows open so you can hear the blare of impending doom.
As daunting as this all sounds, we had great fun driving in Italy. Liz doesn't get carsick and likes to go fast, so I pushed the Punto as hard as I could on the roads drizzled across the mountains and cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, passing the airport shuttles and tour buses when it clearly wasn't safe, making room for those engaged in similar behavior as necessary, and generally driving like a complete jerk. In Sorrento we turned onto a side street that narrowed into an alley, so we tucked the mirrors in and squeezed through with nary an inch of clearance on either side of the car, wondering what we might do if the Punto became wedged between the walls. In Naples, we raced across the intersections in the battle to be first. In Rome, I behaved like a motorized maniac, rarely giving an inch and never letting anyone merge in front of me. And when we finally turned the Punto back in, there wasn't a dent, or a scrape, or a wisp of underhood smoke that hadn't already existed before we picked up the car.
The car itself wasn't bad. I selected the Fiat over a more stylish Renault Megane because I figured I might as well drive an Italian car in Italy. About the size of a Ford Focus ZX5, the Punto Grande was a diesel with a manual transmission, but I couldn't tell you anything about fuel economy except to say that I filled it twice during the week at a cost of $75 per tank. The engine was torquey enough but ran out of juice as revs climbed, though it could cruise at 160 km on the Autostrada,. The shifter was disappointing, a floppy and vague utensil jutting from the center console, yet the clutch was very easy to modulate. Like most European cars, the Fiat featured a supple ride, a communicative suspension, and good body control. The absolutely numb electric steering featured a handy button to switch assist levels for the city and the highway, making the Fiat easier to park at low speeds and giving the steering an appreciable heft on the Autostrada.
The Punto's rather odd-looking front end reminded me of Jaguar's new XK—distorted to economy car proportions, of course—and the rear end had the high mounted taillights that used to be on the Focus. Inside, materials were on par with American econocars, but the seats were terrific and the steering wheel was a pleasure to hold. All in all, the Fiat Punto Grande was unremarkable, and most of those we saw on the roads appeared to be rentals driven by tourists, making it the Chevy Cobalt of Italy.
Still, we'll remember that little dark gray car fondly. It helped us to cheat death while relishing, cherishing, and gorging upon life in the cities, countryside and coastal hideaways of our favorite European country.
