We were trying to drop off a rental car in Madrid that we drove down from Pamplona and it was Saturday so the Hertz office was closed. The sign on the door gave an address to a drop-off location, but you know how addresses in other countries don’t make much sense because they are in different formats? That was problem number one – we typed it into the GPS (thank got for smart phones and international roaming) and it gave us an address a mile away. Great.
It was a busy major road and the point on the GPS didn’t seem to be anywhere that made sense. There was nothing around that looked like we could or should drop a car off. We drove around and around for probably 45 minutes, and off of that main road the streets were 1-ways, so to do the loop and go around was probably over a mile loop. We were confused and frustrated, and then they started closing the main road off because they were setting up for a parade. So the loop we were doing was cutoff and if we followed the detour it would have been a 1 way street going in the wrong direction. So I followed the direction of the cop that was directing traffic but there was no one around and the way we wanted to go was closed, so I took my last chance on the main road to do a u-turn and go back from where we came. He didn’t like that.
He ran to his motorcycle, chased us down, pulled us over, and told us it was a 100 euro fine for an illegal u-turn. And it needed to be paid now, or he was going to have the car towed. And it needed to be cash. We luckily had exactly 100 euros between us, and we paid him and got the printed ticket. So I have a physical ticket, but I don’t know if I actually paid it or bribed a police officer and I don’t know if there’s a warrant out for me in Spain.
All I do know if that the spot we were apparently looking for was an underground parking garage 2 stories underneath a mall, which was apparently that Hertz’s overflow lot. Took about 2 total hours to figure that out. A really terrible end to a fantastic drive to Madrid from northern Spain.