Humorous European Travel Incidents?
Mar 29th, 2016, 12:12 PM
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Humorous European Travel Incidents?
Reading about all this scare thrown into tourists by terrorists bombs in Europe and how nearly no one is going to Europe this summer (at least from the U S) wants me to try to lighten the tone so I thought about the many humorous things I have witnessed as a European tourists for the past 30 or 40 decades I have been traveling there - I'm sure we all have some so if you want to help lighten things around Fodor's tell about them.
Some of my most memorable funy incidents:
NICE
Back in the days when Nice's main train station had luggage lockers and when young American college types Eurailling around Europe I saw a college-tuype gal get her fully loaded backpack out of the locker and struggle to put it on her shoulders - but just as she had done it- boom - she fell over flat on her back - looking like a beached fish. I chuckeled and thought about 'packing light'.
PARIS BHV DEPARTMENT STORE
Paris' clochards (homeless or beggars who sit around and drink wine all day in public) are notorious for urinating just anywhere when the call of nature calls (or used to - I think now this may not be tolerated as much as before when it was rampant and every sidewalk at points reeked of urine)- but the grossest case I saw was when I was coming down the escalator at the BHV department store - upon reaching the ground level there was a big window at the bottom of the escalator thru which you could see the street outside and two clochards were openly pissing right on that window in front of everyone coming down the escalator! Another chuckle or two in this case.
K-D RHINE BOATS
Though it may be a well known line the first time I heard it was when a tasty young gal was sitting on a deck chair and some guy came up to her and was pestering her - finally the gal, a European,said in near perfect English "put your head between your feet and give your a-s good bye!"
AMSTERDAM-
Way back in the wild 80s had so so many funny and weird things about it - one trip to a squat coffeeshop (selling cannabis) a young couple biked up to the door and with their tiny toddler went in to have a smoke and stock up or whatever - they had a dog - they were changing the baby's diaper when the dog suddenly snapped it up and ran out the door! Chuckles from everyone in there.
NIGHT TRAIN GRANADA TO BARCELONA
Was in a six-person couchette and everyone was in but three berths were still empty - finally at the last minute a young French guy and two small kids came in - the French guy stunk so so much it was overpowering to the other folks in the tiny compartment - I mean he stunk as much as the Paris egouts (sewers) - when the conductor came around to check tickets he was repulsed by the stench and said to the stinking French guy - 'come with me' - he had an empty compartment I guess where he put them - man what a relief - we all would have bailed out. Now just a nice laughable memory.
Or maybe the French guy was just pulling a Rick Steves to perfection - Rick wrote in his early books about riding night trains in a regular car with just seats and bragged about his technique of wearing especially stinky socks and taking off his shoes and voila the locals would decide to relocated - now that to me was the ugliest ugly American thing of all time!
DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY INCIDENTS TO TALK ABOUT?
Some of my most memorable funy incidents:
NICE
Back in the days when Nice's main train station had luggage lockers and when young American college types Eurailling around Europe I saw a college-tuype gal get her fully loaded backpack out of the locker and struggle to put it on her shoulders - but just as she had done it- boom - she fell over flat on her back - looking like a beached fish. I chuckeled and thought about 'packing light'.
PARIS BHV DEPARTMENT STORE
Paris' clochards (homeless or beggars who sit around and drink wine all day in public) are notorious for urinating just anywhere when the call of nature calls (or used to - I think now this may not be tolerated as much as before when it was rampant and every sidewalk at points reeked of urine)- but the grossest case I saw was when I was coming down the escalator at the BHV department store - upon reaching the ground level there was a big window at the bottom of the escalator thru which you could see the street outside and two clochards were openly pissing right on that window in front of everyone coming down the escalator! Another chuckle or two in this case.
K-D RHINE BOATS
Though it may be a well known line the first time I heard it was when a tasty young gal was sitting on a deck chair and some guy came up to her and was pestering her - finally the gal, a European,said in near perfect English "put your head between your feet and give your a-s good bye!"
