Driving at night

Driving after dark is stressful, the more so if you have to navigate. (There is a special level of Hell called Finding an old-town hotel in the dark.) Time stretches out and, lacking visual clues, your anxiety increases. So if we have to drive after sundown -- as, on this trip, we did almost every day -- we allow ourselves the luxury of the simplest, fastest route. In Italy, that often meant the Autostrada.

By American standards, these are hideously expensive -- twenty kilometers may cost a dollar -- but think about how much money you are spending over the average vacation day and compare the value of the time saved if the Autostrada gets you there twenty minutes sooner (no unexpected traffic jams, fewer U-turns after a roundabout mistake) -- to say nothing of the relief. You're on vacation, remember, you're supposed to be relaxing, not cursing the map and the unannounced road construction.

Home

ã Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith