Forgettable travel moments you’ll always remember
 

Not the moment you stepped on to the North Pole. Or met the Pope. Travel memories that should have faded away but haven’t.

Mine is cycling across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in NYC. I thought I would be paralyzed with fear. But our lanes were closed to traffic. The pavement was brand new. The weather was perfect. And the view ...

Hearing Sweet Caroline at Fenway Park was pretty neat too. Any come to mine?

Windows in St. Chappelle in
​​Paris and the Bernini's in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Roma.

Our first ever family European vacation. Kids were about 13/14 years old. We started in Paris and then to Munich, where my mother in law, husband's cousin and his Uncle met us. The Uncle was from Austria and he drove us from Munich through Austria and gave us a tour. I had grand ideas of what this trip would be and I had to let it go. Honestly, we spent more time in the small town in Austria where my mother in law grew up and hardly anyone spoke English. My kids favorite part of our travels, that small town. They loved going from house to house and there were parties every night at someone's house celebrating us, the American cousins. All the kids played soccer outside and none of them spoke English. There is nothing in this town, no stores, no restaurants, no air conditioning, and in late June/early July and we slept with the windows open. All the glamour of Paris, the quaintness of Munich and the beauty of Vienna, etc... my kids loved our stay in that small town in Austria.It was the highlight of their trip. And to be honest, it was the highlight of the trip for us also.

nice memory girlonthe go

One that stands out for me was on our first visit to Madrid - we were staying in a large, upscale hotel in the city center and when the elevator opened up, there were four matadors all decked out getting ready to go to the stadium for the bullfight. Unfortunately did not get a picture.

Sweet Caroline is part of one of my forgettable moments that I will never forget too - lol. We were on a shuttle bus in Bali, driving 3 hours back to the airport. It was a huge bus (by Bali standards) and there were only a couple other passengers on it with us. In Bali, the main driving rule seems to be that the biggest vehicle has the right of way, and to claim the right of way, you just have to honk and everybody else moves. So it was a crazy ride - lots of honking, lots of overtaking other vehicles and then squishing back into traffic on our side of the road to give way to oncoming trucks - which were pretty much the only vehicles bigger than our bus. The driver had 1 mixed tape in his stereo that played over and over again. Sweet Caroline was on that mixed tape, so every time I hear that song, I think of that bus ride.

Forgettable, as opposed to unforgettable:

Driving on a narrow 2 lane road in Slovakia in the Tatra mountains up a slope, bumper-to-bumper traffic, idiot woman with kids in car behind decides to pass our car. She pulls out; I move the car a foot to the left to dissuade her; she moves onto the left shoulder to continue her pass. I see oncoming cars; she continues. When she's abreast of our car, she starts sliding to her right, forcing me onto the right shoulder. She continues moving right, sideswipes our car. I jam on brakes to avoid rolling down the mountainside to our right. She continues onward, having completed her pass.

I start honking, and both us gesture thru the windshield to her to pull over. Three miles (six minutes) later, she pulls off at an exit, and we follow her to a parking lot. She (about 40 yrs old) feigns ignorance of English, so my spouse lapses into Deutsch, insisting she call police. After two minutes of harangue, she does. They come in about twenty minutes, separate us, get stories, take Breathalyzer tests (this is 11:00 AM). During the wait for them, I drew up the world's greatest-ever accident diagram, complete with little tiny NO-PASSING signs.

I complimented my Slovak policeman on his English, to which he replied he had spent a year in Pittsburgh as a police intern. We got the number of the police report and address to write to get a copy, and departed.

She got a ticket and fine on the spot, something like equivalent of $500. We got a credit card bill for $5,000 damage, which was reversed a month after we gave the CC company the details of accident report. So she got hit with the whole $5,500, all to save a few seconds. The one nice thing, the 5,000 miles we got for the charge on the card were not reversed when the charges were. But the whole thing is still vivid in our memories.

We went to Italy a couple years ago, and our last night was in Venice. We had an early morning flight so had a cheap hotel by the airport. We decided to stay in town until 10 or 11 pm and then catch a bus to our hotel. We ended up sitting in the Campo Santa Margherita Square. There was a group of about 20 children and dad's playing soccer, and there were groups of University students celebrating graduations, all wearing laurel crowns. A group of students stopped by the outdoor bar where we were sitting and engaged in an enthusiastic and very off-key rendition of Oasis' Wonderwall. It was so much fun.

Jaiselmer, India.
I was walking down the stairway of my cheap, one-star hotel in the upper section of this desert citadel. The time was 5 am so I was tryna tiptoe and keep quiet, so as not to wake fellow guests. I had a rendezvous with my driver down by the citadel's front entry, a 20 min. walk, and we were going to move on to the next town. For some reason, the hotel's night watchman suddenly turned the hall light on, then abruptly 'off'. As a result, I went tumbling head over heels down the stairs. Luckily, I was OK, but the marquetry table at the bottom of the stairs was totaled after I'd collided with it. I made a face with the watchman as though to say, "WTF is wrong with you?!" but he just stared at me, with no reaction.
I made the rendezvous on time but could've done without the drama.

