Poor trip planning (Part 1)

We decided to go to Corsica before the new year. We told people we were going, and daydreamed about the trip. And then, for some reason, we did nothing. The week wholly snuck up on us, or honestly, perhaps we were just lazy. One month before H. brought home a guidebook that I did manage to thumb through. Three weeks before, we finally sat down and made a reservation for a ferry to take us and our car over to the island. Two weeks before, we still didn’t have a place to stay. It was one of those catch-22’s – we kept asking each other where we should stay, but the more research we did, the more possibilities there seemed to be, and the more difficult it was to decide. Finally (finally!) with a week left, H. e-mailed several places, and we found that our procrastination had actually paid off – it was still the off-season, plenty of places had availability, and we snagged an upgrade for a good price.

I still wrung my hands a bit. What about a hotel for the nights we’ll spend on the road? I asked. Roadside motels, he said. Showing my ignorance – But I had always stayed in sweet little, independently-owned bed and breakfasts or hostels in Europe! Do they even have road-side motels here? Yes, yes they do- enough to make America’s trucker population proud. We cruised around the edges of Strasbourg the night we stopped and passed numerous possibilities in one go. What about that place? I asked. So cheap! When we couldn’t reach it because of the giant fence (it looked more secure than the American Embassy in Brussels), we circled around to the back for access. There, we found several –ahem -ladies of the night standing in short skirts and sequenced jackets, squinting suspiciously as we did an awkward U-turn in front of them. So, perhaps my on-the-road skills need to be honed a little for the European landscape. But still, we did quite well, and found a nice place to stop down the road. A place that didn't rent by the hour or protect themselves with giant fences. With clean rooms. And families. And free breakfast. Can you really ask for more?