I drive in Italy (mostly around Lake Garda) a lot and I know the roads there pretty well.
In the small towns there, the speed limit is usually 50 kph, sometimes even 60 kph. This is more than enough, sometimes maybe even too fast since in many towns, there are tourists everywhere and they cross the street like idiots, not even looking for cars or paying attention. If you know how Italian motorcycle and scooter riders are driving, you would pay more attention as a tourist.
Bicycle riders are a huge problem around Lake Garda (or in North Italy in the mountain regions) generally because there are lots of them and they often do not pay attention to traffic and sometimes I even get the feeling they do not care. I am extremely cautious with them because they are often brainless and I do not want to be involved in an accident with some idiots, so I usually pay extra attention to them to be safe.
Believe it or not but on the mountain roads in the video I posted in my R8 thread, the speed limit is usually...100 kph. On some parts of these roads, I drive at 20-30 kph...Italians do not bother to put lower speed signs on roads which are potentially looking/feeling dangerous. I suppose Italians assume that drivers will slow down because it would be just idiotic to drive 100 kph on a road full of sharp turns and with a width which barely fits one car.
I agree however that sometimes, there is a 100 kph speed limit but the road goes straight up a mountain and you can overlooked everything for at least a mile, so in theory, you could go 200 kph and be safe. Well, I usually count in every possibility, so I keep it around the speed limit to be safe.
There is an exception though: We often had organized drives where a car was driving ahead of us, "clearing" the road. This actually meant that the car ahead was signaling dangers or obstacles through a two way radio and the car right behind this "clearing" car was always driven by a professional (and by professional I mean F1 quality or similar...I'm not kidding) driver who was also able to spot dangers and signal problems. We were usually a group of ten cars and believe it or not but Italian police saw us all the time, we even had chats with them and we never encountered a problem, also no incidents with bicycles and motorcycles. We once had a motorcycle following our group and this guy was just pure nuts (German license plates), he was putting us all in danger. At some point, the whole group stopped and let him pass. Only problem: He didn't want to pass. So we talked to the guy to piss off and he finally "understood". We lost almost an hour arguing with him why he wasn't welcomed to "join" us. Most importantly, we were concerned with the Hero cam he had on his helmet, you get my point. Half of the drivers were well known driving pros, we didn't need any "advertisement" for our fun tour.
Yes, speed limits need to be respected but since I didn't join Nick's group, I cannot comment on the roads there and how fast you can be or not. Like I said before, most roads we were driving were limited to 100 kph but most of the time you could be happy to reach that speed because it was way too dangerous to go much faster.
--
RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet, Porsche Macan Turbo, Audi R8 V10 Plus (2017), Mini JCW (2015), Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT (2014)