> Probably 15 times, people lectured me under the guise of a question "Why did you rent a car? Why not just take trains?", and maybe 10 times "That's so American".
As a European (Italian) myself I find that odd, as for all but trips that are either to a single city, or very specific limited area with superb train/public transport access, I'll definitively use a car, as do most people I know.
But that may also come from the fact that I did not grew up in a big(ger) city, and while I took the bus and train for going into school, a car was still quite the requirement for a lot of other things anyway.
Definitively agree, when I went camping with a few friends in tents around Sweden in 2017 we met some wondeful people in quite remote areas, and it just wouldn't work with trains or the like, that was only OK when staying in Göteborg for a few days.
Same in Madeira, we rented a car there and without that we'd have been confined to basically the main city Funchal only, but with the car we could explore the whole island nicely, basically spending a day or two in each corner.
> You know what I'm not going to remember? Standing in a mob waiting for a train in Cinque Terre.
Well, it seems it left an impression ;-P
That said, I went to Cinque Terre in 2020 by car, parked in Monterosso and was fine using the train between the five towns, but then most US/UK tourists did not visit that year, so it may have been quite a different experience. I really do not think that traveling between the towns using a car would be better than the train, as Monterosso is the single one that is _somewhat_ car accessible, at least for smaller ones.