Well this is a great topic;thanks for the idea JJP.

I must say that i had been traveling in Europe renting cars for about 16 years; I have prev live in the NJ/NY border so I believe i am well trained...huh!

I notice that inside the cities they tend to drive faster than in the US but in highways at least me I drive faster. Previous to my NJ/NY stint I lived in Madrid and visit often always driving; and it is very easy. In France I like to drive too;driven into Paris ;but thats the only city i rather not drive;all the others I will stick with my Ford!!!!
lol!!!

Sparkalina- could they be rear fog lamps?

Hi Sparkalina, When one of the tail lights burned out and replaced without replacing the other you will get an uneven sparkness of lights. Now you have one new light bulb and an old one.

It seemed more common than a random replacement of one taillight....but there are a lot of (seemingly) simple things that can take a while to figure out in a foreign country.

For instance, most of the road signs are clear...no parking, etc. For the longest time my father and I called one "red car blue car", only to figure out it was either no passing, or that there was no longer a median in the road I can't remember which, but it was like 2 YEARS LATER when we figured it out!!!!!!!!!

Well, I've never driven in Spain but I do have a story that I was a witness to. I was walking in Madrid, down a somewhat smaller, one-way winding street when all of a sudden, an obviously lost, distraught looking driver came driving down the street the wrong way right toward an intersection. They almost hit a pedestrian, but the best part was seeing a nearby Madrid policeman's eyes widen as he runs towards the car, blowing on his whistle and waving his arms, yelling something I didn't understand (but who needs translation for yelling like that?) ;-)

I had never driven a manual transmission before my second trip to Spain in 2004. I practiced on a friend's car before we left and didn't do too badly. But when we got to Spain, I couldn't seem to get the hang of it so my travel companion (and seasoned stick-shift driver) got stuck doing all the driving (from Madrid to Galicia and down the West Coast and back to Madrid).

Due to some unfortunate occurrences, I found myself left in Leon with the car by myself at the rail station having to get back to Madrid that afternoon. My first thought was to drop off the car at the rail station and hop a train but there was no Hertz operation there. So I thought I'd try to get to the Leon airport and drop it off there.

I somehow managed to drive out of the rail station and, miraculously, on the road to the airport without major incident. I was doing so well, in fact, I convinced myself I could just drive the 2 1/2 hours back to Madrid. So I managed to find the highway and make my way towards Madrid.

I did pretty well keeping up in traffic, always mindful of staying in the right lane except when passing (I grew up in NJ where "Keep Right Except to Pass" signs are plentiful, though frequently ignored.) and even managed to maneuver through the toll plazas without incident.

The only minor problem I had was when I took a pit stop and then had to get back on the highway and there was a bit of an incline at the stop sign - let's just say I chewed up a bit of the emergency brake. Luckily I had a pretty powerful 6 cylinder diesel Alfa.

I got to Madrid and even stopped for gas right before entering the central city. Unfortunately, my timing was impeccable, as I entered the city in the middle of the evening rush hour (the car had to be dropped off at the Plaza de España office) and had to deal with stop and go traffic (with hills!!) for the first time. Not only that but the garage entrance was off a narrow side street that I had no idea how to get to (I later realized I could probably have just pulled right up front and they would have had someone take it from there but I wasn't thinking clearly). So I was going around in circles (after first taking an unadvised underground detour through a traffic circle) trying to find this entrance periodically stalling, being cursed by cab drivers, and narrowly avoiding pedestrians.

Finally, by a stroke of sheer luck I came upon the garage entrance off a narrow street and managed to make my way three levels down a narrow ramp that sloped at a 45 degree angle. When I came to a stop at the bottom and got out of the car, it was all I could do not to get on my knees and kiss the dirty garage floor!

"Downtown" Cadiz in 2002,,, at 0300a.m. trying to get back to my Godparent's (Que en paz descansen) home in the middle of this beautiful medieval center of Cadiz.
A true maze as a maze should be, we were sooo bloody lost!!! the few folks that I found on the streets tried to direct us but to no avail.

How can you give directions in a maze? How many left right left rights in narrow streets?

All and all I ended cutting through little plazas and going the wrong way in true desperation,,, especially bad going over the Plaza De San Antonio in Cadiz, I was ashamed, embarrassed and desperate finally parked in the underground parking under the plaza and walked back to our destination relatively easy.

We still managed to get lost EVERY day there for 2 weeks!!! It was an adventure.

If anyone has ever visited Cadiz, the area around the Torre Tavira and Plaza San Antonio,,, then you might know what Im talking about.

SFY: Loved that story about getting the car back through Madrid rush hour traffic. Then you description of the return garage in Plaza Espana was right on the money. When I picked up at that office in 2003 I told the rep that he was going to get that car out of the garage or I would not take it, out it came. On the return I dropped in front of the office without problems. I don't know about anyone else but I thought the price of the insurance was outragous for that trip and refused it, driving all over south Spain without it.

I don't know what prices are now, but one way we saved money was by booking the car through http://www.baholidays.com . We had to prepay for the rental but the price, including insurance, was much lower than I could get elsewhere for Hertz, or any other agency.