Denbighshire 14 - Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree?

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Now that Suzy is back on the drive and I am firmly back in work I find myself singing Sweet Dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree, I've travelled the world and the seven seas - Everybody's looking for someone - or in our case something. A song made famous by the fabulous Eurythmics and which sums up the last 5 weeks exactly. Our holiday was made of dreams and will remain as dreams for quite a while.

It's now down to the cleaning, the Duvalay sleeping duvets are out, the inners on the line airing in the sun. The outers washed and drying. What fabulous bedding they are. For us - we would never go back to old fashioned sleeping bags. We get the comfort of the memory foam base and the advantages of fresh cotton duvet. All in one. The fridge is emptied and cleaned . Our clothes all washed and dried. We have even been to buy essentials to restock - the toilet rolls, washing up liquid and all those other ordinary things you need to run a motorhome. It is all part of the joy of holiday planning. Some people hate the packing and unpacking but for us the packing means we are going to be on the road . The pouring over maps or dissecting where we have been is all good fun and part of the process.

Suzy is almost 15 months old and we don't regret buying her one little bit. She has done everything we have asked of her and a whole load more. She has taken us to places we thought we wouldnt get to and she is promising to continue to deliver. Even today we worked out what it would have cost in time and money to do what we did without Suzy. The price of air travel, hiring cars, the gites or hotels to pay for and the inconvenience. We couldnt have done it. Yes a car is handy sometimes and yes we do miss it at times. But we try to plan meticulously, we pour over maps to plan the most cost effective route. This means we try to avoid going over the same route twice thus saving us valuable time and money. We plan our campsites with a military precision making sure they either are within walking distance of where we want to visit or are near to a train station or on a bus route. Sometimes it goes wrong - Zadar where we got grossly overcharged for the bus fare and had to get a taxi home. Split where we missed the bus and Orebic which was a long long walk from the campsite but most of the time I have to say we do a reasonable job in our planning.

Down to nitty gritty basics - how much did it cost, what did we do and how did we do it? What did we like and what didnt quite live up to our expectations?

We travelled 4332 miles a little more than we had pencilled in. The extra miles were around a few diversions in Italy and around Tuscany where we found extra places we wanted to stop at. Luckily in a motorhome you can stop if you want to. Suzy is our home and where we go she goes. Suzy averaged 27.1 miles per gallon and our best performance 28.2. Much better than last year. We always knew we wouldnt get great mileage out of her when we purchased her . Especially compared to our other vehicles an older diesel Peugeot 1.9 and a fairly new 1.9 BMW which give us well into the mid and high 40 mpg. . But we steeled ourselves up to this and took it on the chin. Every time you fill the tank it hurts a little but we are gradually getting used to it now. We spent £935.66 pence on diesel the cheapest was in Croatia and the prices in Europe varied although averaged around 1.46 per litre. A touch more expensive in the Italian service stations which gave you the choice of self service which was cheaper or servito which cost a few cents more. Once we picked the servito as the garage was full and in a motorhome at times you cannot be bothered queueing. We used the toll roads mainly because we only had the three weeks and needed to pack in as much as we could in the time. Perhaps if we had six months or more we would idle along and avoid the toll roads. The total cost of the tolls was £76.02 but this does not include the Italian tolls nor the French ones which will in the next few weeks be charged to our bank account. The french box on the window is a godsend as we flew through the tolls and the same can be said for the Italian one which we hired from Tolltickets in Germany.

It is hard to pick a best or worse campsite. We tried giving them points one for a restaurant, a shop, a take away, free or cheap WiFi,views or lack of them and clean toilets but sadly this didnt seem to work. What do you give to a good restuarant and perhaps one no so clever. And what about shops - a mark for a basic one with the essentials and another for a supermarket on site. We struggled with size of site. We like the smaller quieter ones. So in the end we went with our gut feeling and just picked the one we loved the most which was Orebic. It had the views across to the little lighthouse on its rocky crag and towards Korkula. Ferries plying their trade all day, small sailing boats in the silvery shimmering water ,the restaurant which looked good although we didnt try the food, the small secluded beach and the layout that suited us as it was on tiers. It was empty possibly because of the time of the year we visited and it had a fabulous swimming pool that I had to myself . Downside no shop although there was one up the road and there was no bus into Orebic which meant a long walk in what was blazing sunshine and temperatures in the 30's. .

OUr worse campsite - well none of them. Some were better than others. Punta Povile was poor with no facilities and what was there was dirty but the views more than made up for it. Sitting on our own most of the night looking across the bay to Senj and its castle and the craggy limestone cliffs of Krk. All the rest were average. We did not like the bigger sites at Dubrovnik and Split. There were snakes in the grass in Dubrovnik but it did have wonderful views of the new bridge which made up for the snakes and it was the only site within striking distance of the city itself. . Best value for money -most of the ACSI sites which averaged out at 16 euros and the Camping Cheques at 15 euros. Our worse value was Podere Il Casale, Bologna and Luzern . Bologna and Luzern had captured their market as they were the nearest to the cities - Camping Bologna with its own bus stopping at the site and Luzern within walking distance.

We were away for 33 days and the weather was mixed and slightly unusual for this time of year. We found ourselves chasing the sun until we got over the Alps and into Croatia. 14 days were very hot and sunny, 6 days were wet with some heavy rain, 1 day brought us the mother of all thunderstorms 5 days were warm and dry and the last 7 were warm but wet. Probably compared to last May the weather wasnt as good as we could have hoped for.

