Driving in Italy, or constantly living in fear of backing it up.

I have never driven in Italy. No thanks, I say.

Too many roads without lane dividers, but two-way traffic. Too many roads that are one and a half lanes wide but are still two way.

One of the more memorable parts of our Tuscan vacation was when we had just crossed into Italy from Austria, where the highway (where we had to pay a toll and then a separate toll, ugh) was so congested it pushed us almost over the edge of sanity. We were looking forward to driving through the alps and headed to the pass....

But thanks to some dumb bike race, we were stopped by the sharply dressed Italian police officer and told to back up.

On. A. Mountain.

Did I mention that cars were parked on both sides? Good thing we (and by we I mean Matt) have/has been practicing backing out of our crazy tight driveway for a year and a half.

Poor Chris had some rude guy FACING his car as he backed down too.

Once we got past that though, things improved.

Castles!

Entering the Tuscan region!

Chris letting us be lead car (always a risk - Matt isn't the best lead car, but we had the directions to our villa)

Okay, so this one deserves some explanation (and a video)- we saw this dumb porsche with Britain tags on our way into Siena. He was going slower than sand and this scooter (A SCOOTER!) passed him. It was pretty epic. Who drives a porsche around windy Italian roads and drives under the speed limit and breaks constantly?

The trees were nice all over when we were out visiting castles.

In the Dolomites (Northern Italy) it was chillier and more mountain pass-y-er.

Note the windy roads....

Ugh, being a passenger for these is rough. Lots of motion you have no control over.

Up and around...

It was so chilly Matt finally broke down and bought a sweatshirt.

Stopping for pictures....

....and car inspections. Boys.

More pictures!

Up high.

I know all the boys like driving, but as a passenger it gets rough. Luckily (or unluckily?) this was Matt and my final long Italian driving trip. We made good use of the car, though, check out this stuffed trunk:

Yeah! Thanks Italy, for all of your wine and Matt's three new pairs of shoes.