A Unique Yet Forgettable Holiday That Becomes Great
The most absurd holiday of my life started many years ago, on the very evening that there was a total eclipse of the moon in August 1989. That year we were on holiday with a family of friends and since we all liked Liguria we decided to book two bungalows at a campsite.
We relied on the telephone to book, as we did not know the area well. So we booked the two bungalows for two weeks starting on the 17th, which was precisely the evening of the lunar eclipse even though we didn't know it at the time.
We arrived punctually in the afternoon, the other family had problems and warned us that they would arrive the next day. When we arrived at the campsite, the first unpleasant surprise. In the advertisement in the yellow pages it said there was a swimming pool.
There was in fact a sort of pool with very little water, not very clean, and some ducks splashing around. Well, never mind, we would have gone to the sea anyway, which was very close.
Talking to the manager of the facility, who was a rather strange guy, talking all the time, patting us on the back and always laughing, we were informed that our bungalow was not available for that evening.
However, he told us that for that night he would let us sleep in a small villa that he owned, but which was not inside the campsite. He told us that it would only be ready after dinner and so we had dinner at the campsite restaurant.
He was in no hurry to take us to the cottage, in fact he made excuses every time we asked him to go. Around 10 o'clock in the evening he makes up his mind, also because I had a small child who was sleepy.
We set off, he in the front with his car and we in the back with ours.
We drive for about ten minutes on small roads in the middle of the woods, until we stop in front of a gate.
There were no lights anywhere. He opens the gate and signals us to follow him. We enter a garden with a paved driveway. But the grass in the garden was tall and uncultivated even though we could see very little in the dark with the headlights.
Anyway, he opens the door for us and there he starts blurting out that they had not cleaned up, contrary to his orders.
We look around and indeed it looks as if the house had not been cleaned for months.
We go up the stairs to the bedroom. On the bed there was only the mattress and some sheets piled in the middle, and on the sheets a cat had given birth to kittens. We were literally in shock, this individual put the cat and kittens inside the sheets and took them and left.
At that point we didn't know what to do but we didn't want to stay there. We locked up everything, took the car and drove to the village to see if we could find a hotel. We walked around for two hours but found nothing. So we went back to the cottage, put the car in the garden and decided to sleep in the car, as we also found a surprise in the bathroom.
Apart from the filth, a giant scorpion lived in the tub. So we made do as best we could and also enjoyed the total eclipse of the moon, which made the atmosphere even spookier.
We returned to the campsite the next morning and luckily found our bungalow where after a good clean we were very comfortable. In the evening we were also joined by friends to whom we told the story, but which seen in daylight also made us laugh a lot.
The camp manager, that strange individual, continued to behave like a strange individual, always patting us on the back and laughing all the time, but it is strange that he also became likeable to us.
He told very funny stories while entertaining us and the other guests at the campsite bar. And from then on he really did everything to make us forget that first unfortunate evening.
All in all, it was a 15-day holiday that started really badly and ended well. But I'll never forget that night in the garden of an isolated cottage in the middle of a forest where you couldn't even see a light in the distance and the moon, very big and bright, slowly disappeared.
All that was missing was the howl of a wolf and then we could believe in vampires.