We spent £118. 47 on bus fares, taxi fares and boat trips over the 33 days. Normally we wouldn't have used so many taxis but we were ripped off on the bus into Zadar and the rain forced us into the taxis a couple of times. Most of the time the campsites sell bus tickets but at this one they didnt and foolishly I didnt ask how much it would cost to travel on the bus. So getting on the bus the driver just took a wad of kuna off me and I swear blind it came to over £24 to go into town. It left a really nasty taste but as we spoke no Croatian, he no English it felt pointless argueing with him and to make matters worse we didnt know if we had a single or return ticket nor what it had cost. The boat trip to Lokrum island was well worth it for the views it gave of the city walls of Dubrovnik and the tiny ferry to Korkula was a joy and cheap at half the price.

We parked very little this year. Even with Suzys size and she is not a huge motorhome we found we could park up at a camp site and walk or use the bus. We parked on the side of the roads sometimes if there was enough space and we found a few sostas in Italy. Our overall cost for parking came to £6.81.

Camping overnight cost us £495 depending on what the exchange rate was. We quite liked the Camping Cheques as payment is made up front and the cost is deducted from your card which means that you have paid for the night back home and it doesnt eat into your stash of euros. We found though that there are more ACSI sites than Camping Cheque ones so choice is a little more limited with them.

WiFi access was better this year. I dont know if we just hit it lucky with the sites we used or whether campsites have realised the benefit of offering good in cheap or free WiFi . We only paid for 4 sessions of WiFi over the entire length of the holiday and this cost us £13.43. Access was mixed with many sites WiFi accessible from inside Suzy. Only a few times did we have to try our Motorhome WiFi antenna which doesn't seem that brilliant or did we have to go to the reception area for access. We had bought a device to connect to the internet from Motorhome WiFi but failed once to get it connected. We tried emailing for advice on getting it working and tried many times over but still failed to connect to WiFi in any country.

Phone calls home needed to be made and we used our own mobiles once. We purchased a Toggle phone before we left for £20 and with it an unlocked SIM card. We put on £30 worth of phone credit and used about £8 worth during the holiday. That must have been the bargain of the trip.

Sundries £83.52 - these included two bags - one for me and one for a present for a family member for Christmas, fridge magnets, replacement batteries for the TV remote control and a swiss electrical connection.

Entrance fees to museums and castles came to £142.62. Normally this would be considerably higher as usually go in everything we see . However this year we decided to be more selective and viewed many of th e castles just from the outside unless they had something specific inside we wanted to see. The same went for museums. We loved the small railway museum at Ljubljana which was charming in its simplicity and Gradara Castle was a little gem.

This year I washed more. Last year I tried to manage without washing and ended up bringing home a lot of dirty smelly clothing which clogged up Suzys bathroom. One fine days and when I we stopped for more than one day at a campsite I hunted out the washing machines. Most averaged out at 3 euro 50 cents to 5 euro for a 40 minute wash. I spent a total of £19.69 and it was worth every penny. I did not use any of the drying machines but they were readily available at the about the same sort of prices. I just relied on the sun and the wind.

Supermarkets were disappointing in Croatia. The only ones we found were Lidl which I dont like and Studenac which have very little in them. Italy is just as bad or perhaps a touch better. I missed Mr Le Clerc, Supermarche, Super U and Aldi. We didnt eat out as much as usual and with hindsight this was perhaps a bit foolish as eating out in Croatia is as cheap as chips. We spent £731.72 give or take quite a lot as I am sure we missed totting up all the gelato and espressos we drank over the 33 days. This averaged out at around £22.17 a day or if you assume we missed a lot around £25 a day.

Altogether the holiday cost us £2634.51. Have we learned anything this year? Yes eat out more in Croatia, buy all your petrol there, take longer staying at places. Enjoy every minute of it and make the most of it. All that is left now is to enjoy our British summer which is currently on a heatwave, go out on a few trips between now and our next foray into Europe in September and sort all the photos into an Albelli book.

Yes sweet dreams are made of these .................................

Suzy is chomping on the bit. It doesnt take long to feel hemmed in by your own four walls, frustrated by being back at work. Already the next holiday is pencilled in although we are not sure if we have picked the right time of year to go to Spain, The temperatures look as if they will be way too high for us in the south of Spain however with the van we can change things are not committed to what we had already decided on. The train is booked and that is immovable mainly because my holidays are booked and it would the devils own job to change them. It would also cost money to change our booking so it looks like we are stuck with what we have. We dont have campsites booked but already know where they are. However perhaps plans need to be changed and it will be Northern Spain in September. There looks as if there are a large number of interesting castles and one the way I would like to see Bordeaux, Arcachon and St Jean du Luis on the border between France and Spain. Again the song Sweet dreams is going round my head and I am counting the days down.

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Photos

Slovenia Railway Museum
what a novel means of transport

Slovenian Railway Museum
A sign of the Communist era

Lake Bled
And who lives in a house like this one

Lake Bled
Rather cute fire hydrants - perhaps Sion and Woolly should look for more of these

Zadar
Not much in the way of building control

Zadar
Another interesting use in reclaimed materials for footings

Zaostrog
On the promenade - nothing but us and the fishing pots - this is the life

Korkula
With its little island and lighthouse

Near Rijeka
An interesting bit of road not for those amongst you with Vertigo

Marco Simoncelli
From his museum - he could have been a world champion and is much missed on the MotoGP circuit

That Tuscan view
Without me this is in every travel brochure,every airport lounge and every advert for Tuscany .

Around Milan
Remind us not to go this way again!!! Rush hour in downtown Milan where you take your life into your own hands every time you drive this bit of road. The Paris peripherique of Italy!!!!!!!