France – A group of Belgian tourists heading to the French Alps for a few days of skiing wound up being taken on a detour thanks to their coach driver’s satnav mistake.
The driver wasn’t familiar with the route to La Plagne, and mistakenly drove them to the South of France.
Instead of entering La Plagne into his satnav, he entered Plagne, in the French Pyrenees, putting the group of 50 on a 1 287km detour, Belgian media reported.
The driver told StudioBrussel: “There are three entries for Plagne in France and we were wrong.”
By the time he realised his mistake the group was already in Toulouse, 685km south-west of La Plagne.
He turned around and drove to the correct destination, and the tourists arrived 24 hours behind schedule.
Despite the disruption – and lost time on the slopes – some of the tourists took it all in stride.
One of the passengers, a Twitter user named Sven, tweeted that the group had “just seen the Mediterranean and Carcassonne”, a fortified town between Toulouse and the Mediterranean coast.
“We had a hard time convincing the driver he was going to Spain and had a few laughs.”
Daily Mail