Unbelievable. Our #@$%& Tom Tom GPS system packed it in after only one month of operation. It had successfully seen us home from Le Mans to the Chateau. In the morning we packed and got ready for our trip to the Bordeaux region. Went to turn the Tom Tom on so we could input our coordinates for the journey ahead and nothing happened. It would not turn on. We thought it might have a low battery and so charged it up over breakfast. But it would still not start up. This was very frustrating as we are traveling off the beaten track to get to our accommodation. We started our journey and of course, I started in the wrong direction. Finally figured it out and managed to get onto the major highway, in the right direction. We did have directions from the owners of the Chalet we were staying at in a small village called Chenaud. Rita did an excellent job of interpreting the directions until the last 10 kms. For some reason the directions became vaguer the more remote we got. We ended up taking a couple of wrong routes, but eventually found the right road and the Chateau. We actually arrived without throwing any punches as each other, which is quite miraculous as we were both trying to navigate and each of us had our turn at being wrong.
The Chateau is lovely and so is our bungalow. The bungalow was originally built as a barn in the late 1700’s and finally ended up as a coal storage shed. The new owners brought the property in 2001 and spent 4 years renovating the entire place and they have done a stunning job. Kept the historic look and feel but put in all the new contraptions that we love so much. Pictures below.
The next morning we headed for Bordeaux 60 kms away to try and find another Tom Tom. We actually found our way to the city but took the long way. Had no idea where we were going and so just followed the signs to Centre Ville (City Centre), parked the car and started to walk. Within 15 minutes we had stumbled across an electronics store called DARTY and they had GPS systems, including Tom Tom. Unfortunately they did not have our model and so we ended up getting the best they had which included 21 European country maps but not North America. The cost was 478 Euros (about $720 Cdn). This was very expensive as we had paid $450 for the better model with more features in Canada - but that one does not work!!!! We made our way back to our little bungalow (correctly this time) and are charging up the new Tom Tom for tomorrow’s trip to Saint Emilion.
The main building. We are in the converted barn out of sight on the right.
Rita making dinner in the ultra modern kitchen
No comments:
Post a Comment