november_moon

We spent an hour driving around Bamberg trying to get to our hotel once - we could get within a few blocks, but just couldn't get TO the hotel. We had decent directions, and ALMOST made it on the first try, but it was a Saturday afternoon and one critical street was closed to cars that day. I drove down pedestrian-only streets, almost drove over that little bridge in front of the town hall, went around and around in circles, was admonished by several people, had to back up a couple blocks through pedestrian trafffic... We even drove back out of town and tried a "do over". No luck.

Finally I double-parked and waited with the car while DH walked to the hotel to ask how to drive there. He came back and guided me to the hotel. The route took us through a small platz that never in my wildest dreams would I have throught you were actually supposed to drive through, and down an alley that was barely wider than the car.

We came around a corner and there was the hotel with the owner waiting for us. I double-parked again and the owner helped us with our luggage, then told us to wait while he parked the car. I don't know where he put it, but he clearly did not think it was wise for me to continue driving in his town. When we left a couple days later, he drew us a map to the highway

ncounty

I missed my train from Orvieto to Florence because I was waiting for it to arrive and thought it was running late. The train that had been sitting there with me for hours that I thought was out of commission pulled away and turned out to be my train. Of course, that was the express train and I had to wait forever for the next train which was the slow local commuter train.

I booked a hotel in a town in Switzerland (I have blocked out the name due to the trauma) and when I arrived there was no such place. I booked it online. Turned out it was 2 towns away; the internet had a wide field of search. I never found it even though I called them and asked for directions which were crummy. I was charged for the stay.

Cindywho

I was 16 and went to Paris with a group of teens. The day we arrived we were put on a bus to tour the city. I could not keep my eyes open from jet lag and slept thru the entire tour. Felt very embarrassed, then left my purse with passport on the bus. Luckily some responsible adult got to back somehow!

Four years ago while my husband and I were in Montepulciano in Tuscany we were trying to find our hotel. He was driving a manual car and has very little experience with manuals. The streets were very very narrow, on steep hills, and it was raining. I am sure you can imagine the rest. Or nerves were shot. Lucky for us we were staying at Meuble il Riccio which was a very peaceful place once we found it.

nytraveler

I recall only one problem. Many years ago I went to europe with my brother and in a restaurant in italy he ordered mussels and apparently one was bad. The next morning he didn;t feel very well, but we were scheduled to leave for Florence and he decided we should go, I was all for staying put another day and the hotel had room - it just would have meant paying for 2 hotels for one night.

But we left - and he started getting sicker and sicker. We were stopping at every gas station and rest stop. And then he couldn't drive and I was left dealing with a standard transmission - grinding the gears at every shift (since I hadn't driven one in years). Well we finally made it to Florence - but it took forever with all the stops. We pulled up in front of the hotel and threw ourselves on their mercy. They dealt with the luggage, took the car away and put it in a garage and called an MD - who came to the hotel for my B. He confirmed it was probably a bad mussel, gave him a settler and reco'd 2 days of bed rest and no food. By the end of the second day he was much better - but had missed 2 days of Florence - so we had only one left.

Unfortunately there's not much you can do about something like that - but if it happened again I would insist on staying put until my companion was functional again. And getting a doctor sooner.

Nottingham

Volcano in Iceland=LONGER flight time to Paris=missing the appointed train to Bordeaux=no seats available for new reservation except for the LAST train out of Paris that evening =Ascension holiday- trains all booked=Bordeaux train station under "renovation"= getting off in Libourne =getting on bus to Bordeaux= after midnight when we arrived at hotel= had a guaranteed reservation, thank goodness = 36 hours without sleep = 3 days to recover!!!
Our trip started out as the Big Adventure...we had a wonderful time for the month we traveled
in France!

tailsock

jmct714: thanks a lot! i'll check some out when i get a chance. I'm glad we have lots of participation in this thread so i have lots of amusement on my lunch break. these travel slip-ups are HILARIOUS. maitai driving through a town square made me snort soda up my nose!

