Heading south, summer 2014

The outline of the 2014 summer vacation has been sketched little by little this year, before Husband suddenly took out the magic marker and drew with bold lines. The vacation is consequently now planned, booked, and waiting to happen.

We’re going by car again this year. Our own car, but using a bit of Deutsche Bahn’s (German railway company’s) fuel from Hamburg to Munich. We, and our Skoda, are spending a night each way on the Autozug (cartrain) reducing the mileage and the number of days we would need to travel to Italy.

This year we’re planning a week by the coast with a group of friends, some nights in Tuscany with our extended family, about a week near the beautiful Garda lake, and a few nights in culinary heaven at the foot of the Alps. I can’t wait!

Pictures are stolen from the hotels’ websites, Le Volpaie, Agriturismo Ai Casoni, and the Cavallino information site.

Roadtripping “summer” 2013

Roadtripping Denmark in the rain

This year’s summer vacation happened rather late. We left home in the middle of September and went away for about three weeks, not returning before the first days of October. Temperatures at home started to drop the days before we left and the air smelled of autumn. We packed our bathing gear, shorts, t-shirt, summerdresses and short skirts and headed south.

Roadtripping the flatter parts of Switzerland

Leaving home late at night with only a short drive in front of us to catch a ferry to take us to Denmark over night. Drive through Denmark the next day, get on a train in Hamburg, Germany the next day which, during the night, would take us to the German-Swiss border and the city of Lörrach (still in Germany). We had a three-hour-drive to our first main stop: Cannobio, Italy. We would relax there for four nights before driving four hours to Nice, where we would be accompanied by MiL (Mother in Law) and OBiL (Oldest Brother in Law). France would be our home for a full week. Returning home we planned for two nights on the Italian-Swiss border in the town of Ponte Tresa before taking the same route home as we took going south. A perfect road trip with young children aboard.

Reaching the Alps in Switzerland

It’s been the perfect summer holiday, and we are very likely to travel similarly in future summers. We do have room for improvement: family holidays have their ups and down and minor hiccups, but all in all we’ve had a wonderful time together. Stories and pictures will follow soon first I have an exam…

Gardaland Sea Life

As I’ve talked about before, we visited Gardaland and stayed at Gardaland resort this summer. The day we left we first visited Gardaland Sea Life.

This little fella was quite charming

Gardaland Sea Life is a proper aquarium hosting all types of fish and aquatic creatures. For us it was not as entertaining as we thought it might be. It didn’t take us very long to get through the building, and we still felt that it took a little too long. We were getting bored in the end. But the surrounding area quite made up for it. The building seen from the outside was rather stunning.

Lago di Garda

Autumn is here and the rain has set in. The little heat we had over the summer is disappearing fast and the temperature is just above two digits most of the days (actually ranging between 12 and 17 – but it’s getting cold). I like these days. I’m quite handicapped and have to spend most of my days indoors. The dark cozy evenings that I can spend snuggled up on the sofa with a huge cup of teas I welcome with open arms. And I can always dream about the paradise we visited this summer.

I’ll leave you with a few photos from the Garda lake area. Don’t let the dreary weather get you down!