General: It has been great to experience a little of many parts of Europe. A continent where we were able to visit and see evidence and reminders of earlier civilisations, great engineering, architecture and art. Churches centuries old and still in use that are grand and lavish in the extreme – difficult to comprehend without the explanation that people saw the Pope and the church as God’s representative on earth and the church architecture and decoration reflected this. Castles and palaces and sites of World War 1 and 11 battles and events evidenced the centuries of conflict which have shaped this continent. Amazing now to consider the European Union (covers all Europe except independent Switzerland) with a single currency and mostly no border controls. On the surface a very unified situation given the past. Will be interesting to see what the future holds as opinion/comment in local newspapers over the handling of the current financial crisis to the effect that the EU is a sham and each country is just approaching things from their own nationalistic point of view!?
Very interesting also to experience some of the differences in culture, world view and approach – from the Northern European Dutch, German and Swiss who tend to be very orderly and ordered approach, to the Italian which has elements of order but also much more apparent acceptance of the way things happen to be, including the “Italian Minute”.
People: NZ seems quiet and almost “under populated” by comparison with many of the mega cities and areas we visited. Put all of that alongside hordes of tourists and you have people everywhere. eg under the central city in Rome and in Paris our coach drove into huge underground car parks capable of holding maybe 100 coaches. eg commonly restaurants with tables and chairs jammed so closely together was a challenge to get in and out of ones chair! eg beaches (even pebbly rather than sandy ones) where people are lined in rows and tiers over the entire space.
Engineering and infrastructure: Tunnelling is undertaken extremely often – on one stretch of road between northern Italy and southern France we drove on the coach for about 2.5 hours and went through 163 tunnels – these are all part of a 4 lane toll motorway – 2 lanes through one tunnel and the opposing lanes in another parallel tunnel usually maybe 50 metres away. Very efficient. Also tunnels under cities and also the underground car parks referred to above. Very convenient motorway service centres about every 30 km or so along the way – generally with service station and convenience store, good coffee, reasonable size food courts, general shop, toilets etc. Not unusual for 30 or so trucks, several tour buses and 30 or so cars to be stopped at the same time. Trucks in Italy are not allowed on the roads on Sundays and through the EU regular breaks required so many pulled up at truck stops for drivers to sleep.
Driving: I was pleased to have been on the coach tour first and experienced a taste of European roads and motorways before we picked up our rental car. Overall I did not find driving in Italy and France as bad as some had made it out to be. The motorways can be fast but especially in Germany and Italy much more orderly – trucks and buses are all speed limited – and trucks are restricted to the right hand lane – so in many ways more orderly. For the most part (probably because we tended to avoid big cities at rush hour) the motorways are generally less congested and flow quite freely – so you can cover a lot of ground at 120-130 km/hr.
The Peugeot Lease was nice in a way but not something I would do again. I would much rather have had a medium size car that was less conspicuously “tourist”. The GPS was mostly great once we got used to it – provided clear voice and visual instructions – only drawback it did lead us into some narrow streets in the old parts of some cities which were really restricted access local traffic only – it doesn’t seem to differentiate – and once you’re in that system hard to get out.
We travelled 3,170 km in the rental over 18 days – average only 176 per day but some days did 350 other days none. Cost 264 Euro (approx NZ $554) for diesel 6.3 l/100km, and around NZ$125 for the convenience of toll roads. Anyway it was a major achievement to get the car back without any scratches or dings!
The Siesta: – especially in Italy shops/businesses generally (except some tourist places) close at 1pm and open again at 3 or 4pm – so thought is needed when planning the itinerary! The shutters come down and hardly a local is to be seen – home enjoying their mid-day main meal and having a snooze! A lifestyle I could quite get used to!
Gill’s Travel Awards to come!
