Travel Disasters; Chapter 5

From Cabestany we had a quick drive through the city of Perpignan before heading west, aiming for Carcassonne. The countryside was spectacular, with the Pyrenees on our left (their highest peaks still covered in snow) and a smaller range of hills to our right. Vineyards dotted the landscape and the sun was shining brightly.
	We followed the valley of the river Aude through ‘Pays Cathare’ - the Cathar Country. These days the long-dead heretics are a huge focus for the local tourist industry. We drove through a beautiful gorge and stopped in a road side rest area for a jolly good healthy lunch by the riverside.

 

We had just left the gorge when a motorbike overtook us. The man on the bike is waving his arms wildly … is he trying to tell us something?  He’s wearing blue clothes – is that important?  I start to pull over, and dammit there’s another person in blue clothes on a motorbike … , then I see “Gendarmerie” on the nice blue clothing.   Yep, you are nicked !   “Madame … did you know you were doing 76km in a 50km area !!!???”  I’ve always thought that to be a bit of a pointless question myself.  Only the French would a) not put up a sign that says 50km  b)  have a 50km zone on open road and c) spend all day cruising back & forwards through a stunning gorge collecting copious amounts of revenue from unsuspecting tourists like us.  “So Madame, that will be 90 euros,  instant fine thank you. Make sure you give me the right amount, I will not give you change”.  I tested their sense of humour by saying that if they cancelled the ticket, we would not beat them at rugby, but no, that wasn’t gonna get me out of this, even though they chuckled. They turned out to be nice guys and once we’d coughed up the fine, they were happy to have their picture taken.

Travel Disasters; Chapter 4 – a nice cup of tea …

Some things are just different in Italy … our Tuscan villa was exceptionally well appointed, however the shower was just the hose type arrangement connected to the taps of the bath, so one had to be creative about bathing.  Because the Italians only drink espresso coffee that you can stand your spoon up in, they don’t seem to use electric kettles, so to make tea, we had to boil water on the stove.  We drink a lot of tea and soon got tired of that, so we bought an electric kettle.  Yay … life is back to normal and we’ve had lots of cups of nice tea.  Today we packed up to move camp – while I was attending to the suitcases, Linz packed up our food supplies, odds and ends, and the kettle.   After a long day on the road, half of it in the rain, and arriving at a new location after dark, we got to our hotel room and I filled our lovely kettle (through the spout, without opening the lid) to make a nice well deserved cuppa.   I caught a slight whiff of soap and thought “hmmm Linz must have put the kettle in the same bag as the washing powder”.  Jug boiled, tea made, ahhhhh nice and hot, and tastes full bodied and delicious.  It was soooooo good that Linz decided to make the second cuppa – he opened the lid of the kettle to refill it, and hauled out of it ….. wait for it ………. my face cloth, my shower cap, and our bath sponge (hence the soap smell).  All had been nicely boiled in the kettle and the liquid poured over our tea bags creating a whole new way of taking your daily cuppa.   Apparently Linz thought it was a great space saving idea to stuff the toiletries in the jug when he packed up.  Isn’t that just a man’s thought pattern for you!   It’s funny now as I write it, but it sure wasn’t funny at the time !!!!!!!!!  Our standard question now is “would you like your tea with a bit of shower cap, or just a lump of bath sponge???”

Travel Disasters; Chapter 3

From Orvieto we decided to head to Castiglione del Lago on the shores of Lake Trasimene in Umbria for a one night stop to fill the gap before our one week pre-booked stay in Tuscany. We chose the destination largely by stabbing a finger at the map, though it did look like it would be in a very picturesque position, especially being right on a lake…..

This should have been a simple 1 hour drive up the western shore of the lake.  After driving steadily uphill for half an hour and finding ourselves in snow, YES, SNOW… we later realised we’d made a wrong choice at a roundabout just outside Orvieto, and the drive turned into a stressful two-and-a-half hour exploration of the ‘scenic route’. We completely circumnavigated the lake via a seemingly never-ending series of winding hill roads. A small consolation that the snows had not yet melted up in the hills, offering some lovely views even though this is not quite what we had in mind for the first day of driving in Italy … it felt like we had reached the very top of the Apennines. But we got back on track and made it to Castiglione del Lago by late afternoon.

Travel Disasters; Chapter 2

Although it was only going to be for one night, we were looking forward to staying at Hotel ‘Al Porticciolo’, Fiumicino, near Rome airport. This was to be our stopover after arriving from Istanbul, before picking up our Citroen lease car the next morning. It is a family-run boutique hotel which looked full of character, with only 8 rooms, recently renovated, overlooking boats moored in the canal and seemed lovely in the internet pictures (though of course they all do). But we will never know…

Firstly, the local taxi driver had no idea where he was going (thank God for Google Maps, which we had studied beforehand… we had to tell HIM how to get there!!). Happy to be there and with big smiles on our faces, we met the man at he desk who spoke in fast Italian, saying something about ‘un problema’ and ‘tombata! tombata!’. With our limited Italian, we thought “oh darn, this sounds like Disaster #2”.  He summoned the chef – we got an Italian hand gestured description of how a tradesman installing the air conditioning the day before had drilled through a water pipe, causing the room to flood with major consequences.   The water had ‘fallen’ (tombata) everywhere apparently, and so we drew the short straw.  After our experience in Istanbul (see earlier post) this seemed scarcely credible. But they had booked us a room in another hotel nearby and got one of their people to drop us off. The Hotel Mach 2 was completely devoid of character, smelled of smokers, and was exactly the sort of place you expect to find near airports. Shabby?? Si, molto shabby.  It was adequate but we felt disappointed to have missed out on Al Porticciolo.

Travel Disasters; Chapter 1

After a less than relaxing 11 hour flight with Turkish Airlines from Hong Kong to Istanbul, we arrived at 6.00am and were shuttled/hurtled at 120 kmph towards our hotel we booked via the internet.  The change of temperature from HK (27 degrees) to Istanbul (-1 degrees) was dramatic for us, but the exquisite cherry coloured sunrise over the Sea of Marmara compensated for it.   And then Disaster #1 ……

This is what the Arden Hotel looked like on the website: sumptuous rooms, great view of the Bosphorus Strait, walking distance to all major attractions, so we booked for four nights …

This is what we saw at 6.30am when we arrived – um …  Linz, “Do we want to look at scaffolding, particle board and listen to construction noises during our stay?” I asked casually …..

After two seconds consideration, we negotiated our way out of our booking and transferred next door to “Le Piano” which has only been open a month, and incidentally, doesn’t have a piano