branderson925

Hey everyone,
First I wanted to thank everyone who's been so helpful on this site. I've never found a forum so full of resources and friendly people willing to share what can help, inspire and motivate others. I know I've posted along similar lines before but I've been kind of plugging in budgeting estimates for a bit and wanted to get some feedback. I completely understand how hard budgeting is and how it is a very subjective matter. People's opinions of splurging and living thin vary quite noticeably from person to person. Let me just lay it out by saying I am looking to stretch my money pretty far and elect lower priced hostel options (6-14 person dorms) and only eat out 4x every 3 days (so basically dinner every night and one lunch) This is all subject to change since I love all things food, studying it, cooking, etc. I've worked in the food industry for over ten years now and have since moved into fine dining so I'm looking to do a couple of serious splurge meals (one in Italy one in Spain) at around 100-125 euros (which for me is splurge but I'm sure others not).

Anyway, my plan is to have my plane ticket taken care of immediately so that cost won't be a part of my budget since i will just take the ~1000 from my savings whenever I find the right price from Boston/NYC > Madrid or Rome.
WHO:
I'm a 24 year old male, recent college grad looking to get back to where I studied abroad and see places I missed out on while living there. I love culture, history, art, architecture, food, wine + beer, outdoor activities especially hiking). I speak Spanish a decent bit of conversational Italian. I would like to hit a couple spots of the beaten path in Italy to sort of practice without the understandable "foreign/English speaker" label in bigger cities. So recommendations on cool day or 2 day trips would be great. Especially somewhere with particularly exquisite landscape where outdoor activities may fit in. I'm also a level one sommelier and would like to do a visit to a vineyard or two within a big wine region.
WHAT:
The trip is supposed to be about 32-35 days with a couple of "burn" days incase something completely randomly wonderful comes along and I need to do it or if I get sick or some other type of emergency. You'll notice the itinerary below does not account for the total amount of days so the rest are meant to be allotted for laundry, a flight or particularly long train, sickness, jet lag.
HOW (MUCH)?
My ever-changing budget number is 3400 (not including the flight). I'm budgeting at 75 Euro/day for 35 days so if I don't stay as long I will have extra per day or for travel. 75 Euro/35 days comes to 2940 and I've added 460 for the occasional flight and long train ride. I understand I may need to allot more to the travel side of things and the daily 75E budget will account for cheaper trains, buses, etc.
WHERE:
Boston > Madrid - 3.5 days
Toledo - 1 day
Salamanca - 2 days
Orense - 2 days
Santiago de Compostela - 2 days
Cordoba - 1 day
Bilbao, San Sebastian, CHILL/REGROUP 5 days
Flight to Almeria > directly to Granada 2.5 days
Ronda 1.5 days
Cordoba 1.5 days
Sevilla 3 days
FLY to Venice
Verona 1.5 days
Valpolicella/Amarone wine region 1 day
Vicenza 1.5 days
Venice 3 days and leave

Trying to think of a smarter way to spend my time in Italy. I guess I'm going to fly in from Spain into Venice and also leave from there. I'm pretty open to where I spend my Italy time as it is just a week. I want to spend my time in only one province and I've never been to il Veneto. I think it would be a nice quick exploration with a varied outlook. I just don't know how to smartly fly in from Spain without backtracking while I'm there. Possibly I could start in Venice and move west and leave from Milan (no interest in spending time there)
Well thanks in advance. I'm sure I've left out some vital info so let me know and I will re-read this later to make sure it's all there

sandralist

Why do you have 2 separate stays in Cordoba?

Flying out of Sevilla, could you fly to Milan or Verona or Treviso or Brescia or Bergamo? I am not suggesting you visit those places but thinking you might find a cheaper, less time consuming flight than flying into Venice and still find it easy to get on with your plans for the Veneto.

You might find it much cheaper to stay in Vicenza your first 4 days in Italy as use it as a base for the rest of what you want to do. Verona is a pricey place for hotels.

Without a car it can be hard to access any wine region in Italy unless you take a pricey tour -- but see if you can track down a self-guided bike tour of the Amarone region. Since you are in the food biz, I would really work whatever connections you have to see if somebody knows a local who might pick you up at a train or bus station and show you around in his car.

For both Spain and Italy I cannot help but think that you will do much better financially if you make your big meal of the day lunch, and then get something lighter in the evening. You will also be more in tune with both cultures that way. In Spain, you will be able to get by with tapas in the evening. Where you are going in Italy is famous for cocktail hour nibbles -- and both Verona and Vicenza will give you some pretty heavy duty lunches to fill you up (duck pastas, bean &cereal soups, polenta with cheese...)

sandralist

Some possibilities for flying from Spain to the Veneto to check out:

Sevilla: Flights to Bergamo & Bologna

Madrid: Flights to Milan, Bergamo

Malaga: Flights to Milan, Bergamo

Barcelona: Flights to Milan & Verona & Treviso & Bergamo

Valencia: flights to Treviso


Devil is in the details about whether some of these other options really work for your itinerary.