AMSTERDAM-
Way back in the wild 80s had so so many funny and weird things about it - one trip to a squat coffeeshop (selling cannabis) a young couple biked up to the door and with their tiny toddler went in to have a smoke and stock up or whatever - they had a dog - they were changing the baby's diaper when the dog suddenly snapped it up and ran out the door! Chuckles from everyone in there.
NIGHT TRAIN GRANADA TO BARCELONA
Was in a six-person couchette and everyone was in but three berths were still empty - finally at the last minute a young French guy and two small kids came in - the French guy stunk so so much it was overpowering to the other folks in the tiny compartment - I mean he stunk as much as the Paris egouts (sewers) - when the conductor came around to check tickets he was repulsed by the stench and said to the stinking French guy - 'come with me' - he had an empty compartment I guess where he put them - man what a relief - we all would have bailed out. Now just a nice laughable memory.
Or maybe the French guy was just pulling a Rick Steves to perfection - Rick wrote in his early books about riding night trains in a regular car with just seats and bragged about his technique of wearing especially stinky socks and taking off his shoes and voila the locals would decide to relocated - now that to me was the ugliest ugly American thing of all time!
DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY INCIDENTS TO TALK ABOUT?
Mar 29th, 2016, 12:30 PM
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I don't know how funny this was, but it seemed a bit strange.
I was in a 2 person sleeper, from Lisbon to somewhere in Spain, as I recall. I had the bottom bunk. The top bunk was occupied by a woman who I assume was Portuguese. She was very pregnant.
When the train stopped in the morning, got out of her bunk, grabbed the wastebasket and urinated in it.
I think I should have given her the bottom bunk so that she could have gotten down the hall to the toilet more easily.
The funniest thing I saw was when we were waiting ln a looong line of cars at the Spanish border. We were all waiting--patiently or not--when suddenly a young woman veered out of the lane, drove on the side of the road till she was closer to the front of the line, and tried to get back into the lane.
A man manuevered his car so that she couldn't get back into the lane, then got out of his car and with a great show of indifference began whistling, looking around idly, kicking his tires, etc.
The woman, infuriated, piled out of her car and began beating on him with her fists. He pretty much ignored her.
It was wonderful! I mean, haven't we all been irritated when someone won't wait their turn in line.
I was in a 2 person sleeper, from Lisbon to somewhere in Spain, as I recall. I had the bottom bunk. The top bunk was occupied by a woman who I assume was Portuguese. She was very pregnant.
When the train stopped in the morning, got out of her bunk, grabbed the wastebasket and urinated in it.
I think I should have given her the bottom bunk so that she could have gotten down the hall to the toilet more easily.
The funniest thing I saw was when we were waiting ln a looong line of cars at the Spanish border. We were all waiting--patiently or not--when suddenly a young woman veered out of the lane, drove on the side of the road till she was closer to the front of the line, and tried to get back into the lane.
A man manuevered his car so that she couldn't get back into the lane, then got out of his car and with a great show of indifference began whistling, looking around idly, kicking his tires, etc.
The woman, infuriated, piled out of her car and began beating on him with her fists. He pretty much ignored her.
It was wonderful! I mean, haven't we all been irritated when someone won't wait their turn in line.
Mar 29th, 2016, 01:21 PM
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Many involve rental cars:
We were driving in Apennines and for some reason I could only find first and reverse on occasion on the rental car. We stopped at an overlook to admire the vista and when we left I could not find reverse and I kept on jerking toward to the edge, my wife said, "Do you think it is wrong, if a wife doesn't die with her husband?"
We were visiting family in Spain and they wanted to show us the Galician coast. While we were there, we stopped by some fisherman and our cousin said she wanted 30 kilos of pulpo. My wife and I looked at each other and thought we heard wrong. But, no, she bought 30 kilos of pulpo and we put in the trunk. When we got back to the house and opened the trunk, every bag had broken and there were 30 kilos of pulpo squirming around. When we returned the car to the rental facility, we acted nonchalant and as soon as they gave us a receipt we ran, because the back still smelled.
