the road trip

On the 7th anniversary of our first trip to Europe together, I had an idea. I had a wonderful, awful idea.

We had already been to Spain, Italy, France, and Greece at least one time together each, and we had traveled by ferry, by plane, and by rail across those four countries. My hometown bestie was getting married in a little village in Piemonte, the hilly winemaking region in Italy’s northwesternmost corner, and while researching driveable day trips I couldn’t help wondering… is this our once-in-a-lifetime chance to road trip through Southern Europe?

After some thoughtful persuasion and mutual boundary-setting, we decided the answer was yes! I joke but I can’t recommend this first step enough—it was really important to me that we both fully expressed our excitement and our limits before we even got started, because driving in another country comes with several expected and unexpected challenges that we needed to be on the same page about how to handle as they arose. Once we worked out how many hours we were willing to sit in foreign traffic at a time, then we mapped out a route and a schedule accordingly. If you are thinking about taking such a journey, here is what worked (and what needed work) for us!

The Route

I’m dying of bitter laughter as I type this because when I put our four stops into Google Maps as one straight trip, it says the whole thing will only take 10.5 hours. LMAO, y’all. That is deeply wrong—call this expected/unexpected challenge number one. I already knew from other blogs to round way up and give ourselves 1-2 hours per day of extra travel time, but we were still surprised at our total logged hours by trip end. In real life, we spent 4-6 hours per day of driving in between each stop, for a grand total of 18 hours in the car. As seasoned road trippers in the States, this was mentally tough but doable and, in my mind, worth it.

It is also worth noting that because Costa arrived in Italy alone to meet me for my friend’s wedding weekend, he was the only authorized driver for our car and did almost the entire trip. I had to step in for a few panicky moments—that much solo driving in Southern Europe can be anxiety-making, turns out! We drove into a ditch at the very start of our trip. We had close calls with huge trucks, a steep learning curve with the intense passing-only policy in left lanes, and plenty of wrong turns. Our worst delay was when an eighteen-wheeler caught on fire in the median, blocking six lanes of traffic in southwestern France. That one was annoying because the French emergency channel kept overriding the radio to announce the traffic debacle we were already in. These mishaps and anxious moments were probably the heaviest toll from our expected/unexpected challenges, but this effort helped us experience new places in a way we couldn’t without it.

The Itinerary

Once we set our limits—no more than 4 hours of driving in a day (lol), no more than 10 days on the trip, end with at least 4 non-driving days—we could plot a course. From Mombaruzzo, it was roughly 3 hours to several spots on the French Riviera. Antibes seemed like the best combined location, hotel prices, and city size for our needs. I knew I wanted to stop somewhere in Provence, and our friends had just taken a sweet little getaway to Avignon, so I added that to the list. I was really hoping to hike around Lac de Sainte-Croix and see the lavender fields in Valensole along the route, but sadly the extra hours added up and we made the clutch call to spend our dwindling time exploring more of Avignon instead. Last but not least, because I lived in Madrid for six months but only spent three total days in Barcelona, we planned to spend at least five days in Barcelona.

The Rental

I made a reservation online for a small sedan (a Fiat was pictured) for Costa to pick up from the airport, but apparently I botched that and he had to create his own reservation in person anyway. Again, because he was there alone, he was the only authorized driver. It would have cost extra to add me on but since I was three hours away in the countryside we didn’t have that option at the time. Costa chose an X2 BMW station wagon, a model only available in Europe with a four-cylinder diesel engine and front-wheel-drive—these little details mattered later on when we drove straight into an irrigation ditch trying to pull over to see if we made a wrong turn leaving Mombaruzzo (we did). A tiny Peugeot tried to pull us out, and when that failed they very kindly walked down the street to the vineyard-owner’s house to ask that they pull us out with their tractor, which did work. All-wheel drive isn’t very common in Europe but if you have the option, I suggest you take it.

Speaking of options, we also chose to make a pricier one-way reservation, picking up in Milan and dropping off in Barcelona. Logistically this made the most sense to our travel goals, but cost-wise it was one of our more frivolous spending choices. If you are setting a course but not tied to any particular endpoint, I suggest a circular route to save yourself those extra Euros.

And as always, here are the places we ate and stayed along the way.