The more I got to thinking about it, and after my hands stopped shaking enough to type, the more I wanted to share about driving in Italy, or more appropriately riding in Italy.
The moral of the story? Everything is out of your control. Close your eyes and hope.
Going up to Vesuvius was interesting, but more interesting was coming down. We were the first Vesuvius Espress up, so we didn’t have much traffic. The road was winding and narrow. When we got to the top, our drive backed into a parking spot (that he made) and stopped when he felt the minibus (van) hit something. There were already three big tourbuses at the top. I wondered how possibly they made it up. That became painfully apparent on the way down.
We were stopped for about five minutes on the way down while two big buses that had met in a hairpin turn honked it out for supremacy. It ended with everyone–the whole line of vehicles that had backed up– having to put it in reverse to clear the jam, all the while mopeds would zoom through the narrow gap.
I thought to myself it surely was nice to be on a smaller vehicle. This is ironic foreshadowing, by the way.
Turns out, the final bus that we had to take to Maiori on the Amalfi coast was driven by a man that worshipped the movie “Speed.”
Do I really need to say any more? You all have probably either heard of or seen that movie with Sandra Bullock where there is a bomb on the bus that detonates if they drop below 50-whatever miles per hour.
Imagine this, but on mountain roads with blind turns and a huge tourbus. In addition, the driver apparently had a few important cell phone calls that he had to take.
A girl got on the bus, and must have found the driver cute, because she decided to go flirt with him while he was on his phone, honking the horn, swerving around turns… and shifting, because it was a standard.
Apply all of the 10 Italian Rules of the Road. Mopeds are exempt from all regulation, lane usage, common sense, etc. The lanes were actually marked for part of the trip up, but in typical Italian tradition, the lines were promptly ignored. Around some turns, cars had to stop and back up to avoid being smashed to smithereens by this barreling bulk of a bus. One car backing up hit the guard rail. Nobody cared. The bus rolled on.
Talking to Lauren and Chelsea who were on the other side of the bus and a seat up, I said, “I don’t think three euros is nearly enough for this thrill ride.”
They immediately started laughing. Apparently more people on the bus spoke English than I thought, because I got a few curious stares.
“Disney World costs more than three euro, and we only had to stand in line for 45 minutes, not three hours,” I continued.
The more I thought about it, the better of a parallel it was, only Disney actually has to pass safety inspections and you end up right back where you started. And the view from a roller coaster isn’t nearly as good.
Kevin: Worse than Crotchety and Rookie. No pull-offs. Everybody just passes on the turns.