Also, I just want to add that I don't think Ourense needs two days of your time. In fact, if there is a way to do it, you might consider going from Salamanca to Porto in Portugal (yes, I know you miss the pulpo gallegos doing that -- but you go right through the wine region). If you could manage to put Porto right before you go to Italy, then you could fly Easy Jet to Milan and be on your way to Verona.

But like I said, devil is in the details trying to stitch together all these flights...

Christina

That Cordoba day in the middle must be a mistake, it doesn't even make sense to go down there and then back up to Bilbao the next day. You must mean some other city?

I think 100+ euro for a meal is a splurge, I've never spent that much in my life and I"m a lot older and have more money than you, I'm sure. BUt it's your money, if you know some place to do that, fine, that you want to go to. But I think your budget is otherwise a bit skimpy. You are budgeting only 75 euro a day for everything?? That means meals, local entertainment and transportation and accommodations? I guess if you only stay in the cheapest hostels, you probably could, though, and only eat one meal out (and it's not those 100 euro meals). So if you really stick to that, I think you could do that for 75 euro a day. And you do have that 500 euro cushion. I don't really know how much your flights and train will cost.

Have you checked out flights? Because there are no direct flights from Seville to Venice that I know of. Vueling goes there with a change of planes somewhere (probably Barcelona) and that flight will cost maybe 150 euro or so at any reasonable timeframe. You can fly Easyjet direct from Malaga to Milan. You can fly Iberia for around 100 euro and it will change in Madrid, that's better than Vueling.

I don't think there are any direct flights from Bilbao to Almeria either, you'll have to transfer in Madrid.

branderson925

Alright thanks so far for the replies. I appreciate them a great deal.
First off, the second Cordoba appearance on my itinerary is a mistake so that gives me an extra day to add on the end segment of the trip which is a little crunched. Maybe I'll just do Bologna, a couple of quaint day trips or to the coast like Ravenna/Rimini and then fly home.
I am pretty open on changing the itinerary so it's nice to see what doesn't make sense.
If it's easy enough I wouldn't mind changing the italian section to:
Bologna 2 days
Modena/Parma 1.5 days
Placenza 1 day
Venice 2.5 days and fly home

Whoever suggested the Portugal segment thank you! That is something cool I had an interest in but never put much thought into. Seeing the wine regions could be a cool off the beaten path type of experience. I really want to see Galicia and will likely cut a day from Ourense

Going to do some pondering and will post later with my thoughts.

Looking at flying from Seville to Bologna. Still unsure how I will get from the Basque Country segment to Andalusia. Time saving and budget friendly tips would be nice.

Oh and about budget. I've heard that 70-100 Euros is a reasonable baseline. I consider myself pretty low frills and will be eating out just once per day more times than not. I do not mind staying in big hostel dorms 12-16 ppl which aren't really more than 30 EU/night in the more expensive places I'd be staying (Venice, Madrid)

sandralist

If you switch to Emilia-Romagna instead of the Veneto, then you would be wise just to stay in Bologna rather than move around. It is only 20 minutes to Modena from Bologna, and about an hour to Parma by train. Instead of Piacenza, I would definitely suggest Ravenna, not so much for its beaches but its spectacular historic Byzantine mosaics. They are among the truly great sights in Europe. If you are going during beach weather months, then spend a night in Ravenna so you can both have a swim and see the mosaics.

For your "spluge" Italian meal, I am going to recommend that you book a Home Food dinner. You may already know that the best food of Italy is not served in its restaurants but in the homes of Italians. Some years in ago in Bologna, a group of cooks started a nationwide of consortium of excellent home cooks who prepare meals in their homes. All of them are carefully screened for having great cooking skills and preserving the best traditions of Italian slow food. The quality is unsurpassed, plus you have the wonderful experience of eating with dedicated cooks whoshare their passion for cooking and food with you. You needn't worry about speaking Italian because if they don't speak great English, they will invite English speakers to join the table. But almost all of them speak English.

Here is the website for Home Food and in the weeks before you leave home to travel, you can look to see what is being offered during the time you will be in Bologna or Ravenna (or Parma or Modena). You will be able to see the dinner menus ahead of time and book online.

http://www.homefood.it/en/

sandralist

You can look now at what is typically offered as Home Food menus in Bolgona, and you can see that the prices are less than half of what you've budgeted for splurge meals, and they include wine

http://www.homefood.it/en/cerca-menu...&button=Search

branderson925

Oh and as I mentioned I alotted an extra 460 for flights and longer trains. The only flights im looking at would be Sevilla > Bologna (I'm guessing less than 100) and from Basque Country to Andalusia (I'm guessing ~80) That leaves me with 250 for a handful of long buses and trains. Should I add here since my daily budget isn't really intended to pay for cross city travel (unless it's like a quick distance ~3hr bus/train)

branderson925

Very cool. The base in Bologna is a great idea. Also, thanks for the homefood link, I've never heard of it. Looks like a cool concept. I plan on hitting a pricey place in San Sebastian where a lot of the trendiest fine dining trends are emerging from as well as rave reviews (with high prices taboot )

