Good Evening:I would like to share this with our "dialists" with the hope that you will find it interesting. I traveled in Italy for a month. I do not speak Italian. I drove a stick shift diesel Ford 4 door. I had no map. I used a hand held GPS unit. My guidance was a 2 x 3 sheet of paper with the coordinates of the hotels, rental car dropoff locations, airports and train stations and places that we wanted to visit on the one day stops. My angel was with me when I decided not to use maps because I did not know that unlike in the US street signs are rare. Instead, the name of some streets are etched in a stone on a corner building. Another point to remember is that the address in the GPS unit is not phrased the same as you get from other sources. When staying in the city we would get a local map from the hotel and walk - sometimes 8 or 9 hours a day. When lost we would use the GPS to get us back on track. It was necessary to use the maps since the GPS unit has a very short battery life. We were not timid in our travel. From Marcone (north of Benevento) we took the back roads to Casserta - again our angel was with us. Likewise, driving from Sorrento thru Naples to Benevento. You have to be a believer in the GPS directions.
I determined the long and lat from a computer map on my PC. I used whatever means seemed to produce the most logical result. From this there is one fact to keep in mind. Never did the GPS take me directly to the doorstep. We learned to circle the area to find our destination. An example. The car rental dropoff point in Roma is the 7th floor of a parking building.
From this experience I would like to advance the cause that all vendors publish the GPS location of their businesses calculated at the main street entrance of their establishment. Another, that the GPS vendors have a better interface to use long and lat. And likewise from that experience we will have to learn to pay attention to the altitude also.
Also, I would like to say that I gained enough confidence to try this in reading the many informative emails of our learned dialists.
Cordially, Steve Emacs!
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