I am done. The idiot watchman.

Watching Ireland play rugby in the World Cup last October in a pub on the Aran Islands. I know nothing about rugby, but I was cheering and hugging people as if I did. Just wasting some time before catching the ferry and my friend and I wandered into this pub. One of those travel moments that was a highlight of the trip.

Sincere question - Why didn't you let her pass? Why move the car in her direction?

I have the same question. We routinely drive two lane mountain pass roads and two lane river roads that get busy in the summer. Dumbass people start trying to pass two or three cars at once and it's dangerous. We tend to slow down so they can get around and not cause on accident. Yeah, they're a-holes, but I don't understand the impulse to make a dangerous situation even more dangerous.

(We have to drive six hours of busy, two lane highways over the 4th of July weekend, and I'm dreading the trip on Friday and the trip home on Sunday...campers, boats, road construction, too many cars trying to pass illegally.)

I’m sure I have had such moments, I just can’t remember any.

Same.
Especially with kids in the car.
Especially on vacation.
Just let her pass. Avoid the drama. Avoid the time wasted. Avoid complications. Letting her pass costs you nothing in time, energy, drama and you get on with your vacation with no lost time, energy, drama and/or expenses.

my first move to the left was when she began to pull to the left to edge into oncoming traffic
the oncoming traffic was only about 300' away
at 30 mph that's only about 5 seconds from a head-on crash
she was only maybe 10' behind me, and i was maybe 10' behind the car in front
not enough room to put a 20 foot car

my second move to the left was to get off the 2' wide right shoulder, which was next to a 45 degree downslope

understand now? Lesser of two evils.

The kids were in her car

"Avoid the drama"

DRAMA?
IMAGINE THE DRAMA OF LETTING HER FORCE ME DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE
IMAGINE THE DRAMA OF A 15 CAR PILEUP ON A NARROW MOUNTAIN ROAD
IMAGINE THE DRAMA OF A HEAD-ON CRASH, CAUSING 30 REAR-END COLLISIONS ON THE SAME MOUNTAIN ROAD.

I left out the part about when she pulled out, she forced an oncoming car onto the right shoulder of HIS lane.
Obviously I never saw the result of that. But perhaps THAT driver reported the incident to the police also, which perhaps is why the police gave her such immediate justice/punishment.

We were on a Rhine river cruise with about 8 other couples from my husband's company. The day's itinerary was a stop in Speyer, then a bus would take cruise participants to Heidelberg for the day. We enjoyed touring Speyer and had a wonderful lunch at an outdoor cafe. When my husband went to pay, he realized he did not have his wallet. (He had been taking his phone in and out of the same pocket for various reasons.)

We retraced our steps and headed back to the boat, where the buses for Heidelberg also would be and checked in at the boat. The buses left and we had about half an hour before the boat, too, would leave to meet the bus tour further up river. We headed back into town, this time to the police station, where, fortunately, we reclaimed the wallet.

Got back to the boat in time and were practically only passengers left on the boat. We enjoyed drinks, shuffleboard and just a leisurely couple of hours, feeling grateful to some honest person in Speyer.

I won’t forget this thread.

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I drove down and up the Amalfi Coast once , with white knuckles, praying that an event like you described would not happen .

It didn't.

A sigh of relief at the bottom !!

One small scene, captured in my memory about thirty years ago, has often replayed in my mind. We were stopped in tourist coach for a comfort break in a small town somewhere between the bridge on the River Kwai and Bangkok. We had experienced an excellent day of sightseeing taking in the vibrancy of floating markets and the extreme poignancy of the the beautifully tended graves of WW2 British soldiers at Kanchanaburi. Looking out of the window a small local market was setting up for business and a Thai family was erecting their stall. A couple of bits of the stall accidentally collapsed and the whole multi generational family collapsed into gales of laughter. We drove on after a few minutes but the image of the fun they had taken from a small and random event has for some reason never left me.

The old gent at The Lamb in Burford in the Cotswolds. He drove a 1947 Armstrong-Siddley around the villages and regularly stayed in the hotels although he lived only twenty miles away. He and his wife finished dinner with an Eton Mess, and praised them so highly that my wife and I, who rarely eat dessert, split one. It was quite as good as they said. I saw him outside the hotel the next morning, while the birds were incessantly hooting -- maybe you've heard them, "Hoo HOO hoo hoo-hoo" sort of like our mourning doves, but not. I'd wondered what they were for thirty years. "Wood pigeons," he said. "We shoot them 'cause they taste good."

I hope he's there again if we return.

Well, that leads me to one of my favorite days = using LoveItaly's recommended private driver on the Amalfi coast. He picked us up at the ferry from Capri and delivered us to our hotel in Naples. A glorious day on the coast, but absolutely no worries! One of my favorite travel memories, and it felt like LoveItaly was with us in spirit. ((f))

I'm glad you were OK tomboy and hope everyone else was too. That could have ended so badly. My mild mannered sister had this happen when she had her kids and my kids in the car, she ended up in the ditch although she could get out of it. After going to the state police station, she was driving home and saw the car that had done this in a driveway. My kids still talk about how their aunt ripped that lady apart. They'd never heard her yell before. The lady's husband was the driver's education instructor at the high school.

