15. The Story of Lille and Parking Lot “C”

Thursday is starting out as another cold and rainy day. We leave Belgium today and will actually be going through three countries to get to tonight’s destination of Oxford, England. It was a big day of adventure for us. 

We had a premonition it might be difficult to get to our destination to return the car rental in Lille, France. I’d read online about how difficult it is to traverse the road network in Lille so forewarned is forearmed right! Not necessarily! Our first signal of possible distress— the car’s  Navigation system did not want to accept the address we had for Enterprise, our car rental company. We settled for a nearby address instead. I knew this would be an eventual problem, but David drove on, determined that the navigation system would get us there. As luck would have it, we spotted the Enterprise sign in an upstairs office window somewhere near where we were supposed to be, but there was no signage at all about where to turn the car in. And did I mention, we were on a bridge! SO we tried to re-route ourselves using our own GPS system, our brains, and applied logic, that if we turned here, surely we’d end up close… And on it went. After about 30 minutes of driving in circles, I googled how to return a car rental at the Lille Europe train station and came up with a 2019 post from a gentleman who said how difficult it was, where he suggested parking etc. Only, while his suggestion to park in Parking Lot B was a great idea,  the problem was that the sign outside Parking Lot B said “Complet,” meaning, the lot was full. So we chose Parking Lot C, not really anywhere near the Enterprise office, but the closest we could find. Then we had to exit the parking lot on foot, with all our luggage in tow, and walk to the Enterprise Office, only now we were all turned around and didn’t know where that darn office disappeared to. After walking around what we thought was the building several times, it finally appeared. Thank goodness it was a very unusually designed building with colourful exterior windows. Needless to say we were 30 minutes late, and the Enterprise employee was not happy about where we parked. I think he finally realized we weren’t going to move the vehicle so he graciously said he’d just email us the final invoice and they’d find the car, whose location I had photographed so they’d know where it was. 

Car 54 Where Are You?

The rest of the day actually went very smoothly. Our trains were on time. We took the Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel from Lille to London-St. Pancras and then we took a Great Western Railway train from Paddington to Oxford. We feel a bit like pack mules, hauling luggage up and down so many stairs, but I keep thinking of all the strength exercise we’re getting in and the muscles we are building. 

We’ve now been in Oxford a few hours and are staying in the centre of town in an old renovated hotel. There are  many students milling about here and it actually looks like a fascinating place to walk around. We are looking forward to our evening stroll to dinner. It seems like a good omen that the menu for where we are going for dinner advises they try to accommodate all food intolerances. This will be a big change from our dining experience in rural France and Paris. We’ve mastered picnics in our room with PB and jam and rice cakes.