On our very first trip to Europe, 1,000 years ago, we stopped in Iceland. At that of time of year we could not rent a car, so we took a day tour out of Reykjavík. The Icelandic landscape was so desolate and barren, that the US astronauts used to practice there because it was the surface on earth that most resembled the moon. The hot water in the hotel rooms had a sulfur smell as it was taken from nearby hot springs and need not be heated artificially. We saw well dressed older ladies drunk in the streets. It was a truly odd and wonderful place.
We get on the bus and the tour guide is giving the obligatory facts and figures and then she asks, "Any questions?"
A deep southern American voice bellows from the back, "Yeah, how much does this bus weigh?" And to this day, if something does not make sense, we will ask, "How much does this bus weigh?"
We were driving in Apennines and for some reason I could only find first and reverse on occasion on the rental car. We stopped at an overlook to admire the vista and when we left I could not find reverse and I kept on jerking toward to the edge, my wife said, "Do you think it is wrong, if a wife doesn't die with her husband?"
We were visiting family in Spain and they wanted to show us the Galician coast. While we were there, we stopped by some fisherman and our cousin said she wanted 30 kilos of pulpo. My wife and I looked at each other and thought we heard wrong. But, no, she bought 30 kilos of pulpo and we put in the trunk. When we got back to the house and opened the trunk, every bag had broken and there were 30 kilos of pulpo squirming around. When we returned the car to the rental facility, we acted nonchalant and as soon as they gave us a receipt we ran, because the back still smelled.
On our very first trip to Europe, 1,000 years ago, we stopped in Iceland. At that of time of year we could not rent a car, so we took a day tour out of Reykjavík. The Icelandic landscape was so desolate and barren, that the US astronauts used to practice there because it was the surface on earth that most resembled the moon. The hot water in the hotel rooms had a sulfur smell as it was taken from nearby hot springs and need not be heated artificially. We saw well dressed older ladies drunk in the streets. It was a truly odd and wonderful place.
We get on the bus and the tour guide is giving the obligatory facts and figures and then she asks, "Any questions?"
A deep southern American voice bellows from the back, "Yeah, how much does this bus weigh?" And to this day, if something does not make sense, we will ask, "How much does this bus weigh?"
Mar 29th, 2016, 01:23 PM
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Yes both to me funny - especially the first one - and from a the point of an onlooker the 2nd one too - hilarious.
Reminds me of an incident I saw in Paris once not long ago - a young women had parked her car legally on the curb but it was a rather tight space - a young guy in a delivery van pulled in very tight right behind her just as she was returning to her car - way too tight to get out.
Oh yeah the van drive was so so nice - instead of backing out of the tight space to give the young gal a way to exit he just piled on several packages on his trolley and started to go off on a delivery somewhere - the lady went ballistic - after politely asking him if she could get out and being ignored she finally let go with a verbal tirade - what did the van drive do? Just started touching his crotch and yelled over and over "a seche, a seche, a seche!" (seche in French meaning dry - like in suck it dry).
That gave me a laugh much like pegontheorad's incident she witnessed at the Spanish border.
Peg - your first incident reminded me of one I saw in Christiana, the 'Free City' in Copenhagen - a commune type place with all kinds of weirdos and weird things around - I was sitting at a cafe patio there and here comes a scraggy old lady who just drops her drawers and urinates squatting over a storm sewer. Everyone had an eyeful!
Reminds me of an incident I saw in Paris once not long ago - a young women had parked her car legally on the curb but it was a rather tight space - a young guy in a delivery van pulled in very tight right behind her just as she was returning to her car - way too tight to get out.
Oh yeah the van drive was so so nice - instead of backing out of the tight space to give the young gal a way to exit he just piled on several packages on his trolley and started to go off on a delivery somewhere - the lady went ballistic - after politely asking him if she could get out and being ignored she finally let go with a verbal tirade - what did the van drive do? Just started touching his crotch and yelled over and over "a seche, a seche, a seche!" (seche in French meaning dry - like in suck it dry).
