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Published: September 28th 2010
And What a Tour It Was
Brochure from our hotel...apropos Click on the picture to the right and soon you'll see why it's relevant when you read this story)
(Also, this story is a bit long, but not as long as the time we spent finding our hotel!!!)
Our drive to Salzburg was about 3 hours and much of it very beautiful. Once we got into town though, it got real interesting. I mentioned previously that we had a GPS in the car and it was indispensable. I can't imagine how we would have driven all the miles we did without it, particularly in towns with the turns coming fast and furious and a tough time seeing and reading street signs.
We got into the city of Salzburg following each of our trusty GPS' commands, turning wherever our little British Emily voice told us to turn. We missed a turn because the street was so small we missed it. Emily recalculated and after a block or two, told us to make a u-turn. We did as she directed and finally got back to where she wanted us to make a right turn on Brunnhausgasse. We made the right turn into what looked like an alley, but the sign
said Brunnhausgasse. We went in about a 1/2 block and came to a T. She told us to stay on Brunnhausgasse and we made the super tight turn to the right. We couldn't make a left turn because there was a car parked that prevented the left turn. We were all saying that this can't be right. It got narrower. We followed it around and in a couple blocks it brought us to the main street we had just been on.
Emily told us to make a right turn and go back to Brunnhausgasse and make another right turn. We looked at it again and decided to go straight for a while and see if Emily would come up with a better recalculation. We parked in a business parking lot while she figured it out. Soon she gave us more directions and guess what.....she got us back to the right turn on Brunnhausgasse. Well.....we tried it again. I was once told that the definition of stupidity is when you do the same thing and expect a different result...nuff said. This time, we had to stop on a very steep uphill in the alley. I'm sure I had it in first gear, but the Opel didn't want to go. Finally, I got her chugging up the hill with 2 kids coming down the alley. I couldn't stop going or we'd roll back again. The kids just about climbed the wall but we got past them. We got back out to the main street. By now all of our nerves were frazzled. Jan wanted to get out and walk to the hotel.
We drove further to another large street and turned on it, thinking that Emily would come up with a new set of directions if we got further away. No such luck. She kept giving us all kinds of turns that would get us to BRUNNHAUSGASSE!!!! I pulled into a small parking area off the street and we tried to use Marilyn's cell phone to call the hotel for directions. She tried every combination of 0's and the number to no avail. We couldn't get the call through.
We asked a young hitchhiker who spoke a tiny bit of English if he knew where the Altstadt Weisse Taube hotel was. He did his best and got some point across about getting to the bridge across the river, but not much help from there. A young man pulled into the parking area and he spoke a bit more English. He gave us a little better idea and then a car started honking at us. We turned to see a Range Rover. It turns out we were in his private parking area and he wanted us out. We told him we were lost and his wife jumped out of the car. She spoke pretty good English and knew where the hotel was. We started out on the way she told us to go with that annoying little Emily continuing to bark out orders to get to BRUNNHAUSGASSE! I had enough and pulled her off the windshield and handed it back to Jan, telling her to shut the damn thing off! We followed the lady's directions not to cross the bridge at the roundabout, but to take the right turn on Kaigasse, which was the street our hotel address was on. What a relief it was to see that sign. (by now we had been driving around Salzburg for about 45 minutes lost)
Well, our relief was short lived. Kaigasse was quite narrow and there were three cars blocking the street to get into a parking lot that was full. Dan jumped out to ask the lot attendant where the Weisse Taube was. She pointed him down the street and he took off to see if he could find it. Meanwhile one car was able to get into the lot. We weren't sure if we were to park in this lot or what to do. I got out and asked someone and they said to go around the parking queue and drive down the street. Dan got back to the car. We could only go about 300 feet when we got to a traffic light shining red and a large post sticking up in the middle of the street. Fortunately, we saw another post to the side with a speaker on it and one of the buttons was for our hotel. Dan called it and the person gave Dan a code to put into the keypad and voila! the post went down. We continued down the winding narrow street trying our best to avoid the numerous bicycles and pedestrians. After about a kilometer and one more turn, we saw the hotel!!!!
We pulled up to the curb and and a nice young man, named Bernhardt, came out to help us. Thankfully, he spoke perfect English and after listening to our frustrated ranting, told us that we were in Altstadt, the old city (from the middle ages), and that the GPS machines did not know how to get us here since the streets are mainly for pedestrians after 11:00 AM. He said they've been trying to get the GPS manufacturers to fix the problem, but they haven't been listening.....NO SHIT!
We got checked in and Bernhardt gave us another code to get out of the street and go to a parking lot a few blocks away. Dan and I drove there and walked back to the hotel.
By now it was definitely martini time!!
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Jan Kribsj
non-member comment
Martini time!! The real question is, "Are we still having FUN?" Driving the autobahn was a piece of cake compared to this experience . This is about the time I started missing our driver, Kevin, from our tip to Ireland!