Palma de Mallorca, Spain. November, 2010

I don’t particularly like to drive. So a vacation perk for me is not having to get behind the wheel, not having to think about the responsibility of driving, of parking. Give me public transportation every time. I’ve only had to drive twice in all of my times in Europe, and one of those times was only for 20 minutes (when my friend Antonio asked me to take a car from his home in the country into the city of Lucca.) Tracking down information with Nick for his Great Italian Desserts book, we needed a car to access smaller towns and to cover long distances in an efficient way. (Aside from what was a nightmare-inducing, mile-high drive over the excessively windy and cliff-hanging highway en route to Calabria, it was pretty much non-threatening.) But I opt for the train (especially in Europe) every time I can. Or the bus. Or to fly on one of the new cheap intra-Europe airlines like Spanair (one hour from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela) or Vueling (20 minutes on our day-trip from Barcelona to the island of Mallorca, seen here.) Letting others do the “driving” means a real vacation for me.