San Gregorio d'Ippona

Wow, what a long day already and we have only completed the first step of our travel day. We left Maratea at 9am for what should have been a three and a half hour drive that turned into a four and a half hour drive.

We saw a few accidents today, not surprising because Italians all drive like they have a death wish, lots of police doing radar, first time we had seen that, and ridiculous speed limits in odd places. And some of the roads we drove on were very scary, so high up and sticking out the side of mountains. It was a very stressful drive.

We then arrived at the car hire place to drop the car off and while most places have been relatively easy to park the car, we drove into a major traffic area. There were cars everywhere. We have never seen traffic like it and there was no way we could find a park. I jumped out to find out from the car hire company where to go. The lady came out, just stuck her hand up to cross the busy road, (and the cars just stopped for her), and thankfully she then took over the driving. She did a u-turn in the middle of all the traffic and parked the car outside her office across the driveway. She then told us it was school pick up time which was why it was so hectic. Ten minutes later and it was as quiet as anything.

It amazes me how the Italians just drive wherever they want, park any which way and everyone seems quite calm about it. We have heard very few horns blasting (except the odd one at us for obeying the speed limit) and haven’t witnessed any road rage. Us Aussie drivers need to learn a thing or two about patience when driving.

I think Brad was extremely relieved to be able to hand over the keys and call it a day. Due to the stress of driving today, we changed our future travel plans to exclude anymore driving adventures. Brad breathed a big sigh of relief. He has done an amazing job driving and we have seen so many more places because he was brave enough to give it a go. ❤️Read more