1) We stayed in the old section of Barcelona for a week before coming to Aix, and even our taxi driver couldn't get us to our apartment. But the Garmin did.
2) I'd put it in pedestrian mode and just take off, knowing we could get back to our apartment. I was stunned how often the Garmin got a useful signal from the sliver of sky between the buildings lining the twisty little streets. The biggest problem was that it often knew where we were, but wasn't sure of the heading. I took to using it in "North up" mode.
3) The first few days in Aix, we didn't even think of leaving the apartment without it, walking all over old town, putting in the addresses of restaurants we wanted to try, and marking things we wanted to go back to as 'favorites.'
4) Whenever we want to drive somewhere, the Garmin is incredibly useful. I sometimes have it avoid toll roads, but still take us on the fastest remaining route, which has taken us on picturesque little roads that only take minutes longer.
5) I remembered how my friend Mahboud had said he'd used a nav system in Germany, in effect hopping from castle to interesting attraction to town, or whatever, and he was right that you can think differently about exploring because you have a nav system.
6) The 270 has a lot of points of interest in it, but I wish I had bought the Garmin Travel Guide SD card for France. https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8474. Would have been worth the $80.
7) Riding my bicycle around Aix, I keep the Garmin in my pocket and refer to it periodically. I sometimes look at a Michelin map and find some little town way out on a "D" road and plug it in, start riding in that vague direction, then let the Garmin help me get onto the road I want. Then I'll plug in the garage where I keep the bike and keep riding away until the time it says I'll return is when I'm supposed to be back. Or I'll head out on one road, and then ride in a rough arc with Aix at the center, and let the Garmin give me a new route back.
8) I wish Garmin made a bicycle mount for the Nuvi 270. I have, and like, a Garmin Edge on my bike (I brought it with me) but the Edge's strong points are the Nuvi 270's weak points (the Edge is good at performance display and data collection and the 270 is good at mapping and route planning.) I felt a little "over-instrumented" with two GPS systems, but together, I kept a record of my trips and got to interesting places.
9) My only quibbles are few and small: a couple of data errors (our little street is correctly coded as one way, but it is actually one way the other way), no satellite status view like on the Edge (it took a very long time to lock the position the first time I turned it on in Spain), and the algorithm for determining direction of movement is clearly optimized for cars and not walking, which makes 3D view while walking rather less useful. That's it!
If you want to get the most out of a trip, get a GPS, and I personally recommend the one that I got, the Garmin Nuvi 270.
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