We started the day in Barajas, Spain – a pleasant pueblo adjacent to Madrid International airport. From there, we flew to San Sebastián. Next step: rent a car and make the short drive across the border to to St. Jean de Luz, France. It should have been easy, but it was a rough road to St. Jean de Luz.
As described previously, getting from the airport to a rental car office was challenging, to say the least. Then our experience at the rental car office was anything but but pleasant. Our experience there would have been good fodder for a Seinfeld episode. But we got a car, and we were ready to hit the road.
OK Let’s Go!
Now I just had to enter “St. Jean de Luz” into the GPS and we’d be on our way. Hmmm. This wasn’t so simple. Maybe I was just tired. I went back into the rental car office and asked for help. No problem. A guy would be right out.
A helpful guy showed up and got into the driver’s seat. Fifteen minutes later, he was still in the car, trying to enter the address of our hotel in St. Jean de Luz. I had thought it was just me. Guess not.
I’m an optimist. I figured that once I got used to the GPS, I’d have it down and it wouldn’t be a problem. That would turn out to be kinda true, and kinda not.
Eventually he was able to enter the St. Jean de Luz address. We jumped in and hit the road. We were way beyond ready to be checked into our hotel and kicking back.
It was at this time that I was reminded of the difficulty GPS systems have operating in downtown areas. Especially in European cities having narrow, curvy streets. It’s nobody’s fault. GPS signals from 20,000 miles away have a hard time finding their way between all those buildings.
Are Two GPS’s Better than One?
We weren’t having much luck getting out of downtown San Sebastian. The GPS lady, whose voice sounded like that of a proper English lady, was too slow. She’d tell us to turn at an intersection we had already gone past. Then she’d recalculate and do it again.
Hey – how about using the phone’s GPS. Maybe it’s faster. It was worth a try.
We turned it on and (easily) put in the destination. The phone GPS gave us instructions immediately. The next intersection was coming up. And guess what? The phone said to turn right and the car’s GPS said to turn left! Oy vey.
We drove around in circles, more or less, until the two GPS’s were tracking. They eventually led us to the highway. Once we were out of the downtown area, the car’s GPS worked fine.
St. Jean de Luz is only twenty miles from San Sebastián. The highway was nice. It felt great to finally be on the road. The only thing that caused a slight bit of consternation was a toll station.
There were numerous lanes having labels that meant nothing to us. We weren’t sure what to do, but we chose a lane showing a symbol that resembled a credit card. Once in the gate, I found a place to swipe a credit card. I swiped, and the bar went up. Phew.
St. Jean de Luz – Finally!
When we entered St. Jean de Luz, we knew this was going to be a great place to call our home base. It’s a cozy little French-Basque beach town. Most of the the buildings are Basque style – white with red trim. Nice.
We found our hotel and checked in. It was right on the beach. The parking garage was a few blocks away and tricky to find, but that didn’t bother us. We were feeling good.
From our room’s balcony, we could look from one end to the other of a wide, sandy beach. The blue water of the Bay of Biscay made up the rest of the scene. The room was cozy and comfortable. Everything was perfect.
It had been a difficult day. Easy flight from Madrid, but then stranded at San Sebastián airport. Difficult taxi ride, to say the least. Difficult negotiations at the rental car office. And a difficult time navigating our way out of San Sebastián.
But we’d made it, and all was well.
To be continued…
