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| En route to Palermo |
All of my driving has been in North America with the aid of maps, excellent roads signs and a good sense of direction. Our most recent girls trip was a driving trip in Sicily and we included a GPS unit with our rental. Now as I was not driving, I really did not pay much attention to this aspect of the trip planning. Armed with photocopied map portions of Sicily and road directions (to our rental locations); we rented the car, plugged in the GPS and off we went. Our first destination was Palermo and driving to it from Catania was relatively straight forward, especially considering our rental unit was just off the main road. I had located the rental unit prior to leaving and had printed directions including map on hand for the trip. We reached or destination with one or two minor recalculating messages, that were hilarious at the time. In fact the trip route was basically as expected based on my mapping exercise. We were off to a good start.
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Recalculating again,
so what did we do wrong this time! |
Like many before us, we had attributed human characteristics or behaviours to our GPS; as well as naming her. She went through several names changes over the course of our trip being named Guinevere after her first betrayal, but Matilda was the name that stuck. She was also called Genevieve, Martha, Mildred, Mabel, Mavis and Bertha at one point or another; so it's no wonder she had suffered
several personality crisis's. The worst meltdown was in Palermo (at night time) where Matilda went into a recalculating frenzy advising us at one point that we were on a country lane (actually showed up on the GPS screen as being in the middle of a green area) when we were in neighbourhood area less than 2 kms from our destination. We had to turn it off and back on, because Matilda was hopelessly lost - go figure! We even received the "unable to calculate route to destination" twice when we missed a directional change she requested while in urban areas, much to our amazement and like many times before, these announcements were met with a series of unprintable comments.
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| This qualifies as a road in Sicily. |
It can be safely stated that within 48 hours; recalculating had become a 4-letter word! Our misplaced trust in Matilda was severely shaken and we began to question her directions, although we would have hopelessly lost without her. The reason for that is quite simple, in cities and towns a street sign is the exception rather than the rule. The streets have names (and the GPS knows the names) but good luck trying to find any signs to effectively use with a map. Furthermore, the GPS System that you received from the rental car agency may not have the most current version of map's installed (ours did not), so new roundabouts, one-way roads and new roads in general may not be current. Getting into a town is the easy part, the fun starts when you try to leave. In hindsight we should
have bought a GPS at home, loaded the current version of Europe maps and set up some routing before leaving for our vacation, but alas we were GPS novices. A
good old fashioned paper map is necessary backup but beware all maps are not created equal. The mapping applications on our pads or cell phones were consulted to try to find easily accessible restaurants as well as to check driving options before heading out on the daily jaunts, for a check of course (we were no longer the trusting GPS novices).
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| 50 kph, yeah right (try 80-100 kph)! |
Now driving in any unfamiliar place is stressful but driving in Sicily is difficult at best, terrifying at worst. To be blunt many Sicilian motorists are careless, disrespectful of the rights of those with whom they share the streets (including pedestrians) and they can be downright aggressive. Many are also under the impression that they are Mario Andretti. Italian speed limits are 50 kph in cities, 90 kph outside of cities, 110 kph on highways and 130 kph on autostrada. Getting passed on the autostada doing the speed limit (130 kph) like you were standing still was a common and at first startling experience (just get out of the way of the Mercedes, BMW's and Alfa Romeo's and you will be fine). That also meant roads that are no more than cart paths (in my opinion anyway) may have speed limits of 50 or 90 kph, assuming you could actually find a limit posted for them. If that was not bad enough, the best I can figure is that speed limits are considered a guideline not a limit in Sicily. Most drive well over the maximum speed limit not just the 10 kph I had read as being the norm (20-30 kph or more over the speed limit is more the norm). Stopping seems to come under the same category as speed limits in Sicily, stop signs are a consideration not necessarily a stop, unless it's a light. They actually stop for red lights. I have read that the rules of the roads tended to be more strictly adhered to in northern Italy but not so much in southern Italy and based on our experience this may indeed be true.
