France is approximately the size of Texas, so it takes a while to get wherever it is you’re not.

Planning is key. Detailed, to-the-minute scenarios involving four people, a Westie and four forms of conveyance. What could go wrong?

All sorts of things. In annoying, embarrassing, silly ways.

Here are 12.

1. On the way to the track where our 8:06 a.m. fast train (TGV) will leave for Beziers and points south, the Westie decides that the cavernous Gare de Lyon station is outside — innocent mistake, really — and he drops a morning deuce in the middle of the concourse. (“Cleanup on track 12!”)

2. It’s “only” 4.5 hours to Beziers, with four stops, and we take plane flights of that length all the time, right? And manage to amuse ourselves? But the train has no wifi, so the internet is out, and reading in a gently rocking coaching is vertiginous and a train doing 200 mph in the opposite direction is suck a shock, as it passes, it rules out sleep. Cut to passengers looking out the window and saying “thousand-one, thousand-two …”

3. Perhaps should have asked if the Europcar counter is in the Beziers station — or somewhere outside of town. It is the latter. By the time we figure that out, the office is closed for the three-hour southern France midday break, and we are looking for lunch in Beziers, which is every bit as nice as Detroit.

4. Before sitting down, perhaps we should have checked to see if the oyster shack, for the unplanned, time-killing lunch, has something for everyone. Uh-oh. Oysters for two, nothing enticing for the others. And two of us are dressed for “dry gloom”. What we have is “scalding sun” and then “mild rain”. No clothes for those conditions.

5. So, in the car … without a map. Thanks again, Europcar. We will never be back. We know sorta where we are going. Oh, wait, someone brought a GPS system … and it’s in the trunk. Get off at the next exit, the town we want is next to that one, right? Wrong. Other side of the river, actually.

6. Call to real-estate agent for directions. Turns out, she not only does not know north from south, she doesn’t know left from right, in giving directions. Try taking one more off ramp, she counsels. (We had taken the correct one.)

7. After many trials (“I have no idea where you are”), we find her, about 3.5 hours late, at the church in a quaint hilltop Languedoc town that we discover, for about the 15th time since 2010, is half-empty and lacking services and is already more than a little spooky (on its way to being dead) — with layabout Brits doing nothing much while waiting for that flipping bonanza to come in.

8. We discover, for about the 15th time since 2010, that “furnished rental” in southern France means a couple of swayback beds and a couch that might have been recovered from someone’s garage sale in 1962. Also, the great view of the vineyards? It is at the end of a four-floor, 60-step stair-climb that probably has killed and will kill again. We wait for someone to slap us for this Groundhog Day approach to rental-house hunting.

9. A need for a bathroom becomes paramount. We take the wrong minor road to Pezenas, home to the area’s McDonald’s, find toilets without seats and wind up eating junk for no good reason — though a Hello Kitty giveaway doll is a “Happy Meal” consolation.

10. We miss the key left turn, in gridlocked Beziers, for the train station. We are almost committed to going to Narbonne, Windiest City in the World (or seems like it), before someone has an insight: the train station is at sea level, the town is on a hill … so take any road going downhill. We find the train station about 25 minutes after we thought we would. Blind squirrel, meet nut.

11. Long, dreary ride back to Paris. Dog does a jail-break, mid-trip, to the amusement of passengers. He does not drop a deuce or even an ace before he is back under the seats. The shaking in the second floor of the car (note to self: stay on lower level) is so bad it feels like a plane ride through turbulence.

12. We decide to give Uber a call, at the Gare de Lyon, unclear about how angry this will make the crabby and incompetent official taxi drivers, who are lined up in front of the station like it’s the last fare of the week. One shouts obscenities at four people lugging three backpacks and a dog, as they walk past. Uber driver No. 1 balks at taking the dog (“haram”, perhaps). We walk another block away from the station, at 11 p.m., and get another Uber — who might have been a moment away from getting jumped by a couple of regular cabbies as they stream past with empty cabs. (They all know what we are doing.)

So, 18 hours, door to door, with erratic breaks for food and nine hours on trains, to realize we still don’t like vertical “castle-wall” apartments in dying towns of southern France. At least we accomplished that.