Originally Posted by
patentcad
When I go to Greece the biggest pain is renting the car. The little, stick shift, dimply, tiny-ass, 'mid-size' car that's about the size of a Jetta if you're lucky. But it's always a friggin Seat (that's like a Polish Fiat or something).
Here's how much smaller the cars are in Europe. After about a week there last time, a Ford Explorer passes me on my road bike. Then I say to myself 'this is Greece, they don't have Explorers here'. So I look more closely at the car. It's a Subaru Forrester. When Subarus start looking like Ford Explorers to you, you realize the cars are smaller over there.
When you look at the size of the streets in most European towns it all makes sense; a Ford Explorer might as well be an M1 Abrahms. I'm looking forward to going back to Europe though this year doesn't look likely at all, but next year should. My best friend inherited his dad's house in Galicia, Spain which needs a little bit of TLC which we might do when we go back; the house is up in the mountains pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The roads are in good condition so I'd love to go and ride up there especially if we're staying in my friend's house, it would be a nice change from always being near urban centers plus riding through Galician mountain towns sounds really really nice.
Your car rental comment reminded me of my last trip to Spain with my family and my best friend's family where we had an automatic car reserved but when we went to pick it up they told us they didn't have it. We were offered a stick which my wife offered to drive since she owned one several years ago; let's just say her memory retention was pretty shot when it came to recalling how to drive one because we spent 15 minutes in the garage trying to sort out shifting as she was burning the clutch. We gave up and managed to get an automatic Peugot and while it was double what I planned on spending for a rental, it sure made the 6hr drive from Madrid to Galicia much nicer.