I recently spent a week in Milan for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza – here’s how I afforded it.

Wednesday

I previously blogged about why I chose to fly instead of get a coach to Italy. We flew from London Gatwick to Milan Linate on the Wednesday before the race. On the Wednesday evening, we headed into central Milan and saw Il Duomo at night, which was spectacular. We got a bit ripped off by going to a restaurant with cheap pizza but that charged €5 for bottled water!

€4.50 Day bus ticket

€20.50 Dinner

Thursday

Thursday was our first day exploring Monza and the historic circuit. It was an incredible day climbing the old banking and meeting F1 drivers at the pit lane walkabout. Because buses weren’t put on until Friday, we ended up walking miles through Monza town and I was daft enough to wear flip flops so got blisters! But we saved money by having free breakfast at the hotel each day.

€4.50 Bus

€4.40 Train

€7 Dinner

€8 Cokes

€6.70 Plasters

€1.40 Toilets

Friday

By Friday we knew what we were doing with the trains a bit more, even though the special weekend bus/train combo tickets advertised on the train were unavailable and no-one at Milan Centrale Station had heard of them! The train back home nobody ever charged us for though which kind of made up for it.

€2.10 Train

€4 Water bottles & coffee

€15 Grand Prix programme

€8.50 Dinner (McDonalds, cringe!)

€33.40 Presents

Saturday

The atmosphere by this point was really building – there was a wicked band at the circuit on Saturday whose CD I bought; other than that another brilliant day at the track!

€5 CD

€4.10 Train

€4 Bus

€4 Water bottles

€7.50 Dinner

Sunday

Race day! Just the best day. My first Italian Grand Prix was proper good fun – check this video!

€4 Train

€4 Bus

€8 Lunch

€4 Water bottles

€15 Beers

€9.50 Souvenirs

€10.50 Dinner

Monday

We spent our first day away from the circuit exploring Milan and even treated ourselves to dinner out.

€4.50 Train

€2.25 Stamps

€9 Lunch

€38.40 Dinner

€2.80 Ice Cream

€104 Presents

Tuesday

On Tuesday we took the train to a Milanese park and chilled there until it was time to head to the airport and fly home.

€355.15 Hotel – we got stung with an extra €4 per person per night charge that the Milanese city charge as tax, which had never been communicated; I had already paid 15% (€49.40) as a deposit.

€4.50 Train ticket

€8.30 Lunch

€6.40 Presents

TOTAL SPENT DURING THE WEEK: €729.90

TOTAL SPENT DURING THE WEEK (NOT INC. HOTEL): €374.75 (average €53.54 per day)