A definite highlight of Mama's visit was our road trip to the Loire Valley. I really wanted Mama to see some of the French country side in comparison to the city life of Paris, plus I had never been to the Loire myself. After reading up on it and consulting friends, it seemed the only practical way to do everything we wanted was to rent a car. I was skeptical, but my friends assured me that it was easy to drive in France, plus all car rentals come with GPS anyway.
Not sure if I just had really bad luck, but renting a car in France is not an experience I'm anxious to repeat. First, we tried Budget because we could get a discount through Mama's Triple A membership. The price seemed great, until we learned that car insurance was more than the cost of the entire car rental for 4 days, and they didn't have GPS. We bailed on Budget and tried Alamo. This time I thought I was being smart by locking in a good price that included insurance by pre-paying online. However, when we arrived at the Alamo office, the lady claimed that there was no record of my reservation. She tried calling the central office, but of course everyone was at lunch at the same time. So even though I had a confirmation number and a copy of my email confirmation on my iPhone, she claimed she had to see a paper copy of my receipt. Is France really a modern developed nation in the 21st century?
At this point, we were starting to wonder if we should just give up on the whole trip. I had no choice but to find an internet café somewhere near the train station. I found one almost right away, but they only had ONE printer and it was broken. I was starting to get very frustrated. Luckily, there was another internet café nearby, and I returned victorious with my PAPER copy of my receipt - only for the Alamo lady to tell me that my reservation was in the system now.
Alamo also offered no GPS, so getting out of Paris with my mom trying to read French street names from the directions I googled on my computer before we left and me trying to read French road signs and negotiate Paris city traffic was, needless to say, interesting. But we were rewarded with beautiful countryside, magnificent castles and cathedrals, and some of the best food and wine of my entire trip. We saw the castles of Chenonceaux, Chambord, and Ussé, the latter of which was supposedly the inspiration for the story of Sleeping Beauty. We also saw the Abbey of Fontevraud, the largest and most intact medieval abbey in Europe, and Chartres Cathedral, which also dates back to the Middle Ages. I could write another whole entry on each of them, but I'll let the photos on my website speak for themselves.
The only down side to the trip, for me, was the rental car! As most of you know, I'm not a car person. I don't enjoy driving and I have no desire to own a car, which frankly is a losing investment the second it leaves the lot. Why drive when you can take public transportation and all the while eat and drink, read, watch a movie, nap, whatever you want - without worrying about traffic or directions?
Besides the trouble renting the car and driving French country roads with no GPS, one night I discovered a whole new challenge of having a car in France - parking. I took Mama into Tours for dinner, which turned out to be a larger city than I expected. Worried about parking in the street and coming back to a stolen, scratched, or towed car, I thought I was being smart by parking in a public garage. Or not. It was 8pm and once inside, I saw signs that the garage closed at 9pm. I noticed a rather large older man who seemed to be working there, so I asked him what time the garage closed.
Now my French is not fluent, but I can get around fairly well on my own. Even when the French speak quickly, I can usually catch enough of the gist of it to figure out what they said, especially if I know the topic. But when this man spoke to me, I didn't understand a word he said. I mean absolutely nothing. I don't know if it was his accent or if he was slurring his words together, but he may as well have been speaking Arabic. For the first time since I came to France, I was actually terrified. I had visions of being unable to retrieve the car until the next morning, and me and Mama sleeping on the streets of Tours instead of in our cozy converted-chateau-hotel.
This burly man was saying something about the numbers on my parking ticket and pointing to a keypad box inside the garage with numbers, but since nothing he said sounded like French, it made no sense to me. The only thing I did understand was that he would be there until 10pm. Though concerned, we still parked and left the car. It was only when we returned to the garage about 10 minutes before 10pm that I realized what he was trying to tell me. Though the doors to the garage lock at 9pm, you can get in by punching the code on your parking ticket into the keypad by the door, which opens the door! Relieved, we went down to our car, and there was burly garage man waiting for us. I think he hung out just to make sure we were able to get our car.
That was more than enough excitement for me, but the final test came when I tried to get gas. Yes, there are plenty of gas stations here and they work the same way they do in the States - with one major exception. Many gas stations in France are completely automatic - not a single employee on site - and the gas pumps only accept French credit cards. The first time I experienced this, we were on a major highway and still had somewhere between a quarter and a half tank, so I had plenty of time to find a gas station that actually had a living person who could take my cash. But when it came to filling up in Paris before returning the rental car, things were considerably more difficult. After successfully locating the rental car office through Friday afternoon Paris traffic, we were overjoyed to find a gas station right next to the rental car garage. Then I discovered the same problem - the pump would not accept any of our numerous credit cards and no one worked there.
As I'm standing there frantically trying different credit cards and running around to find a breathing employee, there was literally a line of cars for the gas station blocking traffic on the main road. Desperate, I asked the man at the pump in front of me if he knew of a gas station that actually had people and not just machines. Luckily for me, the man had heard of such a rare oddity, and it wasn't too far away. He gave me directions in French, and I understood him! And then to add to our remarkable luck, after we pulled away from the station, the man actually stopped his car at a light in the middle of the busy street and got out of his car to give me better directions! And people say Parisians aren't very friendly! We found the other station he told us about with no problem, paid a live person for our gas, and returned to the car rental garage without incident.
Where ever you are burly garage man and random Parisian gas station man - you rock! But now I know that my initial instinct was right - driving in France sucks.
Thanks for reading!
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