Pbenjay's Blog

Once we are out of the garage I think we better pull over and set the GPS. Now last year we had a GPS only spoke in French and Italian. I know that’s hard to believe but it was true and so I made a point of bringing that up with Kemwell who then made a point of telling me that often happens with the cars you get locally, BUT for a mere $40 they would send me one I could put in the car. I took them up on their offer but it was packed in Peter’s suitcase BUT as the charming Andreas assured me, the upgraded car had a GPS that spoke English. So stopped on the side of the road, I program the GPS for Guardia Sanframondi and we begin our journey.  A left here, a right there, here a left, there a right, a couple of times we missed a turn and heard what would become a recurring theme, “recalculating route “.   I saw the signs for the Autostrada and it seemed like we might be on it and then not.

OK we have been redirected a few times and somehow we actually ended up on trolley tracks, tempers are short, the car is bloody hot, with the windows open the traffic noise is horrible AND we can’t really hear the voice of the GPS because the radio will not turn off. You can’t make this stuff up. The radio could be put on mute but then it produced a static sound when we tried to increase the voice.  I would watch the map and call out a turn coming up invariably speaking over her soft voice which only prompted Peter to ask me to Shut Up.

So now we have a hot car with a GPS that we really can’t hear so we keep making mistakes. Finally I notice that we have been on this one approach three times!  And then she announces we have reached our destination! WHAT? STOP THE CAR!

I look at the programming of the GPS and it says the destination is Rome Centro!! I swear and I did, “wtf”? Peter saw me type in Guardia and so I did it again.  It has been over an hour since we left the garage and hours since we arrived in Rome from Florence, and we are still in Rome! We have had one insane issue after another today and we are soooooo cranky right now, I can’t imagine we still have some hours to go…what a long day this has been so far.  I think the worst is behind us, at least I hope it is, we seem to actually be on the autostada heading towards Campania.

We know we have to get to Guardia long before dark, you’re not going to catch me on those twisting winding roads with no shoulders in the dark! But we have to eat because if memory serves me right the last and only food we had was a cornetto and coffee early in the morning in Florence. God, I am hangry.

Besides the fact that you can speed on the autostrada, there are great roadside restaurants along the way.  We saw a sign indicating one coming up and made a beeline for it.  Finally food! And no pre-made cellophane-wrapped ham and cheese sandwiches here, oh no siree, ma’am.  I had a great farro and vegetable salad  with beans and inhaled it.

With hours to go before I sleep, I knew a rest stop was in order and then I saw the flight of steps leading down to the ladies room.  I looked around but didn’t see a lift anywhere. I did manage to flag down someone who had a name tag on and after pointing  to the foot and cane, she points to  small handicap sign hanging  fro the ceiling in midair.  Now that’sa first, but round the corner, there is another sign on a wall indicating a handicap restroom – saved for at least another hour,