I thought the car was small, until I saw the cars that people drive in Tuscany - miniscule. They need to be, to get through the narrow streets and park on the sidewalks. Here's our rental, with a New Mexico magnet on it (a yucca, not the flag), just in case we didn't stick out quite enough as Americans.
The road sign markings in Europe are fantastic. I particularly liked the plenty of notice of which lane to be in when coming up to any junction. This was true almost everywhere, except when I made the incorrect decision to stay on the autostrada (like an interstate, but much more controlled access) at Padova because I never saw a sign for Bologna. Oops! But it did give us a great look at the suburbs, a welcome break from the big freeway while we back-tracked.
Italian walled towns are great. The biggest tourist draws for walled towns are San Gimignano and recently Volterra (since it got into some popular tourist book) but the smaller towns are just as wonderful, and don't have the tourists. They all have some houses where people still live, along with the tourist shops. Here's San Gimignano:
And here's the pay station for the toilet at San Gimignano. I can't figure out why we are shown the flags for our language to identify which language to read on the sign. I mean, I think my eyes will hop over Italian words and land on English without needing the British flag to point me the way. (Note: No American flags on these signs.) Most informational signs in Europe were like this - flags to indicate which part of the sign to read.
Modern towns have spread out below the ancient walled towns, and we drove through plenty of them to do our touristing.
I took pictures of everything I didn't understand.
More pictures later.
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