travelerquestion

Spain looks like such an interesting country but I would like to get out into the countryside and into the small towns. Rental car? Though the stories about traffic and crazy drivers scare me.

What have your experiences been driving a rental car around Northern Spain? How are the roads? the drivers?, the traffic? the road signs?

(I have driven around Germany without much trouble but Spain?)

tpl

We have enjoyed driving in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Holland, Czech Republic, etc., and found Spain to be just as pleasant. We drove across the country in springtime, from Barcelona to San Sebastian, taking a mix of small and larger roads.

In our experience, the drivers were well-mannered -- just stay out of the extreme left lane except to pass. Signage was excellent, as was the condition of most of the roads.

Didn't hit much (if any) traffic, except when entering large cities, and even then it wasn't bad.

If you have already driven in Germany, I can't imagine Spain being a problem.

laverendrye

We drove around southern Spain for two weeks in a larger than average car (Opel Omega) with no trouble. The autoroutes and main highways are excellent. In cities such as Sevilla and Granada, we followed the hotel signs from the outskirts to our hotel and left the car in the hotel garage for our stay.

The only really hairy time was negotiating the very narrow streets of Arcos de la Frontera (less than 1 ft clearance on either side). But no bumbs or scrapes.

I didn't see much difference from driving in Germany except that the autoroutes were much less busy than the typical stretch of autobahn.

mpprh

Hi

I picked up the car, and the spare had a puncture. All the tyres were bald. One had a hole with the inner tube bulging out. The headlights only had full beam and parking lights.

OK, it was 1978 !

Spain today is a modern European country. No donkeys.

Peter
http://tlp.netfirms.com

jmv

Agree with above posters. Actually nothing to tell. Fine roads, good signage. Easy driving. You can, however, tell immediately when you leave Spain and enter it's neighbor Portugal, the roads deteriorate at the border.

easytraveler

For a European country to become part of the EU means not just having the options of getting rid of borders or of having one currency.

There are other requirements as well. For the motorist the best part is that the roads and the signage have to be brought up to a certain [uniform]standard. Thus, you will find when driving in EU countries as well as in the 10 countries joining in 2004 that they all follow pretty much the same highway and road signage standards.

It's only when you get to the off-main-roads, large city or small town, that you have to deal with local conditions.

Hope this helps
easytraveler

JuneAnn

We drove from Seville to Arcos de la Frontera, through Andalusia, the Costa Del Sol and Granada. It was grand. The roads were fine and the only difficulty we had was driving our mini van through the hill town of Arcos. It seemed that the whole town came out to watch us try to make the turns on their very narrow roads. We made it and came home with great stories.
I think that Spain has been one of our best driving trips.
June