Stupid is ........
Recently driving back from Dordogne via versailles and following satnav. Ignored 2 metre height restriction on slip road thinking that it can't apply to the whole road. Came to peage toll booths and it did! Managed to escape via seperate barrier. Great I thought however we then spent half an hour driving around Versailles on extremely narrow one way residential streets, absolute downpour didn't help either. Not my finest hour. Anybody done similar stupid things which in hindsite were obviously not the best idea?
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width restriction sign in Libourne (2m).....how did i get there, lol?.....
then came a metal 'trial' width check ahead....
no way could I get through....this was the pre check for a narrow railway. ridge ahead....
so, i stop......everyone behind me stops.....
i have to turn around somehow....
french guy begind me gets out, takes charge of the situation....
holds up all the traffic, to allow me to turn....eternally grateful....
yes....bit of a dumbo.....map now has a big cross on it...
however, not being one to be defeated....next time we were in the area, i did a recce and realised where i went wrong the previous time..
cross now rubbed out....
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Catching an early morning boat from Dieppe a few years ago we arrived at the port at midnight to find it closed. Four hours to kill, then I remembered from many years back seeing caravans parked on the sea front overnight. Set off down the port side, over the bridge and thought I was following signs to La Plage. The streets got narrower and narrower with cars parked both sides and all the neighbourhood tucked up in bed. Then comes a T junction with cars parked all around. The only option was to unhook, drive round the corner, then drive caravan with noisy motor mover round the corner to hitch up again. Completed the manoeuvre to an audience in PJs on their balconies. Embarrassing or what!!
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Ended up in a farmers yard once when I was young and foolish ( well perhaps middle aged and foolish) and had to unhook and spin the van by hand to extricate myself.
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Had to turn round with the caravan on the back in the entrance to an army camp in France some years ago with soldiers standing around waving their guns at us. Hubby thumped the steering wheel in temper so hard that the kids in the back never said a word for the next half an hour. Of course it goes without saying that it was my fault....
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..... following your sat-nav to Looe Caravan Club site instead of following the directions on the CC website. Maybe then we wouldnt have been towing on single track roads with passing places & not turn up at the commercial site next door!
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Drove around Saarburg twice only to arrive back at the same "Road Closed" sign in the middle of town. Other cars were going down so I followed. They were going to a multi-storey car park just in front of the point were the whole road had been dug up!
Jumped out, unhitched, swung the van around watched by several bemused pedestrians.
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Ended up at the dead end promenade road in Aberystwyth, not wide enough to turn so unhitched to swing around to the amusement of holidaymakers.
This trip when we left the Adriatic we turned off just after Udine, Italy to take the SS52 towards the Brenner, but took the SS52biz whatever that means. Ended up going over the Dolomites on an alpine road into Austria
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Many, many years ago when our children were children we had a fiat panda with a little trailer carrying our camping gear. We were somewhere in deepest france and my husband took the wrong turning. We found ourselves driving along an empty road lined with gendarmes and lots of people. The gendarmes seemed rather agitated, we were just ahead of the tour de france.
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We wanted to fill up with fuel, and saw a supermarket sign, so headed off. Further down the hill was a sign with a height restriction, but we thought it couldn't apply to the fuel station, or the road, just to the supermarket car park. It didn't - it was a 2 metre high tunnel and needless to say we were heading towards it with a caravan. We stopped but couldn't reverse because of the heavy traffic heading in the same direction and began to despair, thinking we'd have to stay there until nightfall when people stopped wanting to visit the supermarket!
Fortunately a nice 'Mr White Van Man' saw our plight, pulled his van across the lane of traffic, holiding it up back at the roundabout, then his mate went across to the other lane and blocked the traffic coming towards us at the tunnel entrance. We were therefore able to do a six or eight point turn with the van still on the back, and get back to the roundabout and head off. We waved our thanks, but couldn't stop to say Thank You.
So if you're ever reading this, Mr White Van Man near Cosne sur Loire, thank you very much indeed! And if others are tempted to head for the LeClerc supermarket to fill up, don't think you'll be able to get to the fuel station - you won't!!!
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A few years ago we were doing what was intended to be a round trip from Albertville in the Alps through Moutiers, Bourg-St-Maurice, Tigne, Val-d'Isere, Modane , St Jean de-Maurienne and then back up to Albertville. A long, but we believed, interesting drive. At Bourg St Maurice and along the road towards Tigne we kept seeing big signs that we understood were something to do with roadworks but there was so much information that it couldn't all be read as we drove passed. Very wrongly, it didn't seem worth stopping to read them properly. If only we had. When we got to Tigne we found that the tunnel between Tigne and Val-d'Isere was closed for the day for roadworks. It would open again at 5.00pm but as it was only 1.00pm that was a long wait. Thankfully, like many journeys the return drive looks totally different - but still a long way and missing out the more interesting parts of the trip! Lesson learnt, read all road signs even if it means stopping to do so.
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Reminds me of the time we were in Carcassonne when we saw ahead of us a low, arched, bridge. Neither of us had seen any warning signs, but it meant a 25 point turn (or so it seemed!) in rush-hour. Talk about red-faced, and not from the sun either
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