Day 35: Bath - Dordrecht, Friday January 14th
OK – I’ll now admit it: we should have had a GPS thismorning! To get from Bath to Bristol aiport (about a 45 minute trip), we had a choice – take the major freeway through Bristol and then south to the airport OR take a more minor road and turn north to the airport. The distances were very similar and given that we would be driving at the beginning of peak hour, we opted for the quieter back road. BAD MISTAKE!!
All was going fine and and after ten minutes or so we saw the first of what we presumed would be quite a few signs to the airport. We were in a ‘congratulating ourselves for good decisions’ frame of mind. We would be at the airport in plenty of time.
Then, although the road map indicated that we should go straight ahead, a road sign indicated to turn right to the airport. We dutifully followed it. BAD MISTAKE!! That road was going to take us right into Bristol, which we were trying to avoid.
A couple of kilometres or so up the road, we could see on the map that we could follow an even more minor road across to the airport and outsmart their intent for us to go into Bristol. How sweet – we were travelling down a real country lane, past quaint houses – much better than freeway! Pulling right over to let other cars squeeze past didn’t worry us, because much of the time cars had to pull right over to let us squeeze through – no worries.
Then Uh-oh!! The last village before we were to get onto the road before the airport was cut off because of roadworks to its main street. We had a ‘’diversion’’ sign to follow – will we take the left diversion or the right diversion?? I was inclined to take the left but Roger was inclined to take the right and it did seem that most traffic was going to the right. So round to the right we went. BAD, BAD, BAD MISTAKE!!!!!
After following that road for about five km, we found ourselves thoroughly bushed, getting more and more anxious about time, not knowing which way to head and clearly in the outskirts of Bristol! By then it was 8:35 am and we were in the middle of school/work traffic. After we had sat in a traffic jam, not moving for about ten minutes, anxiety levels were rising rapidly in both the driver’s and the passenger seat. Should we take our chances of the traffic jam clearing soon or should we turn back and retrace our steps a few kilometres?
We decided to do the latter so, probably now breaking speed limits, back we went to where we had seen a sign to a village close to the airport.
My thouhts as we sped…..How much under the pre-flight three hour mark will we be booking in now? …..Oh goodness – we still have to return to car to the rental place and we still have to fill it with petrol!!! …….What if we miss the plane? I don’t think there are any more flights to Amsterdam today – what a shame to have to miss one of our precious days in The Netherlands!.....Please drive carefully Rog – we have a 600 pound (about $900) excess on the car! Notice that these were thoughts – I didn’t dare voice any of them as Roger was anxious enough as it was!
Brakes were applied with great force as we met up with a truck coming the other way! That slowed us down a bit more as our car and the truck carefully manoeuvered their way past each other.
Finally, it seemed out of nowhere, we were at an intersection which took us south to the airport. Whew!! Now, just follow the sign to where rental cars should park. Oh no! This is the short term car park –a one way lane of course. Back, back, back with the car but then other cars came into the laneway. So, doing a several-point turn, Roger turned the car around and drove out against the traffic. We closed our ears to the toots and abuse from other drivers and found our way to the correct turn for rental cars.
With HUGE relief, we finally pulled in to the right place. There was a guy there to meet us as though he had been expecting us. How wonderful it was not to have to deal with any minor car damage – thank goodness we didn’t bother with extra payment to remove the excess!!
The last thing we did before lugging our cases to the check-in, incidentally in sufficient time, was for us both to take a Valium. Were they a reward or a precaution against further stress? I’ll leave it to you to decide.
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I was able to relate such a long-winded tale as there wasn’t a lot more that happened today. The flight to Amsterdam was only an hour or so. We took longer than that to get through passport control and collect our baggage. Robyn was waiting for us and we were happy for her to guide us to the train. It was about an hour on the train, first to Rotterdam and then to Dordrecht, where they have just moved into a new apartment.
We went first to drop our cases at our B&B. It is in a ‘hof’, which Robyn tells us used to be a residence for nuns. They are now available for purchase but apparently only women are allowed to own them. Our hosts, who own a house across the fence from the hof, run this little part of the hof as a B&B. There are three bedrooms a teeny-tiny kitchen and the smallest bathroom I have ever seen! Just the width of a small shower, there is just the shower and a toilet. It is all done out in the lovely Dutch blue and white and is lovely and cosy. Fortunately we are the only occupants though – I wouldn’t like to be there with up to four other people.
The next stop was Robyn and Damien’s new apartment, with which they are justifiably thrilled. It is one of several apartments that are in a 19th century bank building. The front room, which is a dining room come study is heritage listed and has original wood features and leadlight windows which are just gorgeous. Then the rest of the apartment is contemporary and very stylish, all in black and white. Everything is spacious and of such good quality. They are particularly thrilled that they now have room for a full sized fridge. The main feature that they wanted when looking to rent a new apartment was that it should have some outdoor living space. Well they sure have that. The apartment is on one of Dordrecht’s many canals.The living room opens onto a balcony which overlooks the canal. In summer they will be able to spend time on the balcony and enjoy not only the canal but also one of the city squares which is only a few metres along from their apartment.
We ended the evening with a tasty meal at one of their favourite Italian resturants and then walked the eight or so minutes to our B&B.
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