Driving in Europe

[SuperBuickGuy]

there are a zillion speed and red light cameras. One trip to Europe I drove, all the rest - charter bus or train. One thing you might consider is a charter - they are a lot cheaper than here in the States.

[greenjunk]

Drove through the middle of france for 3 days. It was refreshing. I miss it. Cordial Drivers, right lane only, left lane for fast moving cars as it should be. The limit on the highway is nearly 90mph. One thing we found is fuel prices are very very high, and trains were also more then expected. I would say just make sure you understand the signage, they are very different. If you get a chance rent from sixt. You can get an audi A1 tdi coupe. Neat car wished I had picked it.

[Barry Donovan]

Epic quote.......and true.

Being a WWII buff I'm looking forward to visiting many places these guys fought and hear
their side of things............and seeing lots of old castles.

Also I hear they have good beer.

that is strangely true..stuff you get bored with in sixth grade.
I called everything small. Call it conservative, an island is a limited play pen.

my own family history is literally gothic sasquatch.. Today, shrunken genetically, and would still run like hell from that place...on a simple boat they'd call an ocean liner.

I actually liked it for the educational depth, architecture with time to think of longevity. Alot of america is like toilet paper in comparison.
pros and cons.. its all good.

I only drove on busses smacking off the bushes, would not stay confident in anything bigger than a fiesta or festiva..the ford micro car of old..

[antmnte]

Have a great time. I f you get to Paris go to Notre Dame. Incredible. Good job helping those vets.

[Monk]

Have a great time. I f you get to Paris go to Notre Dame. Incredible. Good job helping those vets.

Thanks Anthony...........Paris is on the agenda.........$200 train ride

[bulletproof]

only 2 places out of the states ive driven ,mexico and Ireland.. mexico was in a offroad race car ,little or no rules...Ireland was interesting, narrow roads, round abouts ,wrong side of the road. shifting with the left hand. would love to take a trip through Europe .

[malc]

Get yerself down here to Spain where the sunshine is.......

[BigBlockMopar]

He might aswell just drive down to Mexico for some sun and spanish language...

[Monk]

Get yerself down here to Spain where the sunshine is.......

It's on the bucket list Malc

[Thumpin455]

Longest stretch of Bahn with no limit we knew of was between Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern, might be some up north if you get away from the big cities. Anywhere around a town its going to slow down. I never made it to most of the eastern part of the country, since it the wall came down while I was there and they were none too fond of us driving around. if you see flashing headlights behind you, move over like right now. Dont flip anyone off, and dont point at your head while looking at another driver, and sure as hell dont give anyone the OK sign, they can get you a ticket for doing that. They have stop signs, but since Germans are damn near professional drivers they arent everywhere. The biggest town in Germany is Ausfahrt.... every sign leading off limited access roads goes there.

I hated Paris. Worst city I have been to, Kuwait City is preferable to Paris. The rest of France was ok, but yanks stand out there. Most of the tourists are jerks, so they treat all of us like jerks, especially if you dont know the language, or worse yet butcher it.

Amsterdam was fun, as is the rest of Holland, cool place great people, nearly everyone speaks English.

Its been over twenty years since I have been around there, so there might be fewer gray areas on the Bahns. #5 is the one you want to go to K town from Frankfurt. I miss Germany, especially since I can get parts for my car much easier over there. I bought the blue Formula in my avatar while stationed there back in 1990, it would sure be some expensive fun to take it back with 2.41 gears in it.

[Loren]

It was the early nineties when we were in France...driving along a two-lane on top of a levee or something in the south a car full of people was passing someone else coming the other way...they would not pull in and the car being passed would not let them in. With everybody going sixty mph, I had the right-side tires in the dirt inches from the edge and we cleared the oncoming car by perhaps a couple inches. Incredibly stupid drivers, we could have all been killed because of their stupidity. Fortunately that was the only such incident but it taught me to not be in too much awe of the European way of doing things, you also have to use your own American common sense too.

Coming into Paris as it got busier and busier, there was so much going on so fast in unfamiliar territory I chose to follow taxis, right on their asses, in order to pick my way through traffic while Gail navigated. It really did take two people, one could not have found his way while dealing with weirdness, speeds and risk-taking by ourselves, other drivers and pedestrians. As far as getting really lost, it can't happen if you keep an eye on where the Eiffel Tower (which you'd better call L' Tour I-Fell when you're there) is, you can see it from a very wide area. I'm sure it's easier now w/ GPS but still, you cannot navigate and deal w/ the incredible traffic and driving by others alone, unless you already know your way around.

Little towns w/ narrow streets may have lots of one-ways w/ arrows hard to find on the side of buildings, and the street name may change each block. Highways and most other roads are really little different then in the U.S. except for roundabouts, which after a while I started to look forward to...many people seem to hate them but I thought they were fun. Sometimes I just went round and round, looking at the scenery and watching my exit go by until I was ready to take it, and there might be other drivers smiling and seeming to do the same thing. Gail would be getting all pissed..."YOU MISSED OUR TURN...", so what, it'll come around again in a moment.

This was all in a little red Citroen rental with a 1.3 but the "hi-perf" version. Man it felt like it was going to come apart at higher speeds... Fun, fun though, I wouldn't trade the experience.

[antmnte]

I remeber driving my cousins Fiat 500 in Italy and him getting mad at me for actually stopping at stop signs! He said "You see no one is coming why are you stopping!" Makes sense I guess.

[Monk]

My only foreign driving experience......if you can call it that.......was in San Juan, PR
I was TAD with a detachment of Sea Bees.....we were in the middle of no where building an Armed Forces Radio and TV Station.

Four of us rented a VW one week end to go to San Juan........looked like 4 trained bears in it.............they've got a dedicated
lane for city buses in the city.
Well I ended up in it......people on side of streets were yelling at us in Spanish......didn't find out till later what the hell I was doing.

Going back to base at night we found out the police keep their whirling lights (they were blue) on all time.......sort of a safety thing so
people know when the police are in the area should they need them.

We kept pulling over thinking we were being stopped.

Thanks for all the tips.