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The wonders of rural Italy
From The Reading Eagle/Times: October 2006
........Fields were striped with vines, pencil thin Cypress trees marked roads and tracks and the misty Apennine Mountains were grey/blue in the distance. All around the grapes hung lush and red, swallows swooped and dived overhead, tiny lizards scurried up walls and a tractor droned faintly in the distance. This is pastoral Italy as opposed to tourist Italy.
In the evening everyone gathered around the pool swapping stories about the days travels - amazing 12th century churches, great places to eat, wine that we had discovered and of course how awful Italian drivers are. As the light faded the temperature dropped and the countryside twinkled with distant farmhouse lights.
Although I've never seen the Italian Highway Code I presume it says that the white line down the centre of the road is to encourage motorists to drive on their side - as much as possible. In Italy headlights in the day are mandatory and Italians take this very seriously as almost 40% of them obey this law.
I'm not sure if there's a law requiring Italian drivers to herd together, getting as close to the car in front as possible; but you never see a solitary car. They drive around in tight groups of three to six cars. I wonder what the collective noun is for a group of cars - "a crumple of cars" or maybe "a screech of cars"?........