Europe Day 35: Two Days in One

After an unexpected adventure yesterday, car is acquired and we are Go Mission to resume the trip as (sort of) planned.

The plan had been to drive Cologne to Innsbruck yesterday, to Bologna today, and to Rome tomorrow, taking photos all along the way. This being a public blog, I’ll shy away from describing what happened, but let’s just say it didn’t go according to plan. The good news is I’m OK and things have resolved themselves sufficiently that I was able to proceed this morning.

2023 Update: See the Day 34 post that I’ve added to the timeline.

So, anyway … what had been three days of driving and taking pictures is now compressed into two days. I decided to sacrifice photos today and leave time for more exploration tomorrow on the way to Rome. I’m safely in Bologna now after a long day of driving.

I regret not having the time to stop for photos in the Swiss and Italian countryside and that I’ve arrived late enough that I couldn’t really experience the old city of Bologna sufficiently. It looks fascinating. Added to the must-revisit list.

Good news: I got to experience a nice, heavy thunderstorm. Having lived in the midwest, I really miss those. (Pacific Northwest thunderstorms are rare and very, very mild by comparison.)

Bad news: The storm hit at dusk on the Italian autostrada (toll expressway) when I still had 200km / 125mi to go. It was intense enough that it really slowed down the driving for a while.

Should be some interesting things to see tomorrow (including two more new countries – yay!). See you soon.

. . .

2023 Update Part 2: Germany doesn’t officially require an International Drivers Permit for foreign drivers, but – as luck would have it – Estonia does and I had obtained one so I could drive in Estonia a few days earlier. So, the day after the theft (morning of this original article) I returned to the car rental agency with a printed scan of my drivers license and the IDP (which thankfully had not been stolen), and they allowed me to proceed with the rental. Yay!