Road Trip Day 7 - home, sweet home

We woke up in what turned out to be by far the most luxurious room of our trip. We were staying in a large corner suite of the mansion with gorgeous views of the gardens and it even had a tapestry (!) on the wall above the master bed. Kids didn't care about anything like that as much as they did about a giant TV that they watched while we were getting ready to go down for breakfast. The hotel is pretty cool. It has photos and history of the Trapp family (the original Austrian family from the Sound of Music film) over the walls and some of their old furniture. They even do tours of the house at midday every day. Each room has a theme, and you can even stay in the Sound Of Music suite. Breakfast was served on a giant long table where all guests could sit together. There were some very loud and chatty Americans and a Canadian couple who sat next to us. They were on their two week tour of Europe, and because he is of German heritage they went to his old ancestrial home and stumbled upon an 80+ neighbour who knew his uncle. Very cool story.

After getting Tom to pee in the Trapp family gardens we drove off. We hit some roadworks coming out of Salzburg and a bit of traffic going past Munich. It's been a sunny 25 degree day. We stopped off for lunch somewhere past Nürenberg. Kids played on a playground for a bit and at around 14:30 we set off again. Tom slept for what must have been nearly 3 hours. After he woke we did another quick pit stop and then did the final 2 hour leg of the journey to Berlin with the kids watching cartoons. We walked through our front door at 19:40. Overall it has been a very nice short trip. We got good experience driving with kids over long distances and both agree that it works well despite expectations to the contrary. It was also very nice to get away, albeit for only a week. We definitely want to come back to Croatia again, but next time in proper summer. And... *drum roll*... this concludes my rambling about our trip :)

Road Trip Day 5 - fish and train

This morning we went for a long walk to try and find the sandy beach on the other side of the marina.  On the way there we went past hundreds of boats and yachts parked at the port.  Along the shore there were heaps of fish to be seen. Tom's excitement grew and grew with every fish that he saw.  After walking for about 40 mins we didn't find the sandy beach, which I think was still further, but we did find a nice big empty playground and a multitude of little green lizards. Kids played on the playground, we sat around in the sun, then in the shade (both of us adults are getting pretty sunburned). And then we headed back.

Back at the apartment Tom had his nap and Tim and I went for ice cream by the beach.  We watched a local guy fix his sports fishing boat. While he was at it another two older local dudes arrived and conversed in Croatian about what seemed to be advice on how to fix whatever he was doing. In the end the guy got frustrated and gave up and went with the others for what looked like a beer. Tim and I bought some postcards and then went the sea road back and annoyed a few crabs on our way. They kept hiding in the rocks, so we tried to fish them out without any success.

After Tom got up we went riding on a little tourist train that is effectively a bunch of cute carriages being pulled by a tractor. Tom absolutely loved it. Tim got bored after about 5 mins and then started playing a game on the camera that he got for his birthday. It made me think that he's hitting teenage years. After that we went past home to get buckets and went more stone and crab fishing and then for yummy fish dinner. At dinner a little cat came and kept us company under the table. Tim kept trying to interact with it and in the end fed it a piece of fish.

 

  

  

 It wasn't such a good day in terms of toilet training as Tom kept forgetting to tell us he needed to go and we kept walking around with little plastic bags of wet Tom washing. We got home fairly late and after putting the kids to bed, we did a load of washing, reminisced about the day and how the kids are growing and changing, and then finished watching the last episode of the House of Cards. The last season really did pick up in the second half. The final two episodes were just brilliant. Can't wait for Season 5!

Road Trip Day 4 - Novigrad... rocks into the sea!

