Thursday 17 May 2007

"Do you go to the Astra Hotel?"

"Do you go to the Astra Hotel?" My heart always sinks a little when I open the doors and someone asks me a question like that. I have a pretty good idea of what maybe coming next. I don't know the names and the where abouts of all the hotels in Torquay;there are thousnds of them, perhaps there is some poor soul who does but it isn't me. And I have a feeling that the elderly lady standing at the bus stop doesn't know where her hotel is. She and her male companion had arrived in Torquay that afternoon by coach and as dinner wouldn't be till 6 pm they decided to nip down into town for a little walk round.

"Do know the name of the road it's on?" Both sadly shake their heads. "What number bus did you get?" They walked. "How long did it take?" Not long it seems. "Do you remember passing any big shops or pubs or a Police Station? A forlorn shake of the head as the depth of the problem begins to sink in. Last chance, I use the radio and send out a call to the 80 other bus drivers who are driving round the Bay at this very minute. Maybe one of them will know where the Astra Hotel is. At this moment the lady volunteers the information that the hotel is up a hill. We are in a the Harbour area, you know, harbours tend to be all at sea level. Every where else in Torquay is up a hill. Torre is local speak for hill. Torquay means the 'Harbour by the Hill.'

They board the bus and as they have said it wasn't a long walk into town I charge then to the Police Station. Two reasons for that, one, there are a lot of hotels near the police station and two, if their hotel isn't there they can always go in the station and ask the nice person behind the desk where their hotel is.

Actually they got of at the top of town, they didn't recognise anywhere and dicided to try an other road out of town. And when I got home I had a look in the phone book and on the internet, The Astra Hotel doesn't appear anywhere and so probably doesn't appear in Torquay either.

3 comments:

Epicentre said...

Per ardua ad astra !!!

Your driver said...

Tourists will sometimes ask me to compare the rates and amenities at San Francisco hotels. While the southern end of my route is in SF, the northern end is 65 miles away. I have never spent the night in a San Francisco hotel. Also, hotels seem to change owners, and names, on a weekly basis. It is a point of perverse pride to refer to one hotel as the "Jack Tar" even though it hasn't had that name in almost thirty years. Shows that you are a real local and old timer.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't one of those chain hotels with a local connection was it? You know, like the Hilton Metropole, The Radisson SAS...or the Astra Fawlty Towers perhaps?