Trouble & Strife Part 2: Marital Armageddon
Regular readers might recall that just over a week ago, your humble correspondent selflessly tried to redefine the boundaries of original sin – at least as far as the memsahib was concerned. Only now that both my primary & secondary injuries are starting to heal can I come completely clean & confess to all my dear readers that my transgressions didn’t exactly cease at the end of that post.
Let’s just fast forward a little from where we left off last Friday & say that the drive down through France was being conducted in the most terrible ominous silence. Holiday plans lay in ruins & timings had all gone to ratsh1t. Looking at Disco Dave’s satnav & doing a few quick sums, it was abundantly clear that we weren’t going to make it to our destination in the Alps that day. Thinking quickly & in a vainglorious attempt to deflect some of the hellfire & damnation that would inevitably soon be raining down on my head, we needed somewhere to stay for the night. A swift call to Office Wife would ensure that we had somewhere comfortable to stay for the night for Office Wife steers me around the globe with unerring precision.
Sure enough, 20 minutes later, my BlackBerry hummed as the details of a suitable reservation. Plug in the hotel’s address & off we set for Chambery with an ETA of 2330.
To cut to the chase, could we find the hotel? Could we hell! After the best part of an hours fruitless search trying to find our hotel or indeed any hotel with a room proved a dismal failure & there was nothing to do but to drive up to Bourg St Maurice, park up at the railway station & spend what little remained of the night in the car. Disco Dave’s computer said that the outside temperature was -10 degs C. Trust me when I say that the atmosphere a considerably colder in the car.
Comments
Did you stop to ask for directions...?
Posted by: pdwalker | February 24, 2009 8:39 AM
Could you have afforded to stay in a railway car park in the UK!
Posted by: Pete Kettell | February 24, 2009 9:40 AM
It looked like a really cold arrow in the back, it did.
Posted by: Curtis | February 24, 2009 9:46 AM
Sorry about that. My husband and I did the same thing trying to find a hotel in London. With all the one way streets and the signs not readily visible from the passenger side (Yes, it was an American car with a left hand drive, why do you ask?), we were on the verge of divorce because we were in the vicinity, but not on the street...Pennywern Court.
He pulled up, stopped the car and we asked a young lady for directions. Turns out we were on the right street...we just had to go two houses down.
Let's just say we are still married.
We did spend the night in the car when we were too far away to make it home to our little burg in Germany.
Truly...I am sorry about that.
Posted by: Cricket | February 24, 2009 11:53 PM
Reminds me of our 2007 trip to Vienna. Arrive at the Altstadt in total darkness, with heavy rain. Now add:
1.) Street signs which are affixed to building walls, instead of on signposts, and even then,
2.) said signs are not on every corner, oh no, they're on adjacent corners, and
3.) at least 25' off street level, and
4.) written in that strange old-fashioned Germanic script, with
5.) plenty of confusing abbreviations for "gasse", "strasse", etc.
6.) Did I mention that it was pissing down rain?
7.) Vienna street "pattern" is not a grid: the strasses and gasses follow the 12th-century wanderings of King Gunther The Drunk, and
8.) all the streets are one-way, with sudden terminations at T-junctions.
Long story short: we gave up after an hour of seeting frustration (on my part; The Mrs. was giggling like a schoolgirl at my rage), parked the car, and walked to the hotel. When we showed the receptionist where we were on the map, her reply was exquisite: "I know where you are -- I just don't know how you got there."
Me, neither.
Anyway, we eventually managed to get the car to the hotel (after only three more wrong turns), and handed the keys to a flunky who parked it somewhere for the rest of the week.
Shank's Pony after that.
Our last trip to Vienna was made in the correct, nay, the only way to come into Vienna: limo from the airport to the front door of the hotel.
Posted by: Kim du Toit | February 26, 2009 3:44 PM