Car spotting while on my honeymoon? Yes, of course

Ross Ballot
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After 7+ years together my now-wife has become completely accustomed to my car-spotting antics. It goes like this: if an even semi, remotely-interesting car crosses my plane of vision, I’m going to look at it. And possibly talk about it. And potentially take a picture of it. And, given the right circumstances, talk to the car’s owner. 

That in mind, I did my best to separate myself from my usual distracted/distracting car-oogling ways for the betterment of my wife’s (and consequently my own) time on our honeymoon. But given the nature of where we were, it was impossible to do so with one-hundred-percent entirety. There were “I’ve never seen one of those in person!” moments almost consistently. It started with our BMW 2 Series Active Tourer rental.

From there it spiraled. Alfas and Citroens and Renaults and Dacias and Opels and dozens upon hundreds upon thousands of cars I had never seen in person before were everywhere I looked. Had I taken a picture of each individual car that was new to my eyes, the storage on my phone probably would have been full after the second day.

As much as I tried to be calmer about the “forbidden fruit” automobiles gracing the Italian coastline, I still took pictures of the few that I could. With so much else to see and do I was rather preoccupied with other things and truthfully somewhat befuddled every time another car crossed my path. The pictures that follow aren’t many, but are better than none.

About

Ross Ballot

Ross Ballot

4WD and four-wheeling enthusiast and shamelessly self-proclaimed expert. Off the Road Again Podcast host, Formula 1 fanatic, and Writer for Hooniverse, AutoGuide, and ATV.com. Former contributor to Everyday Driver, ATVRider, and UTVDriver. Can usually be found getting a vehicle stuck in the mud or on the rocks and loving every second of it.

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9 responses to “Car spotting while on my honeymoon? Yes, of course”

  1. Zentropy Avatar
    Zentropy

    I’m the same way! My wife despises this behavior. She was more tolerant (though never completely accepting) of it when we were dating, but two decades later, she has zero patience for my automotive enthusiasm.

    Reply
  2. SlowJoeCrow Avatar
    SlowJoeCrow

    I did the same on my honeymoon, but pictures are limited because I was doing most of the driving and my wife wasn’t comfortable with a “stickshift” camera (Nikon FM). She did tolerate my visiting random car dealers and on our last fling before kids trip even indulged me in a 3 day Landrover rental.

    Reply
  3. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    I’m lucky enough that even ten years in, my wife is tolerant enough of my car spotting (if it’s not holding up anything vital), and sort of gets that it goes into overdrive when we go abroad and everything is just a little alien (which makes showing all of my vacation pictures to anyone but a handful of gearhead friends a little weird and tedious). She’ll even do some of her own, and send me pictures if she finds it interesting (yesterday I got sent a VW T3 pickup that was in a plaza near our home).

    Reply
  4. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Good for you – and funny seeing a pretty classic Southern European selection here. My wife has grown accustomed to the same habit, and sometimes she will point at a car and say: “That looks like a pretty special car”. Even though it might just be a boring Porsche, I dutifully take a picture and appreciate the temporalily simulated interest.

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    1. Zentropy Avatar
      Zentropy

      Simulated interest would be appreciated. All I get are eye rolls.

      Reply
      1. Sjalabais Avatar
        Sjalabais

        Eye rolling is still on the care scale™ – continuing to walk without ever slowing down is worse. That’s my indicator for having reached the respective day’s unreasonable-slowdowns-for-needless-photos-threshhold…

        Reply
        1. Zentropy Avatar
          Zentropy

          Thanks for the morning laugh, though I’m a bit under the weather and that comment sent me into a coughing fit! The trademark symbol is a nice touch.
          I’ve unfortunately seen the continued walking, too…

          Reply
  5. Troggy Avatar
    Troggy

    This is absolutely what I do when travelling, especially to Europe. Also, I ride, so I’m checking out all of the motorbikes and scooters that I come across. Not that there is much variation in the brands that I see, but they way bikes have been modified to suit local conditions and trends.

    I think that driving is just as cultural as eating the food, listening to the music or learning to say “Please” and “Thankyou” in the local language.

    I once found myself behind the wheel of a Ferrari F430 in the hills behind Monaco – not only my first Ferrari, but also my first left-hand-drive car. I didn’t just get the experience of my first supercar, but also an insight into the minds of French drivers (the owner was in the passenger seat). I’ve ridden scooters in Italy and the Greek Islands and learned that, while their traffic looks chaotic, once you are in amongst it, it makes a sort of sense the way they can pack so many vehicles in the same stretch of road without any accidents.

    Once I explained this to my wife, the eye-rolling sort of diminished a little (not completely)

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  6. crank_case Avatar
    crank_case

    We didn’t even have a honeymoon as my wifes family were visiting from Poland and as it was unlikely we’d get them all in the same place at the same time again, it seemed crazy to go away. When they all went home, we were both so exhausted we both just got violently ill for a week, so I think your missus should be thankful she just had to deal with some car snapping. To be fair, at least the “honeymoon period is over” thing actually worked out well in a way because things could only get better. 😀

    We never got round to having a proper honeymoon after that, but our first holiday away was to Italy to see her mother and yes, there was loads of car spotting, but hey, she knew what she was getting into and while she’s not into cars, she’s one of those sensible women who understands that keeping your passions alive is actually a good thing overall. She’ll sometimes even encourage me to keep persisting with the project car, to spend money on tools and a garage etc.

    Reply