That gave me a laugh much like pegontheorad's incident she witnessed at the Spanish border.
Peg - your first incident reminded me of one I saw in Christiana, the 'Free City' in Copenhagen - a commune type place with all kinds of weirdos and weird things around - I was sitting at a cafe patio there and here comes a scraggy old lady who just drops her drawers and urinates squatting over a storm sewer. Everyone had an eyeful!
Mar 29th, 2016, 01:26 PM
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When we returned the car to the rental facility, we acted nonchalant and as soon as they gave us a receipt we ran, because the back still smelled.>
Ah you Ugly American they probably said!
Ah you Ugly American they probably said!
Mar 29th, 2016, 02:25 PM
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Once upon a time, if one wished to go from Paris to Copenhagen one had to get off the NB train at some station, in the Netherlands I think, and pick up another train, as the train you were on hung a right and headed East.
IIRC, the next stop was Berlin.
So, I'm at the station in Paris and a group of six Americans are there as well, and we all got onto the same car.
As we approached the station for changing trains, I mentioned to them that they might wish to get ready to get off.
They said they didn't have to, because they were going to Copenhagen.
I explained about the change of trains.
They didn't believe me, even though I suggested they check with other people who were preparing to leave.
So, I and about a dozen other folks got off the train and waved to them as they continued on to ........
The Copenhagen train arrived about 10 min later. It connected with a Danish ferry, so I had a very nice smorgasbord before going to bed.
IIRC, the next stop was Berlin.
So, I'm at the station in Paris and a group of six Americans are there as well, and we all got onto the same car.
As we approached the station for changing trains, I mentioned to them that they might wish to get ready to get off.
They said they didn't have to, because they were going to Copenhagen.
I explained about the change of trains.
They didn't believe me, even though I suggested they check with other people who were preparing to leave.
So, I and about a dozen other folks got off the train and waved to them as they continued on to ........
The Copenhagen train arrived about 10 min later. It connected with a Danish ferry, so I had a very nice smorgasbord before going to bed.
Mar 29th, 2016, 02:58 PM
#12
My fave, starts around six posts from the top - http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...trangers-2.cfm
Mar 29th, 2016, 03:00 PM
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One of our early on experiences involved driving into a small French village and taking the wrong turn. We just decided to follow the guy in front of us, because he seemed to know where he was going.
Well, around and through the streets we went, as they got narrower and narrower. The problem was we couldn't stop because there was absolutely nowhere to turn around.
Suddenly we saw a bit of clearing ahead and thought, ahh at last. We came around the corner in time to see a garage door go up, the guy in front of us went into the garage, and we were stuck in the tiniest square imaginable.
It's really good to learn to not make a peep while your husband is doing a fifty point turn. I honestly thought we would need a helicopter to get us out of there.
Well, around and through the streets we went, as they got narrower and narrower. The problem was we couldn't stop because there was absolutely nowhere to turn around.
Suddenly we saw a bit of clearing ahead and thought, ahh at last. We came around the corner in time to see a garage door go up, the guy in front of us went into the garage, and we were stuck in the tiniest square imaginable.
It's really good to learn to not make a peep while your husband is doing a fifty point turn. I honestly thought we would need a helicopter to get us out of there.
Mar 29th, 2016, 04:46 PM
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We were having lunch one day in a casual cafe in Paris. Two young french women, very smart in their little black suits and pumps with lovely silk scarves sat down at an outdoor table and ordered main course salads. They were only there a few minutes when 3 teen boys wandered down the street towards them. At first we though they were drunk because of the way they were walking, one half-staggering.
As they passed the young women the worst of the 3 reached over, stuck his hand in her salad and pulled out a handful to eat. We all sat still in shock for a second, but when he tried to reach into her salad again she shrieked and stabbed him in the hand with her fork.
At that point the owner rushed out with a broom and drove off the teens who apparently were stoned and not drunk.
