All Roads Lead To Monaco?

The news agency Reuters disclosed on Wednesday, that 2 tourists travelling through Italy encountered quite a problem, on account of the Italian name given to a German city Munich, capital of Bavaria.

These 2 Dominican ladies had arranged to meet their 14 year old niece in Monaco. The romantic dreamland of Rainier, Grace Kelly, Caroline ... They had taken the car en Trento and, following the road signs that indicated Monaco di Baviera, drove through the Alps arriving in Munich. Once there, they went straight to the train station, to wait for the train from Paris, that should have brought their niece.

But the niece wasn't on the train she was supposed to be in, nor the next one. Why? Because, as was arranged and agreed previously, she was also waiting, but in Monaco, not in Munich. The ladies, not knowing that, in Italian, Munich is Monaco di Baviera. They had followed the wrong indications.

Like most known cities, Munich is called one name or another depending on which language spoken or written. The Bavarians call it Minga, in German it's Munchen (sorry, I don't have the option to put in the 2 dots on top of the U), in Portuguese is Munique, in Czechs is Mnichov I believe, in Polish is Monachium, in Catalan is Munic ... The 2 ladies sought police help, and was told what they had feared, that they were in a totally different country altogether. There's no alternative but to jumped back in their car, turned around and head south, a journey of more than 800 kilometre along the Mediterranean towards the Principality of Monaco.

One would have thought, and voices have been raised ever so often, that with the globalisation and the huge number of cross country travellers, traffic signs and indications should not be written in the local language only, but an international one or, at least that as well. There's no valid reason why the major cities of the world should accumulate so many different names. Why can't they be written as the original but pronounced according to the different language used?

I have written about the emergency call numbers before: 999 for England, 911 for America, 112 for Spain, etc. Why shouldn't there be an internationally unified number, so that when you are in a foreign land, you don't have to learn and remember another one, or two, or three, depending on how many countries your intended trip involves. Emergency surely means getting help in the shortest possible time and the simplest and easiest procedure. With the present diversity, by the time you find out the number, it's probably too late ... !!

Tags:Monaco,Munich,Emergency

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