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Day 6
- Costigliole D'Asti (Italy) to Turin airport
then to Chinon (France)
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Monday - 17th March 2008 |
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Well, we did get a call at 9am to say that they had
found us a French registered car and it was at Turin
airport, they would send a taxi to pick us up and we'd
be on the way. It was due to be a Fiat Cromo
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A
bit of a mixup as to whether they would pay for this
taxi to take us to the airport, but finally sorted –
another stumbling block!
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Taxi arrived at 10:45 and took us to the airport – as a
way to pass the time, he had a fancy car radio and had a
screen on it, so he was kind enough to put on Gladiator
for us to watch (in English). We'd have felt so much
better if he'd not also been watching it while driving,
but hey, it passed the time.
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Got to the airport, departures – tried to ask us to pay
the 250 euros (didn't fancy his chances on that), so we
asked as to where the contact was for the car – well, he
pointed inside and drove off.
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Now luckily we'd been to Turin about 6 weeks ago and so
sort of recognised the airport, so go a trolley for all
the luggage and I ventured off to find the car rental.
After getting such a filthy look from the lady at the
EuroScrapCar Rental counter, decided I'd better call the
euro assist and see if they knew as to who the car
rental company was – eventually they found out that it
was EuropeCar and so found the counter, confirmed that
they had a car for us and so I went back to find Anne.
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Now whereas we were informed that we were going to be
getting French registered Fiat Cromo (or something like
that), it actually turns out to be a Seat Shed – it was
a massive mpv type vehicle with storage all over the
place. So did a walk round and found a couple of
scratches on the front bumper which highlighted to the
attendant (looked like Robbie from Eastenders – not that
I watch that) and he scribbled it down on the paperwork.
Next was to check the mirrors, seating etc and fit
everything into the car, luggage, sat nav etc etc.
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When sorting out the paperwork, thought it would be a
lot easier if we could extend the car hire until the end
of the holiday and just leave the car in Calais, the
response was yep, no problems, that would be an extra
450 euros – "how much?" I explained that I didn't want
to buy the car, just extend for a few extra days. So
decided to drop the car off at Nimes and we'll arrange
our own car hire, expecting to pay in the region of
£160ish. |
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Going back a number of years, we've both driven in the
States a big, no extremely big 4x4 automatic, but
neither of us has driven a manual car with the steering
wheel on the 'wrong' side, so I had the privilege of
attempting it first.
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So
we're settled, off we trot, strange beep, but thought
that was a reminder to drive on the right and off we go
– well, getting used to the strange car I noticed that
the water temp was getting touch warm, and was getting
into the 130's ie the top of the scale, so after a
couple of miles and not being too happy with this, we
pulled over, decided that this wasn't right, even for a
foreign car and back we went to the airport.
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So
Robbie had a look at it and pored a 2 litres of water
into the reservoir, only for the car to spill it
straight out and over his shoes, with a bit of a fizz to
effect. So he called over the garage know all, looked at
it and shrugged. |
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Bob's killed car number 2
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As
that was the only French car they had, they now offered
us a Corsa, followed by a Golf. Erm, so I asked if it
was a R32 or a GTI, but when they said it was a 1.6, I
laughed, told them we were due to be doing 1500 miles in
it over the next 4 days, they excused themselves, had a
look round Robbie popped off for 5 mins, coming back
with an Alpha 159 station wagon. I'm sure that they use
this name to try to make an estate a bit more exciting –
it doesn't, but it was ok, quickly switching controls to
English, we're off.
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Just as we were about to set off in the Alpha, we had a
call from the car rental company to say that there was a
bit of a problem as the Ford Assistance company would
now not authorise the car hire, even though they had
told us on numerous occasions they would and they had
faxed through to Daniel with the instruction to proceed
– arrrgghhh. So Daniel was good enough to put us on hold
and try to setup a conference call, after 5 mins he came
back and say that they had made a mistake and it was all
now sorted – at last!
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What a way of getting used to driving abroad in a
foreign car – try driving 400 miles in the first day,
but we did it. We'd originally planned to start from the
hotel about 9am, but with all the faffing about, it
wasn't until 14:30 when we left the airport area, for a
400 mile drive. Joy, but we made it. |
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On
the down side, when we got to the car park, Anne spotted
a couple of scratches on the front bumper – oh, phish,
due to the dash to swap the cars over we hadn't had a
walk around this car. Drat. But at least when I looked
at the paperwork for the car, all they had done was
cross off the old number plate and left everything else
the same, including the marks on the front bumper, so
we're hoping that this covers them. Mind you it does
look like the French / Italians and come to think about
it, the Spanish, just don't care for the cars in general
as we do – next time driving through Europe, I want a
beaten up Land Rover 110 – bring it on! |
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Monte Carlo - there were bikes everywhere! Monte Carlo - with the Alpha
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