Of course he replaced both salads, but the young women were caught between anger and hysterical laughter.
I just love the image of her stabbing him and his face looking so amazed.
As they passed the young women the worst of the 3 reached over, stuck his hand in her salad and pulled out a handful to eat. We all sat still in shock for a second, but when he tried to reach into her salad again she shrieked and stabbed him in the hand with her fork.
At that point the owner rushed out with a broom and drove off the teens who apparently were stoned and not drunk.
Of course he replaced both salads, but the young women were caught between anger and hysterical laughter.
I just love the image of her stabbing him and his face looking so amazed.
Mar 29th, 2016, 05:38 PM
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<b>Crashing a Presidential Press Conference...in Prague</b>
The coldest March day I have ever experienced...1993.
Czechoslovakia had just split that January, giving birth to The Republic of Slovakia.
Roz and I walked up the steep Narodny hill from The Three Ostriches Hotel (Tri Pstrosu) smack on the Charles Bridge, to Hradcany Castle. The headwind and the wind-chill factor made the going uncomfortable (for Southern Californians!). It began to snow while we rubber-necked quaint "Gold Street" (where the royal goldsmiths had set up shops centuries ago and where Franz Kafka is purported to have temporarily resided as recently as the early 1920's.
As we were edging closer to frostbite time, we saw some TV vans near the entrance to the castle's east entrance. We saw a chance to warm up by walking through the door (unguarded) in the tracks of several paparazzi lugging the old heavy TV gear. I said to Roz..."Now what do we do..It's so nice and warm here in the lobby...I ain't leaving." She responded with....
"Why leave?" I agreed and spotted a nice looking female reporter and she spoke perfect English (she was a German). I asked her, innocently, "what's going on here today?"
"The President, Vaclav Havel, is holding a press conference today, in preparation for the historic meeting tomorrow when Kovac, the Slovak President, will he here for the first official meeting since the split."
I repeated this info to Roz who simply said..."Let's crash it!" It wouldn't be the first time nor the last that we "crashed" an event. Were we warped? I suppose so.
So we wandered over to the line of people by the security machine and as we reached the 6'8" soldier/guard the German woman whispered..."identification, either passports or drivers license to pass through properly."
I thought this was an unusually "light" check-in.
As we approached the security guard, he said something to us in Czech...the dear young German lady had just passed through the machine check and turned to me..."he's asking everyone whom they represent." I approached the desk, smiled and said 'LA Times' as we handed him our Calif. driver's licenses. We had left our passports in the hotel safe as there had been an epidemic of stolen passports at the time. The burly guard had me write down "LA Times", and he copied our licenses. He reached into his desk draw and handed us two "Press Foto" badges...we were in...the German lady winked and said..."You did it"...
One more hurdle...as we left the cloak room and headed into the arena style auditorium, Roz took a seat in the second row. I was on my way to the top so we would be out of line of the security cameras. She insisted on staying in that second row and beckoned me to come back down(nowhere to hide!). She took out a sheet of paper from her pocket and when the Press Secretary began to talk, Roz was taking notes as if she knew Czech.
For the full 45-60 minutes we listened to various government staff and Havel talk...in Czech. Boring, but we had a good sense of adventure. We had crashed a major press conference without being arrested.
I was able to get up close to snap Havel...again, not much visible security. I walked up to no more than five feet away.(see pix)
Out into the cold, we were ready for some lunch and stopped at a restaurant nearby (The Golden Pear "U Zlatne Hrusky"). How were we to know that it was the spot where government officials gathered, and in came Havel with his entourage. He actually looked over to the two of us with a look of familiarity...(Havel, a great hero, journalist and poet, once imprisoned during the Prague spring of the 80's, died a few years after we "met"...at a fairly young age)
Now I could say (with a wink)..."Not only did we crash Havel's press conference, we had lunch with him!!!
Stu
(see pics below and scroll down to the conference)
The coldest March day I have ever experienced...1993.
