Driving in France and Italy 2014

After some marathon drives across France last summer, I have made a new rule this year. No one-day trips longer than 650 kilometers (400 miles). So far, I have driven from the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to the Vosges (505 kilometers) to the Baronnies north of Mont Ventoux (610 kilometers) to Saint Savin in the Pyrénées (575 kilometers) to Biert in the Ariège Pyrénées (175 kilometers). The drive from Biert to Bormio Italy was 1130 kilometers, so I spent the night in Saint Jean-de-Maurienne, which is about halfway. I still have to drive back to Albertville, France (525 kilometers) and then back to Paris and the airport (650 kilometers). In the end, I think that I will put over 4000 kilometers (2500 miles) on the Dacia (my leased car). You can see the Dacia in the photo below. Its the red car with red plates next to the grey Porsche. The other red car is a Ferrari.

I leased the Dacia Sandero for five weeks from Renault USA. It came to me brand new. The Dacia runs on diesel (cheaper fuel and really good mileage) and has GPS, although the GPS is a different brand than last year's car. Last year, the voice on my GPS was Serena. This year's GPS is nameless. If you are wondering what a Dacia is, the car is made in Romania. These cars used to have a reputation akin to a Yugo. However, Renault bought Dacia in 1999. The Dacia now seems to be a bit more reliable. Oh, the car has a manual transmission too. You don't find too many automatics in Europe.

If you haven't driven in France or Italy, they drive on the right side of the road, the same as in the U.S. There are differences though. Italy and especially France is the land of the roundabout.  The roundabouts do seem to control speed, but they must be trying to save money on traffic lights. The roads can be divided into autoroutes (tollways), two-lane roads, one-lane roads with a strip down the middle, and one lane roads. It's amazing to see trucks and tour busses using some of these smaller roads.

Autoroutes are expensive. A 600 kilometer trip on the autoroute might cost 40-60 euros (1 euro = $1.34). Fuel is also expensive, but unlike the U.S., diesel is cheaper. I have seen it as low as 1.25 euros per liter in France to as high as 1.65 euros per liter in Italy. That's over $8 per gallon.  The cheapest place to top off is usually the supermarket. The most expensive places are on the autoroutes. If you buy fuel at a French supermarket, you will need to find out that has a manned kiosk, so you can pay cash. Otherwise, the supermarket pumps expect a pin-and-chip credit card, which your U.S. issued credit card is not. The unmanned pumps in Italy accept euro notes, so this is not a problem.

The speed limit on the autoroute is 130 kilometers per hour. My pet peeve about French and Italian drivers is that they think it is okay to stay 10 feet off your rear bumper when you are traveling at 130 kilometers per hour even if there is a line of cars in front of you. The Italians seem to bit a bit worse than the French, but both at least respect cyclists.

Finally, Italy is the land of tunnels.  To get to Bormio, I drove the length of Lake Como.  But I saw very little of the lake.  Most of the time was spent driving through tunnels.  However, the biggest tunnel was the Fréjus road tunnel. It runs under Col du Fréjus in the Cottian Alps between Modane in France and Bardonecchia in Italy for 13 kilometers (8.1 miles).  It's expensive (42 euros one-way or 53 euros if you return within 7 days).  I did not like driving underground for over 8 miles.