ginainmi42

Ten years ago my friend and I decided to go to Europe for the first time, visiting France, Italy and Greece. We were flying out of a small airport in mid-Michigan to Detroit and then on to Paris. We were sitting in the airport talking and noticed a line forming, so we got in line, got on the plane, put out carry-on in the overhead bin and buckled ourselves in. I thought we boarded quite early and was surprised to see the attendants closing the bins quite a bit before we were suppose to take off. Then we heard the Captain say “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight xxxx to Minneapolis”. Well, we jumped up, grabbed our bags and were headed to the front of the plane when someone came in the door looking for us. When we got back in the airport, we erupted in fits of laughter. I said “Here we are, going to three foreign countries and we can’t even get out of our hometown right!” My friend said “Well, your sister said I’d see a lot traveling with you, but I didn’t think it included Minneapolis!” That was our start to a fun trip with a few other mishaps that we still laugh about.

raincitygirl

The story is too long to tell fully here, but I was 18 on my first trip to Europe, and in the Bordeaux train station while waiting all day for a train to Paris I was targeted by two really creepy men who first just harassed me and then got physical each taking an arm and trying to drag me away.

Luckily for me the owner of the kiosk I was sitting next to and her daughter came racing out to my rescue screaming abuse and calling for the gendarmes.
They had some pretty scary things to say about what went on there with predatory men and young girls at that time.( early 70's)

The long and the short of it was they were absolutely lovely to me, taking me home for a big sit down lunch with the rest of their family, showing me around their hundreds of years old home and then personally putting me on the train, choosing the right carriage for me and sending me off with a bag filled with sweets, chocolate and cigarettes.

I guess you could call that a big misadventure with a happy ending.

jaja

There was the time, motoring around Ireland with two teenage boys who it turned out had neither one ever seen a GPS much less operated one.....left our farmhouse b&b for Ennis to get some dinner; beginning to get dark as we tried to find our way back; satnav absolutely useless as of course Ireland has an interesting address system. Beginning to panic, we went back into Ennis to a c-store and asked the clerk if he knew where XXX b&b is, of course not a local and didn't. As we were leaving, wondering what to do next, a lady drove up with her teenage son who had overheard our conversation. Now she wasn't familiar with that particular b&b but she had us follow her and she led us right to the gate. What an angel in disguise.
That's the reason I always recommend a satnav (and insist that my navigator knows how to use it)even though most "seasoned" Ireland travelers turn up their noses. Now I know we could have entered the b&b location as we were leaving for town.

Iwan2go

Our experience parallels that of Nottingham, on what we refer to as "The Volcano Vacation". The day we were due to fly out, the volcano erupted. Called Air France, and they said, go to the airport. Off to LAX, where after a bit of a wait we were told, CDG is closed, go home. Called on the way back home and got a seat on KLM the next day (Yay!). We didn't unpack, we didn't sleep much, and went back the next day. There were lines out the door of people from the prior day as well as that day at KLM, and after an hour someone announced that Amsterdam was closed (No!).

We went over to the Air France counter (handily placed next to KLM!), where I lied and said, "It's our 40th anniversary trip!" The sympathetic lady asked where our final destination was, and when we said Nice, she offered us the chance of a seat, because this flight was being diverted to Marseilles. Yay! Got on the plane, and about a half an hour later I thought, Hummmm. Was this a good idea, or not? Too late.

After a long flight we landed, got our stick shift rental car, and set off for Nice. My husband hadn't slept much on the plane, so we made several nap stops. He also hadn't driven a manual for a loooong time. To keep up a positive attitude, I regaled him with the wonderful place we were headed to, lovely views of the Bay of Nice. We got lost several times trying to find our place in Vallauris, but finally headed up the last road. Which was an unbelievably steep one (hence the views), and of course the car conked out. Started sliding down the hill, with me shrieking something along the lines of, We are going to die.

When we got to the place my husband looked at me and said, We are not going anywhere tonight.

Next day we were interviewed in Antibes and got into the paper, under a headline reading something like, the LAST people to leave Los Angeles and our smiling dopey faces.

Our next place was near Carpentras, and I kept telling my husband - flat land! No problems! Fine til the last mile, which was along a restricted visibility, winding one lane road with fields on either side, no lights (of course), and crumbling asphalt with 5 foot deep drainage ditches on either side. He turns to me again and says, We are not going anywhere at night.

Sigh. It was still a great vacation. But I am now very wary of "view" properties.

