This is exceedingly long (annoying for you but therapy for me).
We had already made the decision to no longer rent cars but part of the reason for our trip was to meet up with our friends from Denver. We decided to meet for 4 days in the Loire Valley – in our case flying into Orly airport near Paris, renting a car and having one night in Chartres and 3 in Amboise.
Back in the day, when we we were young, driving around the squirrely roads in Europe was part of the adventure. In those days roundabouts were a novelty; now it’s: “I hate roundabouts”. Google maps tells you “take the fourth exit” but as you start counting, you question whether one of those was really an exit or just a donkey path. And when you are wrong, google will take you to the most obscure places just to turn around.
So as we arrived at the Orly airport, and as we approached the car rental, in our heart of hearts we knew it was a mistake agreeing to this.
I had booked an Alamo car through Costco. I was a little apprehensive because the last time I had booked with Alamo, when I returned the car, the attendant started going around with a 4 inch straight edge made of cardboard looking for imaginary dents. I blew a gasket and he backed off and then tried to make me feel like he was doing me a favour.
This time, when we got to the car rental, their were a bunch of people hanging around – apparently waiting for their car rental – because Alamo didn’t have any. That was a first for me – you book a car for a specific time and when you get there, they don’t have any cars.
We were told that the cars were on their way but were delayed because of traffic. Not one to make a hasty decision, Julie and I went to a restaurant and had a snack. After about 20 minutes I decided that it was crazy to wait so started going around to other car rental places to see if any of them could rent us a car. The third one I tried had cars available but before booking I went back to Alamo to cancel but then the Alamo attendant said: “Oh, your car just arrived”.
The car looked OK but it was a standard and I haven’t driven a standard in 25 years. My memory of driving a standard is so bad that I had to use the light on my phone to check to see how many pedals there were: “Oh, there are three pedals; I guess I’m going to have to use both feet”. Julie suggested I practice a bit in the garages e before heading out. I got to a point where I had to back out and could not figure out how to put it in reverse – so had to call an attendant to get instructions.
Once on the road it all came back. Now the problem was navigating. All was going well until Julie had to go to the bathroom so I set google maps to find the nearest gas station. With some difficulty we got to the location indicated by google and google says “you have arrived” – but there was no gas station there or anywhere nearby. After a third try we happened to pass a supermarket and it had a bathroom.
When we arrived at our B&B in Chartres, we had to unload our suitcases outside the B&B but there was no place to park so we had to drive onto the sidewalk to get out of the way of the traffic. Then my friend John went with me to show me how to get to the parking garage.
I would like to say the saga is over but I haven’t got to the worst part yet. I’ll leave that for another post.
WR Foster 