Czechoslovakia had just split that January, giving birth to The Republic of Slovakia.
Roz and I walked up the steep Narodny hill from The Three Ostriches Hotel (Tri Pstrosu) smack on the Charles Bridge, to Hradcany Castle. The headwind and the wind-chill factor made the going uncomfortable (for Southern Californians!). It began to snow while we rubber-necked quaint "Gold Street" (where the royal goldsmiths had set up shops centuries ago and where Franz Kafka is purported to have temporarily resided as recently as the early 1920's.
As we were edging closer to frostbite time, we saw some TV vans near the entrance to the castle's east entrance. We saw a chance to warm up by walking through the door (unguarded) in the tracks of several paparazzi lugging the old heavy TV gear. I said to Roz..."Now what do we do..It's so nice and warm here in the lobby...I ain't leaving." She responded with....
"Why leave?" I agreed and spotted a nice looking female reporter and she spoke perfect English (she was a German). I asked her, innocently, "what's going on here today?"
"The President, Vaclav Havel, is holding a press conference today, in preparation for the historic meeting tomorrow when Kovac, the Slovak President, will he here for the first official meeting since the split."
I repeated this info to Roz who simply said..."Let's crash it!" It wouldn't be the first time nor the last that we "crashed" an event. Were we warped? I suppose so.
So we wandered over to the line of people by the security machine and as we reached the 6'8" soldier/guard the German woman whispered..."identification, either passports or drivers license to pass through properly."
I thought this was an unusually "light" check-in.
As we approached the security guard, he said something to us in Czech...the dear young German lady had just passed through the machine check and turned to me..."he's asking everyone whom they represent." I approached the desk, smiled and said 'LA Times' as we handed him our Calif. driver's licenses. We had left our passports in the hotel safe as there had been an epidemic of stolen passports at the time. The burly guard had me write down "LA Times", and he copied our licenses. He reached into his desk draw and handed us two "Press Foto" badges...we were in...the German lady winked and said..."You did it"...
One more hurdle...as we left the cloak room and headed into the arena style auditorium, Roz took a seat in the second row. I was on my way to the top so we would be out of line of the security cameras. She insisted on staying in that second row and beckoned me to come back down(nowhere to hide!). She took out a sheet of paper from her pocket and when the Press Secretary began to talk, Roz was taking notes as if she knew Czech.
For the full 45-60 minutes we listened to various government staff and Havel talk...in Czech. Boring, but we had a good sense of adventure. We had crashed a major press conference without being arrested.
I was able to get up close to snap Havel...again, not much visible security. I walked up to no more than five feet away.(see pix)
Out into the cold, we were ready for some lunch and stopped at a restaurant nearby (The Golden Pear "U Zlatne Hrusky"). How were we to know that it was the spot where government officials gathered, and in came Havel with his entourage. He actually looked over to the two of us with a look of familiarity...(Havel, a great hero, journalist and poet, once imprisoned during the Prague spring of the 80's, died a few years after we "met"...at a fairly young age)
Now I could say (with a wink)..."Not only did we crash Havel's press conference, we had lunch with him!!!
Stu
(see pics below and scroll down to the conference)
Mar 29th, 2016, 05:58 PM
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Prague ix
Prague pix with Press Conference, Havel, 1993. you can scroll down to Castle Pix which include the Conference and others
https://picasaweb.google.com/stuartt...cenesOfPrague#
Prague pix with Press Conference, Havel, 1993. you can scroll down to Castle Pix which include the Conference and others
https://picasaweb.google.com/stuartt...cenesOfPrague#
Mar 29th, 2016, 06:31 PM
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Not mine, my mother's.
My mother was on a Perllio tour of Italy and that day they were in the Vatican. She broke from the group to go to the bathroom and when she emerged, she had lost the group. She walked here and there and opened a door and there was the Pope. My mother was more startled than he, but she just walked off, she thought how many Jews back in Florida have met the Pope.
