Chris on Accommodation and Navigation...

 

Jacky as navigator had another role of finding accommodation each night. Smart-phones and the internet have taken the stress out of what used to be rifling through directories and a search of a neighbourhood. Accommodation generally is also pin-pointed on Google Maps. What could go wrong? We followed the blue line off the Peage into a town and off a roundabout and into the hotel. Got our bags out of the car and went to reception, which was grungier than we hoped for, only to be told we were in the wrong hotel. The concierge pointed to the other side of the roundabout. Somewhat relieved and a little bemused we drove over. It high-lighted a problem with Google Maps , a truly wonderful free service, but not always 100% accurate. It has other eccentricities, which were going to emerge the following day. 

We awoke to a blanket of snow, not a lot, but enough to send us scurrying off to the south before it got worse. We were heading into Switzerland and the Alps. After circumnavigating Basel, we started to climb into the Alps. Three aspects of Google Maps started to become apparent. 

first, it's difficult to get a larger overview, you go from turn-left at the junction, to immediately turn right in 50 meters. The directions are coming live from data and not maps stored in your device. This leads to a common situation of arriving at a junction a couple of hundred meters before the signal. This generated friction between me as the driver and Jacky as the navigator. Arriving at a junction to be told I think it's right, but it might be left, didn't work for me. We were trying to go straight through the middle of the Swiss Alps. Klosters, Davos, St Moritz and out into Italy. I had fond memories of hitch-hiking the road, when I was 18 and sleeping out in hill-side barns. Instead of the windy switch-back picturesque road there is a huge steep tunnel that seemed to go on for ever, which reduced Aimile to 30 kph in second gear with a long convoy behind. We emerged into Davos, which sprawled before us and Google went missing. The phone signal was so poor, it couldn't tell which direction we were travelling. No possibility to get a wider over-view of our possible route and the recommended route out was via a "ferry". Clear Google had lost its marbles. It was also getting late and I didn't fancy attempting these huge passes in the dark.

Davos is one of our last choices to stay a night. It is a famous international convention resort and consequently ferociously expensive. Jacky eventually got enough signal to locate some accommodation, in the bowels of a hotel. It cost us double what we had been paying plus 23 euros for a place in the garage for Aimile. It sported a trendy Hard Rock Cafe eatery with hamburgers for 35 euros. In any trip there will always be a similar occasion, we lived to fight another day.