MamaMia, that's a great story. I cannot imagine how relieved you were.
I hope that old gent is still there enjoying his pigeon if you return too Fra.
loncall, great story.

Flying to Paris, by myself, in my early twenties, courtesy of Freddie Laker.

I had to google Freddie Laker.
I would have loved to have gone to Paris in my 20s. Kudos to you for making a solo trip so young!

loncall - oh that is so Thai! my daughter loves living there because the Thai people tend to be so light hearted and fun loving!

Auto accident on mountain road: Rock fans may recall the accident that Led Zep's singer Robert Plant experienced on Rhodes in '75. His wife was driving, with their daughter and son in the back, seated with their pal, Jimmy Page's daughter. Robert was in the passenger seat. I forget the cause, but they went off the road and nearly everyone was injured, some more seriously than others. The local hospital was not to their liking, so against the emergency doctor's orders, the Plant troupe were secretly evacuated out in the middle of the night by band crew, eventually to be airlifted to London by private jet.

I am done. The whole lotta tire screeching.

My first thought is always Grace Kelly.

We were on Lake Como in an apartment, my husband’s credit card was taken and we were to receive a new one in the morning, overnight delivery, signature required on arrival. They were given exact directions to our location in a small town, very easy to find. The driver could not find our address and we wonder if he even tried.. He took our delivery back to his rural village. He gave the package to a young girl in his village the next day to take to work which was near where our landlord worked. Finally, our landlord received it and brought it to us. So much for secure, overnight delivery. We wished we could have gone along on this very Italian journey with the “ overnight” FedEx envelope!

Sorry to have written something happy...😇

Mine are when others are happy.

The first time I took my sister to Paris. It was shortly after the ER episode where Dr Carter was there and rode across the Seine with the Effiel Tower lights twinkling. We were jet lagged so crashed at the hotel and of course woke up at night. Feeling refreshed and being late, I said let's go over to the Effiel Tower. I had no idea we were on the same metro line as Dr Carter and as soon as the train went over the Seine we saw twinkling lights. My sister screamed in delight. It was unplanned but her first look at the tower and exactly what she expected where I had seen it before.

My sister and I took a tour from Rome to Sorrento as I wanted to go to Capri. While on the tour, I befriended an older woman traveling solo while at Pompeii. It was hot and she needed water which I got for her. We ended up staying at the same hotel. She said it was her dream to go to Positano. When we checked in at the hotel, I was given a brochure of tours. When I saw Positano, I told my sister wouldn't it be nice to ask Lois if she would like to go? Well Lois had already booked the private tour and invited us. What a great time we had. She enjoyed sharing the day with us and us with her as I wouldn't have gone if she hadn't mentioned it.

Grasmere, England.

Hubby and I were walking from our B&B to the local pub. A full moon was just rising over the mountains. A local man just departing the pub pointed to the moon and serenaded us with the song "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain".

A bit of a change of subject - I just noticed the "Likes" have been activated.

Sassy has some "likes" so I followed and they are activated to "like" photos in the photo contest.

Neither here nor there, but just noticed...and there are some pretty photos over there.

An unforgettable moment:

We parked in the muni lot of Wurzberg, and walked the half mile uphill to the Marienberg fortress.
After some minutes there, we struck up a conversation with a girl (perhaps 19 years old) who was with her grandparents.
Eventually, she offered us a ride back down the hill to the city center. We must have looked old and tired to her, but it was an exceedingly nice act. We maintained email contact for a couple years thereafter.

Kind of appropriate for this thread. Come on over and post some pictures. An email was sent to members but not everyone still knows.

We had somehow (...my husbands fault) booked a lovely bnb that was not convenient for travelling by public transport.
So dinner turned out to be a long walk down a hill, via the farm paddocks (and goats, horses..) to avoid the narrow winding footpathless road. Which led to the crazy Italian main road with no pedestrian paths where we dodged cars and buses.
Dinner was wonderful, a meal where the son explains what Mama had prepared that day. Toward the end of the meal he asks if we want dessert. I decline, not wanting to try to find our way back on a road with no footpath or street lights.
He says “no problem, I drive you”
So we had espresso and dessert and he drove us home. I offered to pay him and he was offended.

Unforgettable but I'd like to forget: a long slog in Belize to a wonderful site, then by flashlight that night seeing a tick crawl back(wards?) into a tiny hole in my shin. There were others, and I was so freaked I never got to sleep.

Rushing to Montepulciano so DH could find that guy that does wine tastings in his cellar in the Rick steves video. Well, finally found him...in a crowded room full of middle aged women...he was giving taste tests in thimble sized plastic cups. Very memorable moment because DH finally realized it was a crock 😆