Navigating

 So, I thought I might put this under the RVing in EU page, but I'm hearing that many of you aren't visiting the other pages for more content. Since several of you seem to think this trip is going too well - there aren't enough silly stories, I thought I'd share more about navigating this trip, so you can know it isn't all perfection. 

First, with an RV, you are taller and wider than a car. This seems obvious, but it means you have to be careful not to drive under low bridges or too narrow of streets. So, we found a GPS app that is used by truckers and RV'ers in Europe quite a bit. Its called Sygic. This is NOT a recommendation - it is a terrible app. But it is the only one we found that lets us put in our height, weight, width, and emissions class (which keeps us legal in Europe, mostly). This app sucks. The woman who tells us the directions sounds like a talking hamster or a squirrel. She is very hard to understand, even on full volume. And, she is crap at giving directions. She will say something like "continue straight for 100 kilometers and now exit to the right". Or she says stay left but shows a picture of being in the right lane. But the worst is when she doesn't say anything at all and doesn't show anything but we have 3 fork choices to pick from. When we drive, we've learned to set her up to tell us where we can drive. Then, I also use Apple Maps to tell Marc if we need to turn, which exit to use from a round-about, etc. So, our driving days are spent me looking ahead on both maps to see what is really coming to tell Marc. In the bigger cities it has been a disaster. 

When we went through Porto, looking for our campground on the far side of the city near the beach, our Sygic lady told us to stay right on an exit. So we did. We ended up on a road that barely fit our RV. It was a 2-way road with cars parked in every spot on one of the lanes. So, everyone had to share the only open lane. It was also a dead end with no space at all at the end of the road. Marcus ended up first backing up for about half a mile to try to get off the road. Our GPS sent us on a side road which we took. This was also a 1 lane road with a railing and a cliff on one side and a rock wall on the other. There was a tiny parking area the size of 2 very small cars at the end of it. We nearly got fully stuck trying to turn around. We couldn't back down this one as it went back onto the interstate. We were sure that backing onto an interstate in the middle of the city might get us killed, but would definitely get us pulled over and ticketed. So, we needed to turn around in an area the size of 2 compact cars. In the end, some local tried to help us navigate it. I was out of the RV on one side. This local guy was on the other. People were even yelling out their apartment windows above us. Marcus ended up having to drive onto the miniscule 1 foot wide sidewalk right up to the railing and then backing up about 3 millimeters from the rock wall. He had to go back and forth about 30 times to get it turned. I had visions of needing a crane to get us free. It was pretty terrifying and as stressful as travel can be. I have no idea what Apple Maps was telling me, but she also thought it was a turn-around area. 

So, our driving days stress me out fully. Marcus takes them more in stride than I do. But thought you'd want to hear that this isn't only beaches and port wine. 😧

Tomorrow we have to drive again...

And, if anyone knows of a GOOD GPS for RVs in EU, please contact me via What's App right away. This is really painful to keep watching 2 GPSs and still getting crappy routes. 

Oh, and no, we didn't take a picture of us nearly needing a crane. It was too stressful in that moment to consider a pic. Just imagine it: rock wall 20 ft high on one side, cliff on the other side and cars everywhere to be avoided. You don't need a pic.