Parking a car in European cities

Parking a car can be simple if you understand the system that has evolved over the last few decades to accommodate the growing traffic in older crowded European cities. Some hotels allow free parking but generally not in the downtown or tourist areas. The rates however, are comparable to US big city hotels ranging anywhere from 8-12 Euros per night. It really depends on how close you are to the old town or city center where real estate can be expensive. You can also use public parking garages or park on the street and pay a meter. The meters in Europe are a bit different. Where metered parking is available, you'll find one of several convenient “meter” stations spaced to serve about every dozen spaces.  Just as in the US, you pay for the amount of time you want. In a downtown area in a Germany city recently, the rate was 1 Euro per hour but available in minutes based on how many coins you inserted. I believe the minimum time was 15 minutes or .25 cents (yes, the Euro is made up of 100 cents). When you have inserted your coins and selected the time you want to park you will push a green button and a receipt will print with the time you have selected your meter to expire. For example, if it is noon and you want to park for 45 minutes you deposit .75 cents and when done you push the green button on the meter and a receipt prints that shows valid parking till 12:45 (it has a date printed so no fudging). You then take the receipt and put it on your dash (then lock your car). The receipt can then be read by the meter monitor on her rounds. If you come back to feed the meter, just repeat the process and replace the old receipt on your dash with the new one. Its really quite simple without the need to have parking meters for every car.   Parking overnight on the street is usually free after a certain time. In popular tourist areas it may be as late as 10PM.  The same rules you learned in driver's ed apply about not blocking exits, parking in restricted spots or too close to the corner.