My biggest takeaway from Europe was how incredibly well cities were planned for pedestrians vs cars. Obviously these cities were often developed much earlier th

My biggest takeaway from Europe was how incredibly well cities were planned for pedestrians vs cars. Obviously these cities were often developed much earlier than US cities and this makes perfect sense. We got all around Europe (Slovakia to Switzerland to Italy to Austria and back) all without a car. As a US citizen this priority can be frustrating at times because some cities even have no admittance for non-local cars, so you gotta park out of the city and transit in if you don’t have a local plate. But as a US citizen I am incredibly envious of the rail network and the downtown areas which are pedestrian only and entirely devoid of cars. But also fundamentally we found that just as in states within the US, country to country things were vastly different with road quality. Many Eastern European countries are still weeding out corruption in their political systems and funds allocated for infrastructure are finally making it into public projects, so they often had worse roads and rail systems.