Motorhoming in the age of artificial intelligence.

If we ever did proscribe to the old adage that "to be forewarned is to be forearmed' events today put the kibosh on it. A number of reviewers on Campercontacts noted that the smart card payment system at Friedrichstadt's stellplatz was a tad arcane; indeed one British contributor dubbed it 'Orwellian'.

This did not faze us. We are old hands, having conquered the barrier system at the Perigueux aire despite the instructions requiring a doctorate from the Sorbonne in sociolinguistics to decipher them. So, how possibly could a German system be more challenging given their national reputation for order and clarity? What we failed to acknowledge was that Gill has a working knowledge of everyday French but neither of us understand a word of German.

'I pulled up before the barrier. Gill hopped out wallet in hand. Noted the word 'karte' next to a credit card sized slot, so she inserted her 'Clarity card' and awaited further instructions on the little screen. Nothing happened, no amount of poking on the big green button budged the barrier one inch. Our flummoxed Brits performance attracted the attention of a woman from the nearby camper. She came to help. We had got it all wrong. The slot where we had inserted our credit card was designed to issue a smart card to access the facilities, but I had not pulled close enough to the barrier to trigger the system.

Now we had buggered the system completely; our credit card was jammed in the slot and steadfastly resisted retrieval. Confusion reigned for a couple of minutes until Gill found some tweezers and the helpful German lady, with the dexterity of a neurosurgeon, extracted our card. By this time I had nudged up to the barrier, Gill pushed the button, a small cardboard ticket popped out, up went the barrier - bingo! the stupid English made it through in the end.

Sadly we had only reached level one in Nintendo's latest virtual reality gaming sensation - 'Stellplatz Armageddon'. Level two matched hapless players, now armed with the magic contaktless-karte, against the wily EHU dragon. Truly adept gamers progressed to discovering the mysteries of the invisible key to the sanitary block then pitted themselves in timed battles with the showers or faced- down the evil electronic Thetford emptying monster. 

Orwellian? Not really, more 'Muskian', the entire place exuded Mr Space X's naive optimism concerning technological solutions to simple human situations. Driverless cars - really? When our sat navs can't even be trusted to guide us through a basic urban one-way system and Morrison's self service tills constantly interrupt shopping trips by proclaiming "unfamiliar item in the bagging area" bringing human assistants scurrying to the assistance of the bewildered robot. Friedrichstadt stellplatz was simply annoying, over-designed, needlessly automated and dehumanising. No wonder our fellow motorhomers seemed like a surly and unfriendly bunch, the design of the place positively discouraged human interaction. 

This is a shame, because the town itself is delightful. There is a campsite next door, even if it costs a few euros more it has to be a better bet than stellplatz Armageddon.