That’s right – “Ciao Italia!” We landed this morning at Malpensa Airport, just outside of Milan. Our plan was to rent a car, find our way to the town of Bellagio on beautiful Lake Como, and check into a hotel there. Bellagio is only 90 km (56 miles) from Malpensa airport. What could possibly go wrong?
The Ufficio Autonoleggio
We’re going to be in Italy for a while, so we might as well learn some Italian while we’re here. The first important words to know: “Ufficio Autonoleggio,” (rental car office”). After collecting our bags, we made our way to the ufficio autonoleggio with zero problemi.
We had already reserved a car, and everything appeared to be in order. Our car was waiting for us in Space #52 — “Vai dritto e poi a sinistra”, said the autonoleggio lady, which I took to mean something like, “Go straight and then turn left.” Everything was color-coded and numbered, so there shouldn’t be any problemi.
But there WAS a problemo. We couldn’t find any spaces numbered higher than 35. We searched all over the lot. No spaces above #35. Nothing left to do but go back and give them the sad news that they were missing 17 spaces.
Vai Dritto e Poi a Sinistra!
When I gave the autonoleggio lady the sad news, I received another “Vai dritto e poi a sinistra”, along with some hand gesturing that seemed to say, “Have you got polenta in your ears, or what?” OK. We’d give it another try.
We eventually found Space #52 in an area that belonged to another rental car company. That was fine with me. The key opened the door, and that was all that mattered.
That is, until we saw a bunch of dings all around the car. Those might matter. We’ve read stories of travelers being taken to the cleaners by rental car companies. We had no choice but to go back and see the autonoleggio lady one more time.
She sent a guy out to look at the car with us. If he could speak English, he didn’t waste any on us. And I don’t think his eyesight was very good, because he had a hard time seeing the dings I pointed out to him. I wish I’d learned how to say, “Che dire di questo?” (“What about this one?”) I could have used that, for sure.
After we finished up and signed the papers, I noticed that ALL the cars in that parking garage had dings, scratches, and dents all over ‘em. No wonder the guy couldn’t understand why we were pointing them all out to him.
That didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked, but we had the car – a Peugeot 308 Touring Diesel – and we were ready to roll.
On the Road to Bellagio!
I had brought along my own GPS unit, pre-loaded with a map of Italy to use on this trip. I plugged it in, turned it on, and sure enough, there we were, a dot on the map at Malpensa airport. We were in business!
Two minutes later we were on the freeway. It felt great to be in a car cruising down the road instead of being cooped up in an airplane or a parking garage.
Freeways in Italy look just like freeways in the States. The main difference is that here, the slow lanes are slower and the fast lanes are faster. That can add a bit of spice to the driving experience.
Confused in Como
Once we were on the road, everything was fine until we reached the little town of Como. There’s a junction in Como where a bunch of little streets intersect. The GPS couldn’t keep up with them. We picked a street, went a ways, then the GPS caught up and told us to turn around and pick another one.
We did that three times before getting on the road the GPS wanted us to be on. It went right along side Lake Como. The scenery was beautiful. But something was wrong.
Lake Como is shaped like an upside-down “Y”. It’s long and skinny. We were driving north on the east side of the lake. But I was pretty sure that Bellagio was on the OTHER side. By this time, it had been 22 hours since we’d left home. We were tired. I didn’t want to drive for an hour, then find out we’d gone the wrong way.
Ah… Technology!
It comes down to this little GPS unit staring back at me from the dash. GPS satellites are whizzing by at 9,000 mph, 12,000 miles overhead. From that distance, signals take a 10th of a second to reach us. They have to be synchronized to the nth degree, so timing accuracy is critical. Each satellite has an atomic clock on board, but still…
The GPS unit needs to receive signals from at least three satellites to figure out where we are. Does this thing really know which side of the lake we’re on? My head hurts. I think I’ve been awake for too many hours in a row.
We found a place to pull over. On the GPS screen, we zoomed out to see where, exactly, it was taking us. Hmmm… it shows our route going across the middle of the lake. Is that a ferry landing? It is! And it goes straight to Bellagio. We’re practically there!
I never doubted that little GPS unit. Not for a minute. No sireee!
To be continued…
