our plan was to rent a car from the airport and drive to cortina de’ampezzo that same day. i had made a reservation the week prior from the budget car rental in the bolzano airport, and i called the previous day to move the reservation to 8 pm (20h, they use military time in europe). i was surprised how well the customer service representative spoke english, but i didn’t really think anything of that, thanked him, and hung up. when we showed up to the bolzano airprt, no one was in the office. in fact, no one was in the airport. a security guard came out and when we explained what happened, he said that when you call to make changes to your reservation, you don’t necessarily talk to someone at the specific branch you’re renting from, so they don’t, for whatever reason, know if you’re moving your reservation to a time outside business hours, which is what i had done.
travel tip: check the hours of every business, be it a store, restaurant, cafe, rental car place, BEFORE you go. you can’t trust people to do their jobs.
stranded is a state of mind.
i won’t say we were “stranded” in bolzano, but we definitely were on an unplanned stay there. this is one of the only photos i took in bolzano.
travel tip: don’t post your photos to instagram, think they’re saved as high quality images in cyberspace, and then delete them off your device.
i booked the first hotel we could find, and then we ate pizza about it. we stayed in a place called hotel capello de ferro, which was neither great nor terrible. it served its purpose just fine, and had one of those old school crank-open windows and didn’t have a screen so i could sit right on the windowsill. this is probably not a huge draw for most people, but i was pretty stoked about it.
after we got a couple drinks at a bar, we ate on this outside covered patio deal that was next to one of the many beautiful italian piazzas (plazas), piazza walther von der vogelweide, specifically, which featured some beautiful architecture and a fountain in the center, and some pretty cool plants, if you’re into that. i don’t remember the name of the restaurant, and it’s not on google maps, but we opted for a white pizza and a marinara pizza, and then split both of them. this is my favourite restaurant strategy; it allows you to sample more than one thing and i think sharing food is the best part of eating.
travel tip: my travel partner and i made regular habit of asking locals for their recommendations, in an attempt to get away from the touristy spots and experience life as a local. when you ask people for recommendations at a restaurant, choose a few things that sound interesting or good to you and ask the waiter to select between them. if you just ask them what their favourite is, you may and up with an anchovy pizza… you can’t turn down anyone’s recommendation after you’ve asked for it.
in the morning we got up early and headed to the airport to retry the rental car situation, to find that they didn’t have a reservation for us. i’m searching through my email message mailbox for an email from them and there isn’t one.
it was still early in the trip, and i was super excited to see the dolomites and climb outside (i’m still mainly a gym climber these days) as we bused and walked down to the airport. being completely honest, when they told us this, i was seriously questioning my sanity. and also, my relationship with my travel partner, who was (rightfully) pissed. while he continued to talk to the guy at the car rental place, i went to the other rental car company next door and asked if they had any cars available that day, totally willing to rent another car if this part of the trip could be over as soon as possible. they did. so, if worse came to worst, we had a quick way out. i have always thought two things:
1. my time (especially travelling in another country on a limited two week vacation) is more valuable than my money. time is absolutely limited, money is only limited in a transitory way.
2. if a problem is a problem and you can just throw money at it to make it go away, it’s not really a problem. i’m not saying this because i am fabulously wealthy (i’m not) and, sure, it sucks, but at the end of the day, it’s only money. and i’ll make more.
fast forward around 45 minutes (the longest 45 minutes of the whole trip), we were in a car, driving to cortina d’ ampezzo.
travel tip: remember what i said earlier about forgetting everything you know about american business practices? screenshot your reservations for everything. and save them to the favourites folder in your phone (or create a folder specifically for travel) so you can access them quickly, when you’re questioning the health of your interpersonal relationships and mental stability.
this particular rental car company DOESN’T SEND CONFIRMATION/RECEIPT EMAILS. it sounds asinine, living in a country where everyone is sue-happy and paper trails are paramount, but in our experience this is the way several businesses are run. we later rented a car in florence and they didn’t send us an emailed receipt either. i guess bottom line: be prepared to prove when you have paid for something.
we finally did get a rental car; a really awesome one in fact. you can probably expect gas to be pretty expensive, which is something to consider when weighing your mode of travel options, but in our case, the freedom it allowed us was worth it and many of the places we’d be visiting in the dolomites would not be accessible by public transportation.