Shouldn't have gone there. -

SeamusG97

Inspired by the Amalfi thread and looking for a bit of light hearted exchange on the times we all took the wrong turn (GPS led in many instances) to find ourselves in somewhere we wished we weren't with an unsuitable vehicle/trailer. Mountain passes in Europe? Ring of Kerry? Central Rome? That low bridge with no way of reversing and ten impatient cars behind?
Brighten up the dark winter nights with your anecdotes of sunnier and more fraught times.

Freedive Ireland

Parked up beside the Ocean in mayo one night, storm came in so moved the van behind a boathouse to get some relief from the wind and stop feeling like we were actually at sea. Lashed rain all night and was in a pool of water come morning. Rear wheel drive, almost, almost made it out but had to run down the road after a tractor and get a tow after bogging down.

landmarkjohn

Paris 2007 (when they last had the RWC :-() and we set the sat nav to "pedestrian" for a bit of walk around site seeing.

Couple of days later strike camp and head away. It took a whilst to figure out why we were getting routed through some pretty narrow inaccessible streets and one-ways!

piuswal

2010,

Picked up the brother-in-law and his wife in Girona, they had come off a Med cruise, and spent a week or so around Begur and along the coast between Girona and Barca.
Headed to Girona airport to drop then off for their flight home to Sweden.
Put in Girona Airport, and headed off. Saw sign for Airport and were going in the right direction.
With a few km to go satnav indicated a right turn, thought it a bit odd, but went with it and ended up on a chicken farm!
The real fun was persuading the brother-in-laws Swedish wife to talk to the elderly lady who came to the front door, and explain that we had made a wrong turn.
She still laughs about the situation to this day.
Ive never figured out what happened. I have a vague recollection of a number of choices coming up when Girona Airport was input but when I thought about it again the Sat Nav was gone.

There's another (horror) story associated with the same trip, but it is for another day

Great idea SG

JonMac

Got stuck under a balcony in Estepona

CelticRambler

When the children were young, and before pollution controls :pac: , it was often easiest to do a city tour by driving straight into and around the centre, a habit which I've found hard to break in the meantime.

Back in 2012, en route through the Czech Republic, with no sat-nav and co-pilot/only travelling companion SonNo.1 still asleep, I decided to use the inner ring road to visit the town of Olomuc. All went well until I mis-understood the signage for an upcoming junction, turned right too soon and found the walls closing in on me. :eek:

Every "right and right again" escape route was too tight a turn :eek: the street was one-way so there was no going back :eek: :eek: and then the street became a pedestrian zone :eek: :eek: :eek:

Fortunately, it was relatively early in the day, so not many people around, and there was no physical barrier on the road; with many OhhhFekkks, I drove on, desperately hoping I wouldn't have to learn the Czech for "sorry officer, I took a wrong turn ..."

Lovely city centre, but the next time, I'll do it on foot.

SeamusG97

Going to try to revive this thread as the summer comes upon us.
Near Greasque in France in 2014 we came on a road block due to a cycle race. A quick conversation in fairly defective French assured us that we could go after the next block of cyclists - so after allez! allez! allez! we lumbered off on the one lane and very bumpy country road. Clearly the officials didn't realise how slow we we would be going and I definitely underestimated the speed of the cyclists. In no time at all I had a pack of fifty of them ( all in a race and mad to make time) up my arse. We were flying along at 70 km/h airborne half the time until I finally got to pull over at full speed into a grass margin and let them off. Setting off again cautiously we soon came to the town where I drove down the main street that had been closed for the race - all flags and ribbons. 100 lycra clad cyclists and us red faced in a motorhome. Then the horrible realisation that the race consisted of more than one lap. All exits to the town centre were barriered off. So we headed off for a second lap with impatient racers building up behind us until we came to the point where we had come in earlier and got them to leave us out. A very difficult left hand tight turn with a bemused bunch of officials who had been urging us on fifteen minutes earlier. Surreal.

Edit: GPS can be terribly determined and we had to drive about 50km to the south to be taken out of orbit of the area.

db

First year with the caravan we went to Garretstown for the August weekend. Got to Kinsale about lunchtime on the Friday. I came into town from the wrong direction and ended up coming through the middle of the town. The streets were so narrow I thought I would have to unhitch and use the motor mover to get the caravan through. Just managed to get around the tightest corners.

quietsailor

db wrote: »

First year with the caravan we went to Garretstown for the August weekend. Got to Kinsale about lunchtime on the Friday. I came into town from the wrong direction and ended up coming through the middle of the town. The streets were so narrow I thought I would have to unhitch and use the motor mover to get the caravan through. Just managed to get around the tightest corners.

I don't know if this is any use to you but instead of travelling the Kinsale/Airport road go out the Bandon road as far as the halfway roundabout and take the first exit. You can reach that big bridge on the Garretstown side of Kinsale using reasonably big country roads -- you and a truck can pass each other just slow down a little and move in

Betsy Og

I forget the specifics at this stage but we were driving towards Paris, Loire Valley kind of area, it was a bit windy so staying off the motorway - towing a caravan. All going swimmingly until there was road works and a diversion through the middle of some town.

One way streets job, a big rig, tight little turns and one camber on the road on and another on the historic cathedral. There was a lot of silence and hoping to **** we weren't going to be a Youtube sensation - "Look what happened when this fool embedded his caravan in the Cathedral".

Itineoman

When I saw the length restriction - 8m - and a width restriction of 2.6m on the Col but thought 'shur it will be all right'. And it was on the way up....Graceful hairpins on grassy uplands. The way down was a ledge carved into a cliff with an Italian Job reverse maneouvre for oncoming traffic every half km.
Never again.
Especially with RHD as the driver is hanging over the cliff edge.
Not recommended.:D:D