The Adventures of Las Tres Locas (The Three Crazy Ladies)
Part 2 of What I did this summer (this post is limited by the word restrictions of the contest I entered):
The conference was over. Now it was time to play. We had made arrangements for a self-guided tour, with car rental and hotel reservations in the cities of our choice. We were to start from Madrid and head for Leon. Our itinerary included the prehistoric Altamira caves near Santillana del Mar, the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the international water expo in Zaragoza. Then Judith and Susan would drive back to Madrid to return to the United States and I would continue by train to see Barcelona before flying home first class.
We could have ordered a GPS (Global Positioning System) with the rental car, for more than $191 extra. We declined it; it was too much for such a short time. Besides, we had driving instructions from Google Maps. Later I wondered if the reduced stress and frustration might have been worth the extra cost, that is, if it could be set to speak English.
We arrived in Leon without much trouble, but then we had to find our hotel, and it was difficult to follow the Google directions. We headed to the Plaza Mayor. We could see the spires of the Cathedral, which it was near, but were soon running afoul of narrow winding one-way streets and driving in circles. Finally, we made a cell phone call to the hotel, and were told to park in the garage under the Plaza Mayor and take the elevator up to the Plaza level. Vehicles were prohibited from driving on the Plaza except for delivery trucks in the early morning. There, at the front desk was a packet of maps and driving directions sent by the Spanish travel agency.
Even with maps, we continued to get lost on the way to every city on our itinerary, each time adding about an hour to our travel time. En route to Santillana del Mar, we were to leave the highway at an exit that wasn't there. We made U-turns at toll booths to retrace our steps. The day we toured the caves, we ignored the part of the directions which said they were a 30-minute drive from our hotel, and then got lost when the signs ran out. In Bilbao, I was navigating, but failed to check the map for which fork to take when the road split to go around a large convention center. In the hills above the city, we repeatedly had to ask directions, usually in Spanish, to our hotel. In Zaragoza, we circled around on one-way streets at rush hour until we could cross the river to our hotel.
In the long run, I wondered, could we have saved the money we paid for comprehensive insurance and put it to better use for a GPS? If only we had been able to find a guided tour that matched our choice of dates and destinations.
The conference was over. Now it was time to play. We had made arrangements for a self-guided tour, with car rental and hotel reservations in the cities of our choice. We were to start from Madrid and head for Leon. Our itinerary included the prehistoric Altamira caves near Santillana del Mar, the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the international water expo in Zaragoza. Then Judith and Susan would drive back to Madrid to return to the United States and I would continue by train to see Barcelona before flying home first class.
We could have ordered a GPS (Global Positioning System) with the rental car, for more than $191 extra. We declined it; it was too much for such a short time. Besides, we had driving instructions from Google Maps. Later I wondered if the reduced stress and frustration might have been worth the extra cost, that is, if it could be set to speak English.
We arrived in Leon without much trouble, but then we had to find our hotel, and it was difficult to follow the Google directions. We headed to the Plaza Mayor. We could see the spires of the Cathedral, which it was near, but were soon running afoul of narrow winding one-way streets and driving in circles. Finally, we made a cell phone call to the hotel, and were told to park in the garage under the Plaza Mayor and take the elevator up to the Plaza level. Vehicles were prohibited from driving on the Plaza except for delivery trucks in the early morning. There, at the front desk was a packet of maps and driving directions sent by the Spanish travel agency.
Even with maps, we continued to get lost on the way to every city on our itinerary, each time adding about an hour to our travel time. En route to Santillana del Mar, we were to leave the highway at an exit that wasn't there. We made U-turns at toll booths to retrace our steps. The day we toured the caves, we ignored the part of the directions which said they were a 30-minute drive from our hotel, and then got lost when the signs ran out. In Bilbao, I was navigating, but failed to check the map for which fork to take when the road split to go around a large convention center. In the hills above the city, we repeatedly had to ask directions, usually in Spanish, to our hotel. In Zaragoza, we circled around on one-way streets at rush hour until we could cross the river to our hotel.
In the long run, I wondered, could we have saved the money we paid for comprehensive insurance and put it to better use for a GPS? If only we had been able to find a guided tour that matched our choice of dates and destinations.
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