GPS spells trouble for Swedish tourists seeking la dolce vita

WE’VE ALL been there

WE’VE ALL been there. Out on the hot road, maps spread across our laps and the dashboard, desperately looking for our promised holiday destination.

In the past, of course, marital relationships came under fierce stress from such testing moments.

“But you said turn right, darling.” “Yes, but I said second right, dear.”

And so on as the unhappy travellers miss that vital turn and squabble off in the wrong direction, terrified that if they do not arrive in time, the hotel will give the room to somebody else.

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Then came the GPS satellite system. All those tense moments were to be a thing of the past. No more wrong turns. Just punch the destination into the fiendish little machine and it tells you how to get there, without as much as raising its electronic little voice. Nothing could be more perfect, or could it? Well take the case of a middle-aged Swedish couple in Italy earlier this week.

They had planned a dream holiday on the wonderful island of Capri, just off Naples. When they got there, they were a little puzzled. This did not seem like a dream Mediterranean destination. Eventually, they stopped at the tourist office, to ask the way to the island’s famous “Blue Grotto”.

Then, the penny dropped. This is Carpi, a busy industrial town in Emilia Romagna, not Capri in Campania, sir. You are about 650 kilometres north and inland from Capri, sir. Oh, oh, somebody got their spelling wrong, it would seem.

Perhaps, marital rows have not been solved by the advent of the GPS system, after all.

For years, tourists have been guilty of a whole series of unforgivable “sins” in Italy – looking for an evening meal at 6pm, drinking beer in the sun, ordering a cappuccino after a meal, walking around city centres in beach clothes and so on.

It would seem, though, that our Swedish friends have added a new sin to the list. Moral of the tale – check your spelling closely with the GPS. Otherwise you could be 600 kilometres off course.