Last night we put Tom to sleep into Tim's king size bed to see if perhaps he'll be warmer that way. But he decided that he won't have any of this blanket-on-top-of-me-crap, and slept perpendicularly across the top beyond the reach of the blanket and despite our numerous efforts throughout the night to cover him up. In the night Jack and I kept getting up and without checking with one another first, we kept either turning on the heater or turning it off, depending on whether it was freezing or boiling in their room. Still, in the morning Tom woke up cold and coughing. Sigh.  Perhaps tonight he'll have to sleep with us, meaning that neither of us will get any sleep... oh well. Sacrifices we do for our children :)))

It has been another warm and sunny day. We spent the whole morning on the waterfront, playing on a cute ship-playground, collecting and throwing stones in the water and playing the frisbee. Along the beach there are plenty of little puddles with fish, mollusks and little crabs. Kids have been carrying little buckets along and filling them up with water. In the afternoon we spent time blowing soap bubbles off the balcony and playing football on the lawn.

   

Towards the evening we all even got a bit of a sunburn. While Jack was cooking dinner, I took the boys for another walk along the water. On our way back we found a big white seashell not far from the edge. We couldn't reach it straight away, so we went searching for a long stick. After a little while we found one in a random courtyard. We returned and fished it out and all happy brought our treasure back to the apartment. It has been a nice day.

Road Trip Day 3 - Novigrad... beautiful seaside, but is it really us?

Novigrad is our first experience with AirBnB. We booked the apartment where we're staying a while back, because it was a) cheap, b) seemed to have everything we wanted (eg. two separate rooms) and c) very close to the beach.  When we got here it fulfilled most of our expectations except for the fact that it was freezing. Maybe because it hasn't been warm here for too long, or maybe because of some insulation issues, but it is colder here than it is in Berlin in the middle of winter with the heating off. And there were also not enough blankets.

So Jack and I spent our first night paranoid that the kids will be cold, who were still getting over some standard Berlin spring cold. And we were worried especially about Tom, because he was sleeping in his travel cot on the floor and among all the pre-trip stress we forgot his warmer sleeping bag. Even though we put some of the deficit blankets down for under his cot, he didn't seem to be that toasty. In the end we turned on the heater there, which is a little wall thing that probably eats a ton of electricity and doesn't really have a good regulator - ie. being either completely off, or boiling hot.

In the morning we went for breakfast and then to the supermarket for some food shopping. The absolute highlight was buying a 1kg block of cheese, that was nearly perfectly square. In the afternoon we did some unpacking and a load of washing.

We're taking the opportunity of warmer weather to do more toilet training with Tom... so he's been running around nappy-free and we're running after him, checking if he needs to pee... So far we've had only one set of wet pants to change.

The town is very cool, with many cute houses, lots of little parks with playgrounds, cafes, pizzerias and a beautiful seaside. It is very clean and the water is very clear. The beachfront is either stone or concrete, but that doesn't stop many locals from putting down a towel right on the stones and sunbaking.

  

  

 

Somehow Jack and I both had different expectations that it will be much warmer here (certainly inside the apartment) and cheaper in terms of food, as we are perhaps spoiled by Greece. So after putting the kids to bed Jack and I spent a few hours reminiscing about our beloved Greece and how things are different here, and whinging to each other how cold it is. But in the end we decided to stop our whining and focus on the fact that the kids love it, especially all the playgrounds and walking along the water. So perhaps we just need to give it more of a chance...

Road Trip Day 2 - Salzburg to Novigrad over the Alps

We were completely tired by the time we got back to our hotel in Salzburg, so we all went straight to bed. In some ways that was inevitable, 'cos we were all staying in one room. We got the longest amount of sleep in months - Tom was the first to wake around 8:30am. So good to catch up on sleep!

Then a quick brekky in the hotel and off we drove to Croatia, beginning our journey after filling up another tank of petrol pretty close to midday.

  

We decided to take the scenic route and drive along the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which happens to be the tallest road in Europe. It took us about 1,5hrs to get to the start of it, and then having paid 25 EUR discounted price we were climbing into the Alps! The views were just staggering. After about 30 mins of driving we had snow on both sides of the road. The road is great and gets taken good care of. There was a multitude of special snow cleaning machines all along the road. There were many people on motorcycles enjoying the views. And a lot of very brave and motivated bike riders. The road is very steep and windy, but we saw only one guy who has gotten off and was pushing his bike - the rest were soldering on.

