Doesn't seem out of the way to me.
Who did you ring? The people your insurance company recommended? My Renault garage has a list of prices for everything they do or plan to do to my car, they tell me exactly what it is & how urgent it is (ie if I need to do it straight away or just wait until it dies, eg: heating fan which messes about) and I know not only how much it will cost but also how long it will take them to do.
If you had breakdown assistance, and that's who came to bail you out...then they were supposed to take the car to a garage of YOUR choice. Of course, if you do not specify, you lose out.
If anything, I find car repair here cheaper than back home, but maybe it's because I know my garagiste personally, and do all the maintennance myself.
The price of the job i really can't hep you with, but maybe sourcing the parts on Oscaro.com can help with an idea, and then calculate the labour.