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This is one of the roads near Monterosso al Mare in Cinque Terre. Your parallel parking game better be on-point. Turns out my rental Fiat 500L had hill assist, which comes in handy with the diesel and its slow throttle response. Those yellow lines designate resident parking whereas white lines are fair game. As you can see, the roads are narrow. In the tighter switchback sections, I noticed people would honk as they rounded corners as a warning.
Getting around the small towns is often easiest on a moto.
Some parts of some towns are off-limits to vehicles except for local residents.
If you watch Formula 1, you’ve probably seen the name Esso. Diesel was 1.40 euro per liter, which is about 5.30 euro per gallon which equals $6.24 US at current exchange rates. Yeah, that’s why many people drive small little diesels in Europe. My little Fiat 500L diesel had a whopping 84hp but it returned awesome mileage. Anytime I was getting on the highway, it was foot to the floor.
There are usually gloves next to the diesel pump to keep the oil off your hands.
You have to be careful about fuel stations. If you’re out in the countryside, they can be closed in the timeframe of 1pm-3pm or so when pretty much everything closes for a midday break. So you’ll have to use a credit card with a chip. Sometimes, these machines don’t always work like at two stations I visited. In this case, you have to pay cash. I JUST beat the closing of the gas station at 7pm. The attendant was about to lock the door to the store at the station.
I got the very last parking spot on a Sunday right before noon in Monterosso al Mare. Five minutes later, three other cars had already shown up looking for spots. Parking can be a bit tight sometimes; it’s a good thing the mirrors fold in. Don’t drive to Monterosso al Mare if you can avoid it; taking the train there is easy enough.
So, that was part of my mini European road trip. The Fiat 500L with a honkin' 84hp diesel. While not a fun ride, was competent. It carried our luggage, got good fuel economy (fuel ain’t cheap in Europe), was reasonably comfy, and actually had a slightly sporty ride. As for driving around Italy, have cash ready and traffic will probably be going 20-30kmh faster than posted. Oh yeah, Nissan Jukes are popular over there, go figure.
3 comments
Great article, thank you so much. I’ll have a 500L for five days to explore the Piedmont a little, using Turin as a base. Some very useful information, will look forward to learning how to double clutch shift.
Thanks for the tips.
I’m debating between a 500L and a diesel Clio. We’ll be driving from Salerno to Palermo in July of 2019. We are 2 people with luggage.
The Clio will be more sporty for sure. Looking at the pics, the rear hatch may not be big enough to hold your luggage, so you’ll likely have to put them in the back seats which just means you might not want to stay parked long anywhere with the luggage in view. That’s a heck of a drive you have planned!