I'm starting to tack on projected bus and shorter train rides to see where those put me. At first I thought a 1 Country Spain pass from Eurail would be perfect but for 5 travel days paying $300 US doesn't seem like it will be worth it given my path (or really many paths I can imagine)

sandralist

Don't know about Spain but you can tote up most of the transportation costs for Italy online by using the Trenitalia website + looking at airport websites to get info about shuttles to and from. For some of the shortest train trips, like Bologna to Modena, you might not be shown a price from Trenitalia because they don't sell hyperlocal tickets on line, but you can assume they are less than 5 euros. For Venice, using the vaporetti can be whoppingly expensive. You can walk everywhere except the other islands but you have to think about how far you are going to want to carry your luggage if you want to avoid vaporetti costs.

You might also want to start toting up the cost of entry to some highly worthwhile sites, like the mosque in Cordoba or the mosaics in Ravenna. No point in going thousands of miles to see fabulous things if you don't have the euros to enter and sometimes there are useful discount cards for multiple sites (like the Ravenna card). In fine tuning your itinerary with respect to flights, etc., you also need to stay on top of which days and what hours things are open. You are planning to spend a very short amount of time in some places, so you don't want to be constantly disappointed. As you already know, both Spain and Italy have long midday closures and government budgets too small to keep sites open every day. So you need to know if it makes sense to go to Toledo on one day rather than another.

Glad you like the Home Food idea! After a lot of days on the road, you might find it a great change of pace to eat in a cook's home. They also do Home Food meals in Venice, which given the high cost of Venice restaurant meals (and their low quality) you might find worth it. You should also look up info about cichetti in Venice, their small plates tradition which can be a simpler way to eat in the evening.

Some budget possibilities for Venice

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...s-cicheti-wine

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...-drink-cheaply

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...e-hotel-review

http://www.theguardian.com/travel/20...orgio-maggiore

kimhe

As Sandralist suggests "you will do much better financially if you make your big meal of the day lunch" as most locals.

All over Spain restaurants serve bargain three courses Menu del dia for lunch with drinks included, and in most restaurants outside the most touristy areas this will set you back some 8-12€.

Many tapas bars and restaurants still give you a free tapa with every drink, and it's still the custom all over the Granada region. A bar-round at night with five-six glasses of whatever, and you've had a varied meal for some 10€ in total. Also many places in Madrid, Barcelona and Salamanca serve a free tapa with every glass. http://gospain.about.com/od/fooddrin...togettapas.htm

But small Nerja by the Med is king when it comes to free tapas (free tapas is still the norm also in many inland small towns in the Malaga region). Here you get free, freshly made, delicious and substantial tapas with every drink of whatever for some 1,50€ in almost all bars and restaurants in town (La Marina, El Pulguilla, El Niño, La Puntilla, El Cangrejo, El Velero would make up a round of excellent and genuine tapas bars/restaurants in Nerja).

Have your splurge meal in Spain in San Sebastian, the culinary capital of Spain and perhaps all of Europe. Several Michelin star restaurants, but any place serving less than excellent stuff in food crazy San Sebastian is out of business in a few weeks. Go for gourmet pintxos and expect to spend some 50€: http://www.todopintxos.com/ruta/ruta...cha_rutas&id=1

or visit one of my favourite "normal" restaurants in town. Plain fantastic food, and you could splurge way below your budget:
Urola (my favourite since 1987, still the same sky high standars): http://www.casaurolajatetxea.es/en/portada/
La Muralla (had a fantastic tasting menu here a couple of years ago): http://www.restaurantelamuralla.com/es/

Or perhaps go to Tickets in Barcelona? Tickets is the new paradise version of traditional tapas style restaurant run by the Adrià brothers of the world's by far most awarded restaurant the past decade, now closed El Bulli. Very affordable Tickets is #57 on the world's 100 best restaurants list after just two years. http://www.theworlds50best.com/

The basic concept is traditional tapas prepared and presented as you never would imagine and with tastes to the maximum. Iberian ham, Spanish cheeses, olives, croquetas, tomatoes, anchoas, shellfish, Iberian pork etc etc plus some surprises from out of this world. Just tell the waiter how much you would like to spend and what kind of food you like, and then leave it up to the kitchen to make it an evening never to forget. The four of us had 17 dishes here some months ago and payed around around 75€ each with wine/cava included. Lived very much up to the high expectations.

You can only book online and only 60 days in advance. Tables are literally gone 10 minutes after midnight 60 days prior to every day year around, so you have to be online on midnight Barcelona time two months on the day before you want to book a table. http://www.ticketsbar.es/web/en/

sandralist

While I've not eaten at Tickets, for my money I would much sooner keep to your plan of spending 5 days in the Basque country if you are interested in top food. I would not change your itinerary to include Barcelona.