It’s hard to believe, but we’ve just passed our first year in Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is indeed home now (or “for now”, I should say, as such is UN life), and it has already provided us with a beautiful home and endless opportunities to explore locally and a bit further on. Every time a holiday opportunity arises, we are confronted with the question “Do we stay or do we go?”
Llamas on a rainy street this past weekend in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Well, this summer has been a bit of a wash in terms of weather (see above picture, which was taken during a brief lull between thunderstorms). July was the rainiest on record in the Geneva area, so we are keen to find some consistent sun. Add to that I’ve been long awaiting to explore the region of my family’s roots, and our sons’ love of the sea and sea creatures, so we settled on three weeks of exploring mainly the Dalmatian Coast and Bosnia, with stops in Venice, Slovenia, and Austria.
We’re road tripping it, so our itinerary looks like this:
Day 1: Drive to Milan area hotel
Day 2&3: Venice, Italy!
Day 4&5: Poreč, Croatia (Istrian Coast)
Day 6: Zadar, Croatia
Days 7-13: Split, Croatia
Days 14-17: Dubrovnik, Croatia (with side trip to Mostar, Bosnia)
Day 18: Split, Croatia
Day 19: Zagreb, Croatia
Day 20: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Day 21: Salzburg, Austria
Day 22: Innsbruck, Austria and Vaduz, Lichtenstein
Day 23: Home to Geneva!
We already know that we aren’t giving a lot of these places the attention and time they deserve – especially those during the last week of our trip – but we couldn’t resist checking in with them since the route already takes us that way. We’ve already come across some great resources on the web that will help us make the most of our visits, however brief. But more on that later.
So now the question is what to pack? Two boys (aged 8 years and 2 years), hubby and myself, and one medium station wagon and 3 weeks to cover with changeable weather conditions make for an interesting packing challenge, especially as we’re staying partly in hotels and the balance of the time in self-catering apartments. I came across some websites on packing tips from frequent travellers (eg. flight attendants) and discovered that “rolling” your clothes is the way to go! I’ve managed to fit both boys clothes in one small cabin sized suitcase using this handy tactic. I would love to hear about any other packing strategies you might have.
Fondoodles 