On this large portion of my trip, where I've been in Italy for over a month, I've had time to consider two points: one, that driving long distances here in Italy is actually not too unpleasant, and two, that there doesn't seem to be enough travel literature that looks into that.
Listen, I'm just as obsessed with trains as the next travel nerd. I've reread Paul Theroux's Great Railway Bazaar more times than I can remember, and I've reread most of his other travel books too. Same with Bill Bryson and any number of travel writers. One year I treated myself to the Eurostar and the TGV as a way to get from London to Turin, and it remains one of my favorite travel experiences ever.
At the same time, I've recently become disillusioned with all the urbanists that I come across on social media and YouTube. This is a source of deep cognitive dissonance for me: I live in the Bay Area, where you have to drive pretty much everywhere and where it's unpleasant to do so. If Caltrain ran more regularly from my nearest station than once per hour, it'd make it more fun to go out drinking in San Francisco or San Jose - but at the same time, having a car means I can go to either city whenever I want, and can also go to a bunch of places that aren't covered by public transportation.
When I lived in London, I found it difficult to get out of the bounds of the city, in part because it meant getting on a train and figuring out the schedule and all of that. But not having my own set of wheels meant that certain parts of the country just weren't available to me: I'm sure you can visit the Lake District without a car, but it might be a lot more of a faff, or more expensive, if you're taking taxis everywhere.
I've also come around to this way of thinking in the last couple of years because I've finally felt financially secure enough to start renting cars when I'm in Italy. My family house is out in the countryside, away from rail networks and up a big hill (with a dirt road to get up to it, no less), so even buses aren't a great option - and those only come around once per hour, if you're lucky.
My dad's tried to get me to learn to drive manual transmission, which I can broadly do, but I'm way more comfortable driving automatic. This is mostly because the roads are narrow and winding and I'd rather focus on getting around than on being in the right gear. Renting cars with automatic transmissions means I can trade off driving duties with my dad for long drives up to the mountains, or just take off on my own for an afternoon.
Coming back to my earlier point about driving in Italy, I've now had the chance to drive the autostrade, and I find that it's harder and harder to go back to freeway driving in California. The main thing is that European freeways only allow passing in the left lanes, which means you get way fewer of these cases where some jerk goes almost all the way to the left and then cruises along at 50mph. I know that if I get in the left lane, I should step on it and pass whoever I'm passing, because otherwise I'll end up with a Mercedes riding my exhaust and flashing his lights from here to Taranto.
But then there's the more actively pleasant part, which is the rest areas. Not every rest stop on the Italian autostrade is like this, but the vast majority are owned by the Autogrill chain, which means a certain consistency in architecture, facilities and food service. Stopping for lunch on our drive down to Pisa last week, I had the fried chicken sandwich with fries: instead of a soggy chicken burger and a plate of chips that had just come from under a heat lamp, the man behind the counter assembled a fresh bun, condiments and fixings on top, then lovingly placed a freshly cooked fried chicken escalope on it. He then provided a perfectly crispy portion of fries that outdid anything from McDonald's.
While it's important not to over-romanticize a meal at a highway rest stop, it's notable that in Italy, you can get decent quality food that isn't just from a large fast-food chain (at this same lunch my dad got a plate of chicken curry with rice and fresh roasted vegetables).
It's worth noting that you don't really get this quality of food on European trains anymore. I still remember a train trip with my dad in 1990, from Padua to Turin, where there was still a dining car with tablecloths and silverware on the tables. I was super impressed to be fed a cotoletta milanese and a Coke by a waiter in a white jacket, and my dad still reminds me of this wide-eyed wonderment. But if you think you're eating like this on the TGV or the ICE or the Frecciarossa, I'm sorry to report it ain't necessarily so (although business and first class on the Eurostar do feature some excellent dining).
Are trains better for the environment than a million cars on the road? Of course they are. And it's one of life's great pleasures to sit on a train and either read your book or listen to a podcast, enjoying the changing scenery and the knowledge that someone else is doing the driving. Bonus points if the scenery is great, as it frequently is when you're crossing the Alps.
But the pleasures of tooling along in your own car, listening to your own music or podcasts or chatting with your passenger in peace, are not to be discounted either. You can stop for a snack or a bathroom break whenever you want, without losing your seat or worrying about someone stealing your stuff, and when you arrive at your destination, you're right there (although you do have to find some parking, of course). And again, the car lets you get to places that the trains don't go - not only places off the beaten path or in the countryside, but you can also stop off somewhere on a whim. When you're on the train, you can see some unexpected spots from the window, but most of the time you can't get off and explore without losing your reserved seat or missing your onward connection.
Again, I'm not saying everyone should stop using the trains to get around. I'd love to see a robust public transit network in the Bay Area, if not the whole of California. If California could finally get around to building a train network that takes you from downtown SF to downtown LA, I'd adore that - and it wouldn't even need to be high-speed (although, you know, yes please to doing it in three hours rather than eight).
But also again, sometimes the car lets you have experiences that the train doesn't. Just because we're over invested in car infrastructure doesn't mean we should correct that by over-investing in rail. We should have multiple ways to get around that don't excessively prioritize dangerous and dirty modes of transportation.
If anything, what I'd really like to see is a good-quality equivalent to the Autogrill, but along American highways. Imagine stopping off for a good, not too expensive meal with access to clean bathrooms while driving down the 5 from SF to LA - it may not be as good as a three-hour high-speed train, but it sounds pretty great to me.