motohome travel

Costs and budget!

/ meyouandpogo2 / 4 Comments

Sunday 13th May 2018

Dave posting,

I have had the red box out folks as it’s budget day.

We crossed the channel 7 weeks ago on 27th March 2018, we have had a great time so far and lots more to come, we have seen some wonderful historic European cities in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and now we are here in Croatia.

We were on budget until Venice, but once in Venice we didn’t want to miss anything out which is understandable and once we were in Croatia we were faced with a beautiful coast, cafes’ bars, restaurants lining the azure Adriatic, the weather in Croatia has been sublime and it’s difficult not to slip into holiday mode, that means, eating and drinking out more than usual.

You can see from the information we are extremely over budget by €15.98 per day so far, however it is actually improving, at day 30 we were €21.43 per day over budget. Four days in Venice saw our costs double for the 4 days to €105.30 per day with entrance fees, ferries and lots of tasty treats.

Overnight stops 565.35
Supermarket food and drink 699.10
Pogo repairs 0.00
Diesel 369.79
Eating Out 992.19
Supplies/Misc 69.61
Ferries 32.84
Tourist Attractions 315.25
Clothes 28.40
Presents 90.02
Data Comms & Phones 65.59
Tolls 85.79
LPG 66.03
Laundry 19.17
Healthcare 18.22
Public Transport 18.56
Taxi 32.40
Daytime Parking 9.75
Souvenirs 0.00
TOTAL in Euros €3,478.06

49 days spending = €3,478.06

  • budget of €55 per day x 49 days = €2,695
  • total over spent is currently €783.06, which is over spending by €15.98 per day
  • sorry, there’s no pie chart due to WordPress limitations

This is a massive overspend and we have to reign it in, we didn’t realise how difficult it would be to resist the temptation to eat and drink in the sunshine!

Once we are away from the beautiful Croatia coast where we have to pay for camping fees for overnight stops (we have managed to squeeze in 4 free nights even though it is not allowed) so it should improve.

Dave

What did she say?

/ meyouandpogo2 / 4 Comments

 

Sunday 8th April 2018

Cathy posting,

Up early and went for a 6.5k walk along the riverside and into the village near the sosta. It’s a pleasant enough place with lots of people cycling, running, walking, jogging and fishing, strange thing that we noticed in Italy is lots of people exercise and yet there are cigarette machines at the side of the road & near car parks, it’s an odd contrast.

Chiavenna (2)

There are many small holdings very close to residential properties

 

Chiavenna (5)

Cathy loved this rose tree

We are surrounded on three sides by huge tall mountains making us feel like we are in the bottom of a bowl.

Chiavenna (7)

Surrounded by mountains in Chiavenna

ChiavennaCD (3)

Chiavenna (3)

Lots of old style alpine roofs, the stones are holding the slates down

We had a nice chill out after lunch, did some blogging, the usual van services, water etc and set off. We had decided upon Bergamo, the research suggests it’s an amazing city with loads of history, wonderful views from the Venetian city walls from 16th Century, we fancy a bit of that.

Chiavenna (1)

We got stuck behind this chap for miles! (Piaggio)

Travelled on the SS36 road which is basically a motorway through tunnels alongside the east side of Lake Como, the tunnels were not very pleasant to drive through, every now and then there was a view but before you could say ”Bob’s your uncle” we were thrown into darkness again!

Whilst driving along it dawns upon Dave that the numbers on the speed sign i.e. 90 is the minimum speed that the Italians think they can drive at! There were some scary moments and the air was a little blue!

We’ve noticed the Italian roads are a bit rough compared to Switzerland & Germany, it’s a game of dodging the potholes, from Lecco at the Sothern end of Como it was a horrible drive to Bergamo, roundabout after roundabout every kilometre for many kilometres.

Sat Naff can’t speak French very well, she doesn’t have any German or Swiss either and she most definitely can’t speak Italian! (apologies for the lack of focus on the video)

We were going to stay at a free car park but when we got there we didn’t like the feel of it being on a corner of two busy roads, also we’d located a campsite just 4 kms outside of Bergamo centre, for €18 per night plus it has a bus and tram stop right outside the gate for Bergamo.

We arrive late just before 8pm and it’s not busy, so pick your spot.

We tried to ask questions of the lady who runs the site and we’ve had success with google translate however tiredness and not having reading glasses on again and I managed to communicate with her in Romanian, no wonder she looked confused!

Gnocchi and pesto for tea and the evening was spent researching Bergamo.

Cathy