Are you an intrepid driver or a timid one? For me, it all depends on the location. Put me in Washington DC and I'll drive like a boss because I used to live up there and learned how to navigate the roads. I've driven in LA, Boston, Houston, and Seattle, and none of those places fazed me either.
But put me in a country where I don't speak the language and I absolutely do not want to pilot a vehicle there. That just pushes me well past my comfort zone. My husband, however, is a brave driver and, as it happens, I am a great navigator so we're a good team.
There are some areas where we have known our limitations in advance and didn't get cocky about driving. In Bali, for example, we knew not to attempt it, so we hired drivers when we were there. We're not stupid.
In Italy, on the other hand, we had to learn some lessons the hard way. We navigated the area south of Rome to the Amalfi Coast more or less without difficulty, in spite of some issues with directions. We got cocky and decided we'd drive from Naples to our apartment in Rome so that we could unload our rental car before returning it.
Be ye not so stupid.
We made it to Rome just fine. But then our original driving route was closed at the last minute by a festival or protest. So we were rerouted by Google maps.
Then, our second route was closed for some sort of festival or protest. So Google rerouted us. Again.
And then, no lie, it happened a third time.
By this time we were frustrated and tired. Before I could stop him, my husband made a turn onto a new road that was not part of our re-re-re-routed directions. The road narrowed after a couple of blocks, then narrowed again. And then the road changed from pavement to cobblestones. Then we found ourselves in a plaza full of people and unable to go any farther. And there, to our right, were the Spanish Steps.
At that point, an Italian police officer walked up to our car and started yelling at us. We don't speak Italian so we had no idea what he was saying, only that he seemed really unhappy. He did yell, "Solo pedonale!" several times. We definitely caught that.
So we shrugged, said we were sorry, and slowly drove out of the plaza and onto a different road.
We eventually made it to our apartment and swore that we'd never drive in Rome again. We unloaded the car and returned it.
We looked up solo pedonale and it means "pedestrians only." But we had not seen signs noting the change from road to walkway around the Spanish Steps.
A few days later, we found ourselves back at the Spanish Steps as tourists and the first thing we did was retrace our route down the narrow street. We found a sign that said area pedonale and it even had a graphic of a stick figure walking. Unfortunately, the sign was mounted on the side of a building at the height of the second floor, well above our eye level when seated in a small Italian car. No wonder we didn't see it.
And now we've seen the Spanish Steps. Twice, if you count our driving tour. And that's enough for me.
Wow! What a trip! I adore your misadventures!
I'm the city driver and Scott is the boring/safe country driver. Like you, it works well. Mexico city at night was my favorite but I really should put down my internal Mario Andreotti. It comes natural, as my grandfather was a race car driver in the 1930s.