This is the first of a two-part series on driving in a foreign country.
Through the driver-side window of the car I was steering, a man on a scooter pointed a fat finger at me. After he had my attention, his right arm became a windmill, turning like he was waving in a runner from third base. He wanted me to follow him.
I had been marked: tourist. In my defense, it was easy. I was driving a silver BMW wagon with a big yellow rental car sticker on the back bumper. “Come holler at me,” I was screaming.
“Garaje? Estacionamiento?,” the mobile entrepreneur said to me after I rolled down the window.
Translation: parking garage.
I had been driving in Granada, a city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada that is home to the Alhambra, the last Moorish castle, for 10 minutes looking for parking. After two weeks on the road crisscrossing eastern Spain, I was tired.
Because my travel partner and I were touring just one country, I thought it’d be brilliant if we rented a car instead of relying on planes, trains and buses. Our hefty itinerary wouldn’t be constrained by departure and arrival schedules. And we could bring suitcases.
We could stay an extra day in a city if we weren’t ready to leave, which is what we did in Madrid. We were able to pull off the highway to pick sunflowers on our way to the windmills in La Mancha, make a detour on the way to San Sebastian to visit a vineyard for a vintage we had tasted days before and couldn’t stop raving about and drive eight hours out of the way to see friends in Bilbao.
The plan proved sublime on the open road, where it seems that every vehicle is smaller than anything driven stateside, cargo trucks included. In old Spanish towns, though, I usually drove myself into white-knuckle jams.
The streets, many paved in brick and cobblestone, are narrow and shrink to a point that make it cumbersome for an inexperienced driver to pass. I scraped the side mirror on my first attempt. I felt like Luke, Han and Leia in the trash compactor. The streets, obviously, weren’t designed for cars.
I never mastered the etiquette of Spanish roundabouts, which I begrudgingly navigated when I exited a highway. The massive four- and five-lane roundabouts, like what I encountered in Valencia, were confounding, especially while attempting to follow the GPS directions and what my co-pilot was advising. Should I stay or should I go? Although I never had a “Big Ben, Parliament” episode (www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc), I did have to circle twice a few times. The trick, apparently, is to not hesitate.
The strategy worked when entering roundabouts, but it was ineffective upon exiting one in Granada. I was told to make a left—not by the GPS, for the record—but when I turned across two lanes of oncoming traffic rushing to make a red light, I was head-on with three lanes waiting to go in the opposite direction.
Oh, this is a one-way? I had to wait for the cars to cross the intersection before I could reverse and go. I waved apologetically. Nobody honked. How un-American.
This episode is why I followed the scooter-riding valet.
We zipped through the city, angling around pedestrians shooting photos with expensive cameras and iPads. We made sharp turns and we drove through alleys that required folding in the side mirror. He kept peeking back to see if I was still in hot pursuit.
He pulled over to the side of the road when I caught a light.
At the entrance to a parking garage, he stopped his scooter and waited for me to pull alongside him. He wanted 10 euros for his service. I bargained him down to five.
His fat fingers padded our handshake.
DRIVING ABROAD
Rent-and-go. The major rental companies you’re familiar with, such as Hertz, Budget and Alamo, are available in Europe. After comparing prices with other carriers, I found the best deal with Sixt (www.sixt.com), which operates in more than 100 countries. There was $1,600 budgeted for the car, and we were able to get a premium vehicle for 20 days for $1,200, which included insurance and GPS.
Gas guzzler. Gas prices were significantly cheaper than at home, but gas was still a hefty expense, especially because we drove across a country. What was saved with the rental price was exhausted by repeated trips to the gas station.
Global warming. How does driving affect the environment? It was a hybrid. I should’ve driven something smaller, though. It was a smart decision to drive, but next time I’ll select a smarter car.
Do you get a fast car? It wasn’t that fast. It just seemed that way when there weren’t any cars to pass on the highways. I avoided a parking ticket, but I got ticketed—by a camera—for driving 133 kilometers per hour (about 82 mph) in a 120 kph (75 mph) zone. The copy of the ticket, which cost 50 euros ($55), beat me home.
Tour guide Rick Steves (www.ricksteves.com) is an expert in European travel. We listened to his insightful podcasts on different regions of Spain, which included interviews with local historians, between destinations. We also carried his book wherever he went, because tourist traps are to be avoided. His recommendations were usually on point.
There should be an app for that. Rental companies should have a find-my-car app. One late night, after an impressively rigorous day, we found ourselves limping on the slick floor of a parking garage in Cordoba as we sought to retrieve our suitcases. After walking down four floors and then back up, the car was nowhere to be seen. It hadn’t been stolen; it was just misplaced. Where was the scooter valet when I really, really needed him?