There are lookouts all along and a big one right at the top. From there we even saw an avalanche on a mountain across from us. Tom fell asleep a second before we got there, so he enjoyed it only passively. Having taken some pictures we set off again and after about another 30 mins the road stopped abruptly at a closed gate. This got us pretty worried, as we already began to imagine various scenarios of having to drive back to Salzburg and taking a different road. But it turned out to be only closed for those who wanted to go look at a glacier. Although even those people were not allowed through, because in half an hour they were expecting a helicopter to come flying to drop bombs to set off more avalanches to get the snow off the mountains. Unfortunately we had to head off and couldn't stick around for the fun, but we still saw plenty of beauty on the way down.

 

 Shortly after we got to the end of the Grossglockner Road we crossed the border into Italy. The change of scenery was interesting. After a little while it was very obviously no longer Austria - houses had plenty more flowers and people didn't seem to pay as much attention to the road - both drivers and pedestrians. As we left the Italian Alps behind us we got onto a paid Autostrada, which must be the best road I've ever driven on... EVER!  It was very empty in the beginning as we were passing Trieste and it had the same smooth paving as City Link when it just opened. At some point we noticed that in my excitement I kept overtaking everybody, so Jack looked up allowed speed and turned out that Italian top speed is 130. Oops.

In the late afternoon we sneaked into Slovenia. Sneaked - because the larger chunk of the Italian Autostrada lead to a great big Slovenian tollway, which would've set us back another 15 EUR, so instead we took a tiny little turn off at a service station right before the border crossing that took us onto the slower back roads. This had the additional advantage of us seeing more of the countryside, which is very pretty. We saw about 40 mins worth of Slovenia when the road suddenly stopped at a line of cars standing at the Slovenia/Croatia border. First it seemed that everyone was getting thoroughly checked but at some point the border guards must've gotten bored and just let everyone through.

Finally after another 20 mins we arrived at our final destination of Novigrad at just after 8pm. Everyone was very tired, so we went for quick dinner by the seafront. The kids didn't really eat much and Timmy nearly fell asleep in his chair. Then it was back to the apartment and sleep, sleep, sleep...

 

Road Trip Day 1 - driving to Salzburg

We were planning to leave Berlin very early, so as to avoid traffic and to get to Salzburg early to see more of the town, but after so much stress the day before we decided to get a decent night sleep and left promptly at 10:00. Our first stop was to fill up a full tank of diesel and ogle hundreds of bikers on our way out of Berlin on a very warm and sunny spring day.

 

We hit a traffic jam about an hour out of Berlin, but then managed to make up lost time by driving 170km/h on the autobahn. YAY - love the autobahn!

About 2 hours in we hat a pit stop for some apples and observed cuteness that was going to become venison.

  

 

Our next stop was McDonalds to have lunch of champions. On our previous (and first one ever for the kids) time there we were surprised at the offer of very educational childrens books with happy meals. This time McDonalds didn't disappoint with good old chinese toy crap - two little soft toys in layers of plastic packaging, that both kids just loved and even took them to sleep with. There we were for a second thinking that McDonalds is no longer the world's evilist establishment. ha!

On the next stretch of the journey kids slept and then watched a long cartoon, thanks to a special tablet-in-car-holding-stick. Mindless entertainment for children - what would we do without you!

And then at about 7pm we arrived in Salzburg...

We went for a walk to the centre to discover lots of pretty things - a very nice garden with some beautiful hedges and fountains. Oh, Salzburg has lots of trolleybuses - something I definitely did not expect! Many beautiful buildings. Walking past Mozart house we got to a gorgeous riverside with a cute bridge full of lovers-locks. From there we had a good view of the castle up on th hill. We had some hot dogs on the riverbank for dinner and walked a little through a very very pretty central lane. But given that it was already getting close to 10pm we headed back to the hotel.

  

  

  

 

  

Overall the journey was a lot easier than we expected. Kids were well behaved and although it was a very long drive - some 700km, it was certainly very manageable and even enjoyable.