Renting Your Car and Driving Around Petrognano

You need to have a car in order to enjoy your stay in Petrognano.

We’ve also learned we need to prepare guests, particularly those coming from Minnesota and the Midwest in the U.S., for the narrow roads and the mountain drive. By Italian standards, we need to be careful describing Petrognano as being on a mountain. But, by Minnesota standards, it’s a mountain. And, the roads get narrow and winding as you work your way up the hill. There’s actually plenty of room for cars to pass on these roads, and people tend to drive them pretty respectfully.

Still, for some visitors, the first time up the hill came as a bit of a shock. So come prepared. Know that some drivers honk when taking the blind curves to let oncoming traffic know there are there. Another strategy is to read the road ahead of you whenever you get a clear shot to look for oncoming traffic. There is also the trusted strategy of just driving slow and keeping to your right. This is all much easier at night when you have the benefit of headlight beams to share signals with approaching traffic.

We know you have probably heard about “Italian drivers.” In our experience, we found driving in Italy to be quite manageable. The key thing is to be a 360 degree driver – keep an eye on what’s ahead of you, beside you and behind you through your rear view mirror. If someone is driving much faster than you, and this is most likely to be on the autostrada, pull over to the right lane and let them pass. You don’t need to go as fast as they are, but you do need to clear the way.

Also, keep an eye out for motorcycles and scooters. It seems these drivers do not have to be bothered with rules of the road. They will pass you on the left, on the right,

sometimes they just appear in front of you – I don’t know how they get there! If they don’t think traffic is moving fast enough in the established lanes, they will drive between cars and create their own. We have more than once seen emergency vehicles on the side of the road tending to an accident involving a cyclist. We even had a cycle lose traction and fall right in front of our car. Luckily, we were doing the 360 thing and saw this rider coming from behind, could see the driver was going to take a spill and was able to stop fast enough to avoid a nasty “thump, thump.”

[Bob]