National Lampoon's European Vacation
You know those National Lampoon movies where Chevy Chase takes his family on some road trip and ends up taking a wrong turn, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, through a corn field, and into swamp (or something ridiculous like that)? Our experiences driving around France were kind of like that.
We rented a huge passenger van from the airport in Geneva. We should have know driving it would be trouble, as the entire right side was smashed in already and the paneling was missing. And we soon learned that the French road signs weren't going to help the experience either; within 10 minutes of leaving the parking lot, we had managed to make about as many wrong turns and my parents were having a shouting match about whose fault it was. Eventually we got on the right highway heading into Chambery, where we were going to do some touristing and get some lunch. Once off the highway, however, we immediately got lost again, and while trying to make a U-turn, found out that the van had the turning radius of a 100,000 passenger cruise ship. In attempting to make a 3-point turn, we realized that the reverse was not working (it was a 6-speed transmission and we later figured out you had to pull up on a ring to get into reverse). So, while blocking traffic in two directions, my mom puts the car in neutral and my brothers get out and push it back. We are now pointed in the right direction, 3/4 of the way in the street. Just as we are pulling back out, however, a truck driver thinks he can make it past us, so he comes barrelling down the street and crunches the whole left sid eof the car. There is a huge dent all along the left side and all of the paneling is sitting cracked in the road.
While Nathan collects the pieces of our car, Mom tries to talk to the driver, fairly unsuccessfully as he doesn't speak English and her French is rusty. He then pulls off onto a side road to get out of the way of traffic and immediately proceeds to hit a parked car. The driver of that car, who was sitting inside at the time, can thankfully speak some English, and so helps with the whole ordeal. After 45 minutes of debate and filling out the forms the police brought, we head off with the remains of the left side of our car piled in the trunk. We got lunch at a fancy hotel on the lake, looking up at the Alps. Then we headed to the chateau where we were staying, only making two or three wrong turns the whole way.
Our trip from the chateau to Aix En Provence was just as eventful (if not quite as damaging). I was the navigator this time, and we had directions printed out from the French equivalent of mapquest ("mappy" or something like that). I soon learned that most of the directions on paper did not correspond in any way to signs or roads that existed in reality.
The directions had us go through Grenoble, but there were no street signs that corresponded to the streets we were supposed to turn onto. Soon we were lost in downtown, with my mom pulling 3-point turns in our whale of a car like an expert now. I was rattling off names of streets we were supposed to be on at some point in the directions (each of which lasted for approximately 100 meters before changing names or forking, so that there were over a dozen street names on there). Finally we found one, but it abruptly ended and became something else not in our directions. Eventually we got out and asked directions, with the two bikers we stopped pointing different ways. We went the way the first one pointed and saw a highway sign! Glorious! It told us to go straight ahead for the highway, but 5om later we hit an intersection, and the road straight ahead went into a housing community. We arbitrarily chose right, then I saw something that looked like an onramp, so I made my mom turn onto it. It was actually an overpass, but at least now we knew where the highway was at any rate. We turned and followed alongside it until we finally found an entrance.
The plan for the day was to stop at a point along our way down to Aix-En-Provence where the Tour de France would cross our path, and then watch for a second day. Being a flat stage, things would go by much more quickly and be less interesting, so we decided to try and see a feed station. There the riders would get food and drink, so they'd have to slow down, and we might be able to get a team water bottle or something they'd thrown away. On falt stages the road only closes a couple of hours before the riders arrive (not a day ahead of time like in the mountains), but with our late start and many wrong turns, by the time we got near the turnoff we saw signs saying the road was already closed. My one navigational success for the day was managing to get us to a different point along the route (albeit after a few more wrong turns). We waited over an hour, and when the riders came it was two or three blurs in succession and then it was all over. The mountains really are the place to watch.
