Question:
My wife and I (aged in our mid 20's) are planning to do a quick tour of Europe in May/June next year for about a month (as well as probably a week in the UK and Ireland). This will be both of our first times overseas.

We were initially planning on doing about a 25 day bus tour such as Contiki or Cosmos as we want to see as much of Europe as possible in the time we have available. But the thought of being on a bus with about 50 others herded from sight to sight did not appeal too much. We also wanted to stay a bit longer in some places where an organised tour would just keep moving. We considered a hop-on hop-off type service such as Bus-about but their route and schedule were fairly inflexible meaning we would have to possibly stay longer in some places than we would really want to. We have looked at the rail system but it seems that it will be a quite expensive option for the number of days and the amount of travelling we are intending to do.

We now are planning to hire a car and go it alone as the car hire seems reasonable and offers the most flexibility.

Both of us tend to prefer interesting scenery, history, architecture etc to the hustle and bustle of the big cities, however we can go to Europe without seeing the major sights..

An outline of our itinerary is as follows:

Day 1 London to Paris Day 2 Rent a car in Paris and go to Bruges, Belgium Day 3 Bruges to Amsterdam Day 4 Amsterdam to Frankfurt Day 5 Frankfurt to Munich via Wьrzburg and Romantic Road Day 7 Munich to Vienna Day 10 Vienna to Venice Day 12 Venice to Rome Day 15 Rome to Naples (Not sure about the Naples leg, we may opt for some day trips around the Italian countryside) Day 16 Naples to Florence Day 18 Florence to Nice via Pisa Day 20 Nice to Barcelona Day 22 Barcelona to San Sebastian (Possibly add a couple of days to go to Madrid) Day 23 San Sebastian to Bordeaux Day 24 Bordeaux to Paris Day 27 Paris to London

I know this is going to be a bit of a whirl wind tour but we want to see as much of the sights as possible as we probably won't be getting back to Europe for quite a while. I don't mind long distance driving, but we are aiming to only do about 4-5 hours driving per day so we can still see some sights along the way and take the trip at a more leisurely pace than the bus tours would.

I have a few questions though:

I have never driven on the right side of the road before, is everything basically reversed e.g. go around roundabouts anti-clockwise, give way to the left at intersections etc?

Where is the best place to find out about country specific road rules?

How does traffic/driver courtesy differ from typical Brisbane/Sydney style driving?

How easy is it to cover long distances quickly generally in Europe? (I know here I can cover 7-800km per day fairly comfortably)

Is English spoken along the main tourist routes where I have mentioned above (we both had a sheltered Australian education where you only study German for 2 years in high school (and I can't seem to remember much of that ? I would appreciate any suggestions of interesting points to see between the cities we are intending to visit, and also any comments on the pace of our itinerary (i.e. time in each location, travel time). I know it will be fairly fast paced and we will be no means be able to savour the European way of life, but what we really want is a taste of the best that Europe has to offer.

Answer: I am from the US and have driven in your country. I can tell you that the change from left to right side driving (or the other way) is not nearly as simple as switch to "the other side". A lot of your driving habits are very difficult to break. I have also driven in Europe and find that it's relatively easy, except in Rome. Learn the word for unleaded gasoline in French, German, and Italian.

Your itenary looks very imposing. Cut in down please. You are trying to do way too much.