SCgirl0218

I bought a brand new hard case luggage for my Spain trip in April 2012. I flew from San Francisco to Madrid via London on British Airways. When picking my luggage in Madrid, I notice a sizeable dent at the corner of my still shiny silver luggage. I had a hard time opening the suitcase due to the dent back at the hotel in Madrid, but did not think much about it due to jetlag. We stayed in Madrid for 4 nights, and I never try to close the suitcase... until the night before leaving Madrid for Seville, with a stop in Toledo. It was 10pm. We were tired and trying to pack and the suitcase would not close. My sister tried to fix it, sweating like crazy amidst the cold of Madrid, no success. I called the Radisson Blu hotel desk to ask for a hammer, and they sent a nice young gentleman up our room to help. He tried very hard, came back and forth with more tools, and we all agreed that it cannot be fixed. We were panic but it was too late, so we had to change our next day plan. First thing in the morning was going to the train station nearby to change our pre-paid ticket to Cordoba/Seville. I timed and booked our Renfe ticket early at huge discount (60% I think). But that ticket is non-refundable. So we lost that, and on top had to purchase a new ticket at FULL price, and could not even find a 2-seats together. Then we headed to El Cortes Ingles and bought a new luggage. Then having some time to kill we headed to the Thyssen museum for Chagall's special exhibition - which was the highlight of the day.
Anyway relief to get a new luggage and got on the train to Seville. But we had to skip Cordoba due to the mishap.
I was angry and not sure who to blame for. British airways? The luggage maker? Sometimes I do have the thoughts of going thru the complaints but other times I just want to get over it.
The best part came out of this misadventure was that we made a day trip to Cordoba a few days later. We got inside the Mezquita mosque around noon with no ticket purchase since it's local mass time. I saw the guard kicking out all the tourists for the masque but we were sitting down next to some locals and the guard missed us. So we had the mosque all to ourselves, and sat through an hour spanish mass with the locals. It was quite an experience. And that made up for all the mishap earlier.

kappa1

My last "mésaventure".

A few weeks ago, on whitsun weekend, as I have done more than a few time, I took the direct train from Geneva to Venice. This train makes a long 30 minutes stop at Milano Centrale so in order to strech, I always get off on the platform and walk around the shop area, take a coffee carrying only my valuables (money, passport, etc) leaving all the rest in the train. This time I was over confident or simply not paying enough attention, I went back to the platform and could not find the train. Asked the info girl there. She looked at my reservation and said. What are you doing here when you should be on your way to Venezia. Your train left 3 minutes ago. Bravo she said ( like meaning well done ) What? Is that possible? What can I do? Next train? What about all my belongings? She told me to the customer service, which I did and I was told 1. for myself, I should go to the platform for a train 30 minutes later and ask the conductor if I can get on with my ticket. 2. For my stuff, call Tren Italia lost and found, she gave me the number. I called but was told the best chance is I inquire at Venice station when I get there. Ok, the conductor let me take the following train, no charge (but that was less of a poblem, I was ready to pay if needed. Also the train was 80% empty). Asked also about my situation with luggage, he said we will see. Communication with him was limited, me speaking French and English, he Italian only (he was a conductor for a domestic train). But I understood most of what he said. And he did too I guess. He called a few numbers with mobile phone on the way to Venice and finally got to speak with the conductor of the earlier train that I missed. They got my coach/seat number, exactly where I left my things. He finally said to me to come with him to the station master's office in Venice Santa Lucia. I did that, always uncertain what would happen in Italy, then everything was there. My suite case, jacket, small things ( book, sandwich, etc) that are around my seat but not really together. They got all of them. So I did not need to visit a supermarket to by toothpaste, tooth brush, etc. My trip started horribly (all my fault) but once in Venice, went pretty well, pfew ! ( except a quick earthquake Saturday morning ). Bravo and grazie mille to the Italian train conductor !

