A less than auspicious beginning

As the first day of the French vacation arrived, we departed Dusseldorf around noon. After all, this was vacation, and we were in no particular hurry. No need to get up at the break of dawn, hit the road, etc. No sir! We would just leave the apartment when we were up and ready to roll...in our case, around noon.

Perfect! A 4 1/2 hour drive to Rouen, check into the hotel, and then find a nice little spot for dinner. Ease into vacation. Well, best laid plans.

First, being the Type-A organizers we both self-admit to being, we decided we would have a little less structure on finding hotels during this trip. Stay in some quaint "French" version B&Bs. The one in Rouen sounded charming enough - a 1700's former post office! The pictures looked fine to us, so we had already booked a room...just to have something waiting for the first leg of the French adventure.

Uh-oh! About halfway to Rouen, the GPS panel signaled a tire puncture. Not good. After pulling over, trying to communicate in French re: car matters with the local convenience store clerk (not too successful, I might add...guess I missed the chapter on car repair in French class), we soon discovered that the road service part of the leasing package had been discontinued. Man...so NOT the time to learn this. After several additional calls, a local French garage mechanic was dispatched to assist. Meanwhile, we discovered from talking to BMW Worldwide Service (a handy phone number we found in the German only language car manual - again - not helpful!) that these tire punctures can, in fact, actually not be tire punctures at all. Sometimes a rock in the road or an uneven road surface can fool the onboard computer. BMW Worldwide assured us this was probably the case.

However, being the ever careful and cautious motoring tourists we are, we decided to await the local French mechanic's arrival, only to be told in French that our car was being towed 3o minutes back in the direction we had just come from. Pourquoi? Why can't he check the tires on site, add some air, and see if the tire is indeed leaking? Cleary, something was lost in translation. So, the Budman and I piled into the French towtruck and head back to the garage for the supurb inspection we felt certain we were about to receive. Upon arrival at the garage, we learn that the garage was indeed closed, but the mechanic could air up our tires. Heck! We could have done that ourselves back at the convienence store, saving ourselves about 3 hours and 200 euros.

Once we learned no tire leak was imminent thanks to the eagle eyes of the French mechanic (bah humbug!), we hit the road again, only to now arrive in Rouen well after 8 PM. A little tired...a little preturbed with the whole car debacle. All we needed was a good night's sleep.

To say that the hotel was a "gar-hole" (for those Texans, you know exactly what I mean), is putting it mildly. I did not even sit down on the bed. We immediately fled the scene and headed to the nearest Mercure Hotel (a European hotel equivalent of Holiday Inn). What it lacked in style and ambiance, it more than made up for in clean sheets, a firm mattress, and lighting greater than a 30 watt bulb.

We sincerely hoped this was not foreshadowing of the trip to come. I can report it was not....thankfully.