Well, the French Phobia of Directions Strikes Again, and It Costs!

Well, our return to the Geneva airport (it was two years ago that we were last there) had to have some GPS/information controversy, since it was the last day of the trip. It involved bad directions, a lousy website, essentially a stick-up by the Swiss government, and me yelling at the Europcar agent.

Carol had done some research the day before on how to return a car to the Geneva airport. Apparently, we needed to return it to the French side, not the Swiss side. Much easier said than done (trust me, I’ve both said it and tried to do it – only the former attempt was successful). First, the Europcar website does not have an address on it to use for GPS – only a PO Box number, which is great, as Carol noted, if you are mailing the car back!

The written directions on the site are only from the East (Switzerland) or the West (France, but Chamonix is SOUTH of Geneva, so no help there. There is a latitude and longitude, so I entered that – but of course, it takes you to the Swiss side.

Oh, and the directions say to make sure you follow directions to the French side of the airport. Coming from the south, there are no distinctions – the first reference we saw to the French side is when we were in the, uh, darn, terminal. Very helpful.

Turns out the whole thing is a stick-up by the Swiss so they can essentially rob you of 40 Euros ($53-54) – you get waved over by the police upon entering the country (no other way that is signed to go to the airport) and have to fork over the money right there or you can’t go. No wonder the Swiss make great bankers – they expect you to give them money for nothing.

So, we get to the airport and follow the signs to the car rental return. The woman at Europcar (Swiss side, mind you, no signs to the French side anywhere) says, you have to return it to the French side. To my credit, I did not use a single four letter word. However, I did blow up – saying it was terrible that there were no signs, and no, we were not going to do that. She backed down immediately, but I threw in helpful website advice, although I may have offered it at a louder level than my usual conversational approach to life.

Anyhow, France is sort of like the Hotel California of countries – you can’t ever really leave, because the addresses are so Middle Ages that there is no way to get where you want to go without a bunch of trial and error. Fixed addresses are a good thing, people.