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| No, Don't Stop! |
Sicilian drivers think nothing of overtaking on blind corners and consider a hairs width to be the correct distance between cars, regardless of speed! Add in the fact that the road signs can be confusing or practically non-existent with road numbers (and sometimes distances) rarely shown on signs, making directions using road numbers useless. Actually being able to read the signs on the roads amid the vast vegetation can be a challenge in itself. Furthermore, they are often poorly placed, too small, too many placed at one location (you are unable to read all of them
at any speed and near impossible to pick out the one you are actually trying to find) or they can be placed after the intersection so that you have passed the middle of the intersection before seeing the sign, too late to make the correct turn especially on roundabouts (resulting in another recalculating message). Directional signs to museums and other attractions suffer the same fate with some having fantastic signage and others non-existent at best.
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Pickup Ape
Copyright Jorge Pérez - www.lookmeluck.com
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Then there is parking, which is another hit or miss experience (contrary to what I have read; parking spaces/areas can range from easy to find to near impossible). You need to beware that parking may be paid parking (tickets from a machine or nearby business), free parking, residents only parking, restricted parking, what seems to be a free for all type of parking and then there is the double parking (not just stopping) that will occur in the most inconvenient places. Car size will play an important consideration in your ability to park just about anywhere. The parking spaces are made for small vehicles and are narrow; so the smaller the vehicle the easier it is to park or manoeuvre into a parking space including those on one-way streets. I suspect this may have been the reason for the high number of "Tricycle Ape" vehicles we saw in Sicily. They are three wheeled light commercial vehicles that are available as pick-ups, panel vans, general cargo vehicles, garbage trucks, police vehicles, small campers and there is even a passenger variant (and probably anything other variation imaginable). Regardless they are cute and seem to be extremely practical for the historic centres and those so called streets that are actually cart paths that can be found throughout Sicily.
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| Another cart-path street (Cefalu, Sicily) |
Don't be surprised to see locals driving the wrong way on a one-way street (I have actually seen this more times than I care to remember)! Then there are the roundabouts (which are approximately 25% more efficient that 4 way stops). Ah yes the roundabouts, assume that any traffic joining the roundabout will not give way for you and if you find yourself in a roundabout without your destination listed (highly probable), the wise decision will be to take additional turns in the roundabout until you're confident you're on the correct route. Cars in the roundabout supposedly always have the right of way (another rule of the road that is rarely observed). Furthermore cars in the roundabout will not always be in one lane so chaos in the roundabouts may occur, particularly those in larger centres or at peak traffic times (to be fair, many roundabouts did operate very efficiently). In busy traffic, 2 lanes can quickly turn into 3 or 4 (with only 2 lanes marked) then back to 2 again with no rhyme nor reason. Assume that any vehicle joining the road from the right is definitely going to pull out in front of you. That's a given. When driving always keep an eye on your right side mirror. Mopeds (and sometimes even cars - yikes) have a nasty habit of trying to overtake you on the right.
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| Yup, an actual stop sign. |
In many ways we were naive when we embarked on our Sicily trip but we survived, mainly in part due to the steely nerves of our driver (thanks Kathy). In hindsight the key factors to surviving a driving trip in Sicily are to buy a GPS at home and preload it with destinations and routings; order a physical map as backup for your GPS before embarking on your trip (http://www.trektools.com); use the mobile map apps (such as http://www.viamichelin.com);
and drive the speed you and your passengers are comfortable with following the rules of the road while ignoring the honks and gestures of the locales. Finally, ensure you have full comprehensive insurance with no deductible on the rental vehicle, you will more than likely need it (Sicilian cars without or with damaged side mirrors and/or body damage is a common sight). Having said that, I would estimate 90% of the roads are in excellent shape even the cobblestone streets and they often are in better shape than at home (no freeze/thaw cycle). Regardless of the dubious driving habits of the Sicilians, their system seems to work well for them. I honestly can't say I recall seeing one driver using a cell phone (a claim that can't be made for North America). Ultimately the best way to explore Sicily is by renting a car and use the main freeways to get around.
Oh and expect to have at least one cart path story (or is that horror story) to tell when you get home! And yes recalculating is indeed a four letter word.
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Follow that vehicle (as we try to get out of town)!
The start of the Corleone adventure. |
