Early on Monday morning Richard went off to pick up the hirecar from the centre around the corner from the hotel. However on presentation of his booking the staff denied any knowledge of it! After some negotiation and checking of emails, it was revealed that the 'booking' was only a quote, and the actual booking had been made with another car hire firm. They were most cooperative and drove Richard to the company on the other side of town where the booking was confirmed.
As he needed to find his way back to the hotel he decided to hire a navigator (he had thought his own would not be needed so it had been left at the hotel). The office was very busy being a Monday morning so he had to wait. Eventually a car and navigator were produced. However after many attempts to set it the navigator proved to be faulty! No worries they said, they had another car with a built in navigator, however it needed to be cleaned. Another long delay.
He then set off, but this navigator refused to talk, so he had no alternative but to turn back since he was in a completely unknown area. With no instructions provided the staff did not know how to adjust it either, but they eventually worked out that the volume was set to inaudible! We found out later in any case that it did not talk until it had travelled 600 metres, a strange quirk. Eventually Richard was able to get back to the hotel where I was patiently waiting, but about 90 minutes later than planned.
The upside of all this was that the car was actually a (free) upgrade to a very nice Citroen C4, and the built in navigator proved to be excellent, allowing us to set off in great style and comfort for our hotel in Eisenach.
Mmmm.... just a thought - maybe we need to upgrade our car at home for one with a built in navigator.... mmmmm.
