Stressed...

....with a capital S!

After "sprinting" through to Milan this morning and off loading the bags in the hotel it was time to return the faithful 3008 to Sodexa located at Linate airport.

Set the GPS and off we went but things quickly went awry. The GPS was reporting about every 50 metres that we were in an unmapped zone, or was telling us to turn left or right in 20m or so when there was no such turn, the net result was that we had no idea where we were, where we were heading or more particularly how we were going to get there.

As you do when you are returning a vehicle you have rented or in our case leased you try to return it with as little juice in it as possible and I had calculated our needs but after a little while going round in the circles the vehicle was clearly reminding us we were very low on fuel.

As the steam rose in the vehicle we spotted a road sign for Linate and tried to follow it, but with Italians in vehicles behind leaning on their horns because of our slow driving as we searched for the next sign, we lost our way and ended up in a dead end street.

We came out of the street and I made an executive decision we would turn left and lo and behold we turned onto a motorway that took us to the airport.

Once there I needed to ask a taxi driver where Via Bacalla, being the drop off point was and with his directions quickly found it and pulled in with sweated brow and palms.

As I looked at the GPS unit the problem quickly became apparent - it was only picking up 3 satellites when I think a GPS needs somewhere near 8 satellite reads to be effective.

The guys who we handed the vehicle over to had a quick look around it and I signed it to their possession - the fact they missed a couple of grazes on the right hand side where I had brushed the vehicle up against a garage door in Vicenza and had the claim form already filled out was a bonus!

We got the bus back into Milan Central and took to the streets around Corso Vittorio Emmanuel and quickly ran into hordes of shoppers having their dose of retail therapy in some high class shops, the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel was particularly impressive

As we started to walk back to the hotel we went down Via Della Spiga being the fashion centre of Milan - there were not too many shoppers here, perhaps because a dress would set you back €2500 in one of the shops, but there were some impressive window displays

Some data re our travels - 5828kms, 5.62l/100kms, average of €1.46 per litre and €232.50 in tolls and vignettes.

 

Posted with Blogsy