Speaking of Rome, in December last year I had more near-death experiences than usual. Two of my Italian colleagues joined me for the meeting, which was late in the afternoon, scheduled for around 5 PM or so. In true Roman fashion, the meeting did not even begin until 6:30. This is by no means a record, as the longest delay I've had in starting a meeting was about four hours (and I almost missed my plane in that case). Starting meetings on time is just so north-Italian. Life in Rome is more relaxed. My Roman colleague would stay in Rome, but the other one was flying back to Venice, and it was getting pretty late for his flight. The number of flights to Venice is limited, so he was very keen to make his. He told the cab driver to get to Fiumicino airport as quickly as possible. The cab driver took this very seriously, which resulted in one of the most hair-raising cab rides ever.

Taking a cab in Rome is somewhat exciting under normal circumstances, but this was exceptional. The cab driver drove as if he had strobe lights and a siren. He ran several red lights (not too rare, but still), wormed his way between several cars, cut others off and generally drove like a maniac. Merging onto a crowded thoroughfare was done under the motto "they'll stop when they see me," even though they had the right of way. I saw several cars coming straight at us, braking hard. There were numerous occasions on which we came close to being flattened against some antique relic or other (they're fairly common in Rome). Ah, to die in an accident with 2000 year-old aqueduct!

Then as we were getting closer to the highway, we were on a small winding road uphill out of the city, with several feet of rocky incline on either side. In other words, there was no shoulder, no room to escape. And traffic in our direction was mostly stationary, since it was the late end of rush hour. The cab driver pulled out onto the other side of the road whenever he spotted a gap in oncoming traffic, accelerated hard and hopped ahead by a few dozen meters. Except traffic was stationary on our side of the road, while the oncoming traffic was not. So he slammed on the brakes really hard and somehow managed to press himself back into the right lane before we got flattened by another Italian maniac coming from the other direction who seemed very disinclined to stop. It was his side of the road after all, and he was damn well going to use it. Not daunted by a single close escape, the cab driver performed this maneuver several times.

In the course of the trip, we also came close to killing three drivers of the little Italian motorscooters that are so popular in Italian cities. And in this case, it's not an exaggeration. In the various swervings we were subjected to, some had to be aborted very rapidly. In one case, there was less than an inch between death and some poor Italian sod on a small motorcycle. This was by far the most frightening cab ride I've had (and I have had many). My colleague just missed his flight. I made mine.

Who says business travel is boring?