Driving in Italy

The seaside community of Fano was described as a “sleepy little town” in our guide book, but we found it to be fairly large with energetic crowds of vacationers and vigorous street life. In fact, from our room at Hotel Roma, Viale Dante Alighieri, we were immersed in street life for about twenty hours a day! Just as we thought things were calming down around 3 a.m. on our first night, there was a horrendous metallic crash just outside our window. We were surprised not to hear shouting from the drivers involved (a crash sound is always followed by shouting in our experience). In the morning, litter from the event and a crumpled guard rail remained as evidence of the nocturnal collision. On our second day we were sitting at an outdoor café less than a block away when we witnessed another accident on the same corner. Needless to say, our departure from the hotel in a rented car was rather stressful given the record of one accident per day on that corner!!

After a long morning walk north along the waterfront of Fano, we departed with vague directions for reaching Urbino. Driving in Italy requires quick decisions based on sketchy information. Everyone else knows where they are going, and there are far too many traffic circles! We are used to 4-way stop signs or traffic lights. Even though I know that traffic circles are demonstrably safer than, say left turns against oncoming traffic, I still prefer the full stop to the ambiguous glide. It seems to me that traffic circles bring on a collective, and very literal, agoraphobia.

Highways in Italy are kind to the landscape. They are built with many bridges and tunnels in order to accommodate the hills and valleys. These roads seem soft, unlike those where a bulldozer rearranges the earth to make a straight new thoroughfare.

Urbino’s signature is “Emozioni in forma di città,” and we learned it the hard way. The drive from Fano to Urbino seemed quick compared with the time it took us to locate the conference site once we arrived! We quickly found the location of the “Seven Deadly Sins” meeting we had attended eleven years before at the Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo, but that entire campus is now under construction. That didn’t hinder people from sending us to three or four buildings based entirely on rumors. An hour later, when two recommendations converged on the fact that we needed to go to another campus 5 km out of town, we were not surprised, but were disappointed that we would not be within walking distance of Urbino.

The Sogesta campus is isolated from any village by 5 km of very steep, curvy, narrow roads. Even after we found the main building, it was difficult to find the registration desk for the conference. On the other hand we were able to register for our room right away and discovered that it was air conditioned!! We both remembered a torrid room facing the afternoon sun at the other campus.

I had a wonderful pranzo in the cafeteria (chicken, vegetables, salad, fruit, wine) and then took a nap. I hope to do the same every day! Being isolated on this campus all day was frustrating, so we decided to take an excursion to Fermignano, reportedly closer than Urbino. As we approached a stop sign just outside the town, I shouted to Vincent to stop, and so he did, causing the car behind to hit us.

The driver got out and began shouting at us in Italian. When Vincent got out of our car, looking a little dazed and confused, the other driver got progressively more and more angry at my husband’s silence. Finally, after two long minutes of this shouting and pointing, I regained the presence of mind to say, “No capisce Italiano.” The formerly aggressive driver shifted his tone and began to apologize (I think). Vincent and I were both shaken by this episode although neither car was damaged at all. We tried to go to a grocery store in Fermignano, which, of course, was closed, so we cautiously drove right back to the campus parking lot and went to our room to compose ourselves before dinner. I felt a little like a character in the short story, “The Appointment in Samarra” by Somerset Maugham. After all of our efforts to avoid the “crash-a-day” we witnessed in Fano, “fate” followed us all the way to Urbino, and came close enough to give us a fright!

We had a very nice dinner on campus with our friends, and found a ride into Urbino for a nightcap afterwards. Vincent offered to drive, but fortunately someone else won that joust. We sat outside a café in the Piazza de la Republica, drinking Campari while water sparkled from the fountain like a curtain of jewels.