Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Sunday : Fine
Happy Birthday Kim!
I'm sorry for the disastrous day though.
I had a few nice ideas on how to celebrate Kim's birthday and fit in a long drive today. It was all planned out, but sometimes plans don't always come together.
The plan was to pick our hire car up when the office opened at 10am. Then drive about 30mins S/E out of Bordeaux to a couple of nice wineries and do some tastings. Most likely pickup a couple nice bottles of Vin to have with our home cooked meal when we get to our flat in the Pyrenees which was 4-5hrs drive away.
I already knew that the chances of making the 11am tour of one of the chateaux was pretty slim. It didn't matter too much if we arrived after 11am, we have been on plenty of tours before, and were more interesting in sampling the wine. The wine tasting went right out the window completely when it took almost 1.5hrs to get the hire car sorted though.
We were first to the hire company when it opened, and when we finally got the keys we had to go and find the car and check for any damage. It was a brand new Hybrid Yaris 606kms that was suppose to not have any damage. The car didn't look like it had been washed, and we could already see that there were marks, scratches and dints. I took note and went back to the office to get the changes approved.
By the time we got back to the office there was a line, so I waited.... then waited some more. I should of just pushed in! I had to listen to an idiot couple if front of me being served. They must of thought that it was a tourist office as well. They were getting directions to all over France and to Milan to pickup some friends! I was pretty annoying and frustrated. I patiently waited 40mins biting my tongue, and when it was eventually my turn, just to have the lady sign the papers and not even come out to the car and take a look! Man I was absolutely fuming! I could of just pushed in 40mins ago for a signature! I thought that she would come out and have a look! can't believe what had just happened, the birthday plans are not off to a good start.
Anyways once on the road we realised that we weren't going to be able to do any tastings until the afternoon because all the wineries close from 12-2pm. So I thought that instead of going to a closed winery, we will go to a nearby town that had a tourist office and see if they could tell us of any wineries that may be opened.
The drive was very nice indeed, the sun was out and there were vineyards all around. We arrived into a nice town called Langon, but the tourist office was closed on Sundays. Now that's just silly! Isn't it? There was a farmers market on in town and we bought two of these huge croissants, filled with fluffy cheese and ham. Turned out that those croissants would be the last thing we ate until 9pm.
We went back to the car and took a look at the GPS list of chateaux. On the drive here we must of passed like 100 of them already. Apparently there was one nearby, so we went to take a look. When we couldn't find it, the time was close to 1pm. So we decided to try our luck and type in the closest address to the chateau that we wanted to go to originally. The chateaux here use gps coordinates, our satnav doesn't have that function, so it makes it a little difficult to locate them.
Well we did finally have some luck and spotted the sign to the chateau. By the time we got there it was after 1pm, so we thought we would take a little break amongst the vines and wait for the winery to open back up at 2 to finally do some wine tasting.
However tasting wine today was not meant to be. We tried to call the holiday letting company repeatedly. We wanted to let them know that we may be 1 hour late for picking up the keys. They have this stupid checkin time of between 4-6pm! Unfortunately with no one answering the phone, (probably because they are on their ridiculously long lunch break) and the satnav saying that we will arrive at 5:55pm, we had no choice but to leave the Bordeaux wine region and head down to the Pyrenees. We may still get a chance to visit a Bordeaux chateau, we are coming back in a weeks time.
The drive was good, very nice scenery, hardly any cars and I don't think we saw a single truck either. The French country towns don't seem to be the best places to visit on a sunday though, they seem like ghost towns. Every shop bar, cafe restaurant was closed. Only a few of the bigger towns had some cafes and stores open.
The only thing that was bugging me was that we couldn't carry out the mornings and now afternoons plans. All because of the lazy b*****s not answering their phone.
They continued to do so as well! Kim said to wait until 4pm, that's when checkin started. However even when 4pm came around we still had no answer! Kim called booking.com to see what they could do and they gave us a mobile number and sent them and email. That mobile number still just rang out like the land line, but we did leave a voice msg.
We drove up to the Pyrenees mountains and it was like a wall. We drove straight through a tunnel and out the other side, and then we were in the mountains. Completely surrounded by peaks, It was very pretty.
We drove through a number of small towns and came to Ax-Les-Thermes and took a right. We drove straight up the side of a mountain to the ski town of Bonascre. This is as far as the GPS could help us with locating our lodge, there are no street signs or addresses up here, just hotel names on signs.
We had a little trouble finding the place, but even after driving around town, and pulling into a random hotel to get directions, we arrived at our lodge just before 6pm.
There was no one there, the reception was empty. The place was open though we could even use the heated pool. We found the emergency contact number and gave it a call, and again without much success, but I left another voice msg.
Kim went back out to the car to call booking.com again to let them know what was going on. I spoke to a nice man who called the emergency contact number again and left another voice msg but in French. So much for being the emergency contact!
I said thanks to the man and went back out to the car. Kim was pretty upset, but the person who was speaking to her on the other end of the line had told her that they will help us. They will be following protocol, and try to call the company and send them repeated emails for 30mins, and still if they get no reply, they will call us back and locate us to a different hotel.
The man I was speaking to earlier then came rushing out and said that the lady in charge was coming to the lodge in one hour to let us in. She had to pick her kid up first, and said that she wasn't expecting anyone today, and thats why she wasn't there. That still doesn't account for the fact that we have been trying to contact her for the past 7hrs!!!!
It was just a waiting game now, who would contact us first. Well as expected booking.com contact us first, and gave us directions to the new accommodation.
It was coming up to 8pm and we made the drive back down the hill to Ax-Les-Thermes to the new flat. We had no problems finding it, but it was all locked up. We banged on the door and a lady came to answer it. She was finishing up for the day and was a little reluctant in helping us, because she hadn't received anything from booking.com yet.
She ended up helping us out and gave us an apartment. She charged us the same amount as what the old accommodation was going to cost us, and gave us all free linen and cleaning supplies.
Finally after a day of nothing coming together, at 9pm we were very lucky to have a room. After not eating for 9hrs we were starving, and the lady at reception said that everything was closed, but we may get lucky with a few pizza places. We went straight there. Thankfully they were opened, and we ordered two pizzas and a bottle of wine. We took them both back to our flat, to eat, drink, relax and put this day behind us.
Well after that shocker of a day, Kim did end up having some wine for her birthday, so all was not lost.
- comments