Somehow or other, I seem to be fascinated by this term …
Well, I made a calculation showing the cost of our journey. And it shows me that riding bikes through Corsica for a little more than a week is everything but a cheap vacation. At least it is a lot more expensive than your common way of vacationing. Is that a type of Late Roman Decadence?
Here is my calculation:
The train from Munich to Florence (well, we took the sleeping compartment) and then on to Livorno, then the ship from Livorno to Bastia (Corsica) and back and the small narrow-gauge railway (CSC) on Corsica cost a total of around 1,000 Euros.
Hotels for a double bedroom on Corsica are between 50 and 80 Euros without breakfast. If you include breakfast, you pay at least another 10 Euros.
Consequently, you have to spend around 75 Euros per night on hotels if you go to Corsica in April. If you go in May or June, you pay considerably more.
As everything else, dinner on Corsica, too, is far from cheap. You will hardly find any meal for less than 10 Euros. For tourist dinners, you pay a minimum of 15 Euros, some places ask considerably more. The small beer is always more then 3 Euros, a bottle of wine more than 15 Euros. As a general rule, you pay between 50 and 70 Euros per dinner for two without ever having eaten the expensive meals.
If you want to indulge in the occasional hot chocolate or coffee during the day, a beer in the afternoon, or a delicious quiche from the Boulangerie (bakery) for lunch (3.50 Euros), your costs of living for a day will easily add up to 150 Euros (or more).Multiplied by seven days, you get 1,050 Euros per week. If you add that to the transport costs, you end up with more than 2,000 Euros for two people spending a week’s vacation on their bikes.
Well, I know quite a few people who went to Egypt, Tunesia or Turkey “all inclusive”at the same time. They paid between 399 (last minute) and 499 (normal booking) Euros for the flight, the four-star hotel, all meals and free drinks per person in the double bedroom. As I see it, these are prices that can only be possible if you exploit both humans and nature to an extreme extent. Also, you have to make maximum use of the global differences in living and income standards.
That, too, might be a type of Late Roman Decadence.
My mind is made up. I prefer to go an average of 80 kilometres and 2,000 height metres by bike each day to going back into the closed tourist world. To be sure, compared with the alternative, I think my way of vacationing is much too expensive. On the other hand: you pay for the privilege to be individualistic.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
:- Of course, the pictures were all taken in Corsica.
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