PatrickLondon

When I was a student, in the summer of 1968, a fellow student (who must have seen me coming) sold me his tandem bike, for a friend of mine to go with me on a jaunt to Paris, so I could see what was going on and practise my French, and he could visit his girlfriend. This damn thing must have been built to solid pre-war engineering standards, but it had been gussied up with various modern lightweight additions; we got it by train and ferry to Le Havre without any trouble, but once loaded up with the both of us and our luggage on the rear paniers, it lasted barely a couple of hours out of Le Havre into the countryside before something in the gears went clunk and they just turned uselessly without moving the wheel. Eventually, after much trudging along deserted roads, we found a garage, only to discover all the bits were proudly Imperial and nothing metric would fit.

So the garage man kindly agreed to let us leave the tandem there while we hitched on to Paris, where my friend (who knew about these things) contacted his father to get the right bit mailed to us at his girlfriend's address.

We had an interesting week or so there, sleeping quite illegally on various people's floors in the Cité Universitaire. Did I mention this was 1968? The student and union unrest was in the process of subsiding, so we had an interesting time checking out what was left of all that, but when the time came to hitch back to pick up the encumbrance, young men with fashionably untidy haircuts weren't, at that time, the most likely to get a lift. We were on the outskirts of Paris for hours before someone took pity on us, and it was getting on into the evening before we got to the garage. Fortunately, the man in charge was understanding and the new part was fitted easily, but timing was getting tight for the overnight ferry out of Le Havre. As we pulled into the harbour, we could see it all lit up, and heaved a sigh of relief - only to see the gangplanks come down just as we arrived at the terminal building. So we had an uncomfortable night on the benches there (and I don't recall when or if we got anything to eat that evening) before getting the morning ferry.

Oh well, it all builds character, I suppose. I can't remember who I palmed that damn tandem off on to.

sundriedpachino

Kappa1:
I think Ernest Hemingway's "Paris wife" would have wished for a happy ending to her train story, like yours was.
Glad you were able to enjoy your week-end.

sundriedpachino

My own story, well there have been a few.

I guess you could say this was more of a misunderstanding than a misadventure.
Although a lot of Europeans we have encountered feel that we should speak French because we come from Canada, for the most part our French is limited to high school classes and reading cereal boxes, haha.
So on our virgin voyage to France, we felt a bit of trepidation about whether we would be able to communicate effectively.
Our knowledge of trains in Europe was limited as well, so, like ncounty, we watched our high speed TGV train pull away, thinking that little 3 car train couldn't possibly be it.

We got our tickets changed but had to wait several hours for the next train. Time to use the washroom, at least. Feeling a little unnerved by all these unfamiliar surroundings, I found that I had to go up to a booth and buy a token for the bathroom.
Okay, no problem, until I glanced to the left, and horror of horrors, the men's washroom was in full view! Quickly focussing back on the booth in front of me, I now had to figure out what to ask for, and how much it would cost.
All those unfamiliar terms,...and already feeling quite out of my element by what I had "witnessed", I tried to decipher the price list.
What jumps out at me was the listing for Douche €3,5.
All I could think of was, "I don't want a douche, just let me use the bathroom, and get the h_ !! out of here!"
Well, I got my token, 35 cents or similar, and as I waited in line, my high school French came back to me. Of course, some weary traveller might want a nice, warm shower!

I'm happy to report, we made it to Paris, had a fantastic time, and haven't let that little experience keep us away from Europe.
It's also a good reason to learn a little of the local language before one goes traveling!

maitaitom

"We must have had the same car. On one car we rented in Italy I never found reverse..."

adu - Maybe it was my poor Fiat. I still remember the looks on those people's faces in Spello as we tried to push the car into the parking space. With 17 days in France this Fall, I'm pretty sure we will add to our list of mishaps.

Aduchamp1

Maitai
One car was an old Renault where the bench seats were soldered to the floor. And we too drove across a plaza in Assisi, I think, where cars were not premitted. And since our plates said Rome, the people were screaming "Roma! Roma!" I thought this is wonderful let them be angry at the Romans instead of an American.

I wish you the merriest mishaps.

robertino

Day trip by train from Prague to Dresden. Forgot the passports. And yes, I am aware that crossing an international border requires a passport.

The Czech border people wanted to put us in jail for a long time, or at least send us back to Prague. The German border people said no to the Czechs, and accompanied (as in custody) us the rest of the way to Dresden. There they brought us to some kind of poice station and we filled out paperwork that ultimately resulted in day visas. And they were at the train station to make sure we got on the train back.