> On the occasions that I have lived in Europe, I always spoke of how interesting it was that we could just "drive to St. Petersburg" or "just drive to Transylvania" or whatever, and otherwise smart and interesting european friends would look at me like I was a crazy person. It is very, very rare to meet Europeans who drive across multiple countries for leisure.

Me and my gf did a Bucharest-to-Geneva and back car-trip last year and it was wonderful. There's something to be said about getting up to 2,000 meters in the Swiss Alps using a 1.4l gasoline engine car with 86bhp (probably less now, as the car is already 10 years old), all in third gear. Plus riding on the Austrian and German autobahns, as a car-lover that's pure bliss. Or riding on the Autostrade of Northern Italy in the middle of the night and stopping for an 1-euro ristretto at a gas station which was better-tasting than the majority of coffee-drinks that I had ever had.

But you're of course correct, ours was an isolated experience. I think my car was the only Romania (or Eastern-Europe)-licensed plate on the streets of Geneva (and Lausanne). If only gasoline were less expensive...