Back on the road again, our attempt to find the train station followed the precedent of the rest of the day. The directions said to exit towards places A, B, C, and D. Well places A&B went one way, and C&D went another. The directions did not illuminate which we were meant to take. Finally we just followed signs to the airport, as the train station was relatively close by, and got there via a quite triangular route. But we got there, and we dropped off the car. The said we would be hearing from them about the state of the car. I'm sure we will. But we were just glad to be rid of the damn thing. Up to top
We rented a huge passenger van from the airport in Geneva. We should have know driving it would be trouble, as the entire right side was smashed in already and the paneling was missing. And we soon learned that the French road signs weren't going to help the experience either; within 10 minutes of leaving the parking lot, we had managed to make about as many wrong turns and my parents were having a shouting match about whose fault it was. Eventually we got on the right highway heading into Chambery, where we were going to do some touristing and get some lunch. Once off the highway, however, we immediately got lost again, and while trying to make a U-turn, found out that the van had the turning radius of a 100,000 passenger cruise ship. In attempting to make a 3-point turn, we realized that the reverse was not working (it was a 6-speed transmission and we later figured out you had to pull up on a ring to get into reverse). So, while blocking traffic in two directions, my mom puts the car in neutral and my brothers get out and push it back. We are now pointed in the right direction, 3/4 of the way in the street. Just as we are pulling back out, however, a truck driver thinks he can make it past us, so he comes barrelling down the street and crunches the whole left sid eof the car. There is a huge dent all along the left side and all of the paneling is sitting cracked in the road.
While Nathan collects the pieces of our car, Mom tries to talk to the driver, fairly unsuccessfully as he doesn't speak English and her French is rusty. He then pulls off onto a side road to get out of the way of traffic and immediately proceeds to hit a parked car. The driver of that car, who was sitting inside at the time, can thankfully speak some English, and so helps with the whole ordeal. After 45 minutes of debate and filling out the forms the police brought, we head off with the remains of the left side of our car piled in the trunk. We got lunch at a fancy hotel on the lake, looking up at the Alps. Then we headed to the chateau where we were staying, only making two or three wrong turns the whole way.
Our trip from the chateau to Aix En Provence was just as eventful (if not quite as damaging). I was the navigator this time, and we had directions printed out from the French equivalent of mapquest ("mappy" or something like that). I soon learned that most of the directions on paper did not correspond in any way to signs or roads that existed in reality.
The directions had us go through Grenoble, but there were no street signs that corresponded to the streets we were supposed to turn onto. Soon we were lost in downtown, with my mom pulling 3-point turns in our whale of a car like an expert now. I was rattling off names of streets we were supposed to be on at some point in the directions (each of which lasted for approximately 100 meters before changing names or forking, so that there were over a dozen street names on there). Finally we found one, but it abruptly ended and became something else not in our directions. Eventually we got out and asked directions, with the two bikers we stopped pointing different ways. We went the way the first one pointed and saw a highway sign! Glorious! It told us to go straight ahead for the highway, but 5om later we hit an intersection, and the road straight ahead went into a housing community. We arbitrarily chose right, then I saw something that looked like an onramp, so I made my mom turn onto it. It was actually an overpass, but at least now we knew where the highway was at any rate. We turned and followed alongside it until we finally found an entrance.
The plan for the day was to stop at a point along our way down to Aix-En-Provence where the Tour de France would cross our path, and then watch for a second day. Being a flat stage, things would go by much more quickly and be less interesting, so we decided to try and see a feed station. There the riders would get food and drink, so they'd have to slow down, and we might be able to get a team water bottle or something they'd thrown away. On falt stages the road only closes a couple of hours before the riders arrive (not a day ahead of time like in the mountains), but with our late start and many wrong turns, by the time we got near the turnoff we saw signs saying the road was already closed. My one navigational success for the day was managing to get us to a different point along the route (albeit after a few more wrong turns). We waited over an hour, and when the riders came it was two or three blurs in succession and then it was all over. The mountains really are the place to watch.
Back on the road again, our attempt to find the train station followed the precedent of the rest of the day. The directions said to exit towards places A, B, C, and D. Well places A&B went one way, and C&D went another. The directions did not illuminate which we were meant to take. Finally we just followed signs to the airport, as the train station was relatively close by, and got there via a quite triangular route. But we got there, and we dropped off the car. The said we would be hearing from them about the state of the car. I'm sure we will. But we were just glad to be rid of the damn thing. Up to top
posted by Nora @ 10:21 PM
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