My mother was on a Perllio tour of Italy and that day they were in the Vatican. She broke from the group to go to the bathroom and when she emerged, she had lost the group. She walked here and there and opened a door and there was the Pope. My mother was more startled than he, but she just walked off, she thought how many Jews back in Florida have met the Pope.
Mar 29th, 2016, 06:58 PM
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Humorous and scary at the same time. My brother and I took a tour (our first trip to Europe) with my other brother and SIL. We were in Montmartre and there were a bunch of mimes performing. My brother was pretty overweight at the time so they go a look at him and all gathered around him, one of them started rubbing my brothers belly and another climbed on his back.
My brother started spinning around like Curly in the Three Stooges used to do, trying to shake the little sucker loose. They crowd of course was totally enjoying "the show" and I had to laugh a little bit in spite of myself. Actually it wasn't all that funny since my brother has a bad back, but we managed to have some fun with in on the bus on the way to Lucerne the next day.
We would talking about the "mime field" we had to go through in Monmartre, and it was "mime over matter" and that a "mime was a terrible thing to waste" and "your place or mime" and so on. My brother and I can be really silly.
My brother started spinning around like Curly in the Three Stooges used to do, trying to shake the little sucker loose. They crowd of course was totally enjoying "the show" and I had to laugh a little bit in spite of myself. Actually it wasn't all that funny since my brother has a bad back, but we managed to have some fun with in on the bus on the way to Lucerne the next day.
We would talking about the "mime field" we had to go through in Monmartre, and it was "mime over matter" and that a "mime was a terrible thing to waste" and "your place or mime" and so on. My brother and I can be really silly.
Mar 29th, 2016, 10:33 PM
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It was 2004, we were stranded in Casablanca by a pilots strike. We elected to fly to Marseille instead of our intended destination (Barcelona) due to 8 less hours to wait at the airport.
Last minute, we grabbed a cheap hotel in Marseille near the train station with a friendly receptionist, who spoke perfect English. His name was Alfonse Casanova and he told us to call his mobile with any queries if he wasn't around.
After a day exploring, we ventured into the bar next door to our hotel.
It was very basic. We ordered two gin and tonics, were served our drinks, and despaired of the dismal surroundings. I objected to the cost of the the drinks when we were presented with a bill for €18. The huge burly barman grabbed our unfinished drinks, and hurled them some distance into the sink breaking both glasses. He then started to come after us around the long counter. We threw €10 on the bar and ran.
Of course we only ran next door to our hotel, and I was worried that the scary bar man had seen us enter. Concerned, I asked the young man now at reception who spoke no English, to call Casanova on his mobile.
Our friendly Casanova answered the call, I explained my concerns.
He said "Madam, I am currently up to my balls in my girlfriend". He went on to say rather quickly "those guys next door are nasty, stay in the hotel, don't venture out, you'll be fine, I'll see you tomorrow", click.
We were both on the floor laughing. We stayed in that night, and left early the next morning.
Last minute, we grabbed a cheap hotel in Marseille near the train station with a friendly receptionist, who spoke perfect English. His name was Alfonse Casanova and he told us to call his mobile with any queries if he wasn't around.
After a day exploring, we ventured into the bar next door to our hotel.
It was very basic. We ordered two gin and tonics, were served our drinks, and despaired of the dismal surroundings. I objected to the cost of the the drinks when we were presented with a bill for €18. The huge burly barman grabbed our unfinished drinks, and hurled them some distance into the sink breaking both glasses. He then started to come after us around the long counter. We threw €10 on the bar and ran.
Of course we only ran next door to our hotel, and I was worried that the scary bar man had seen us enter. Concerned, I asked the young man now at reception who spoke no English, to call Casanova on his mobile.
Our friendly Casanova answered the call, I explained my concerns.
He said "Madam, I am currently up to my balls in my girlfriend". He went on to say rather quickly "those guys next door are nasty, stay in the hotel, don't venture out, you'll be fine, I'll see you tomorrow", click.
We were both on the floor laughing. We stayed in that night, and left early the next morning.
