Thu, 18 Sep 2003

author Tim	location Padova, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italia
posted 17:54 CEST 18/09/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Italia ( all photos )

REALLY BAD NEWS (we're safe though) ( No photos )
Well, we were sailing along quite well on this holiday, and now one of the worst things that could have happened to us has just happened. Rosie's problem is a blown head gasket.
The insurance we have are helpful, but don't provide cover for the entire 2500 euro cost (= AUD $5000) which we have been quoted for repair. We are currently waiting to hear back from them to see if there is any movement on this very high price we have been quoted.
We have been in touch with the person we bought the van off in Netherlands, and she is helping quite a bit also, however would be of most help if the van was back there. She believes, as we do, that the quote we have been given is excessively high.
We have spent the best part of the day trying to work out just how we are going to spend the remainder of our holiday. We certainly don't have that sort of money just to throw around the place, the end result of which is that we will definitely be cutting our travels short.
Our options include towing it back to Netherlands (even more expensive than fixing the problem), travelling the last few countries by train/plane/backpack/hire car, or even flying home now. This last one isn't quite as bad as it might sound - we have seen a huge amount of the continent, but there are still a few things we want to see, most notably Paris, Spain and Rome.
If we can get a cheaper quote, we are leaning towards adding the costs to our mounting pile of debt to deal with later, and doing a "blitz" trip for a month or so of just the main things we want to see.
We would then either go back to England for the remaining month and stay with friends to keep the costs down, or move our flights forward if it won't cost us too much.

So, a "bad thing" has finally happened, but nothing is stolen, neither of us is hurt, and we remain mostly optimistic about what we are going to do.
Now we are going for a wander back to the internet café to get out of the hotel room and clear our minds a bit.

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