We set off on this massive car trip on Friday, July 24th. We drove south through Switzerland into Italy and made it to Verona, Italy by lunch. Verona is where "Romeo and Juliet" was set. We had a nice lunch in the main piazza and gelato for dessert (I've heard that gelato was first made in Verona, but I'm not sure that's true).
After Verona, we drove the last few hours to Venice. We had to park on the mainland and take our luggage with us on a Vaporetto (boat), which is Venice's form of public transportation. We had rented an apartment, which turned out to be the attic of an apartment! It was big enough for the 4 of us, which is hard to find in Europe and was in our budget (barely) which is hard to find in Venice, so we made do. Poor Jason couldn't stand up straight in it though! It was a-frame and very low ceilings. We felt like giants! Luckily, we only stayed there 2 nights and only came back to sleep. It was (kind of) air conditioned and in a really nice, not touristy, part of Venice. We had a great view of the canals from our bathroom (and only) window.
We did all the touristy stuff you have to do in Venice. We wandered the neighborhoods, cruised the Grand Canal, walked on Rialto Bridge, went to St. Mark's Square and took a gondola ride. Venice is truly beautiful and unique, but I have to admit that I didn't love it. It would be great without all the tourists! We could barely see Rialto Bridge and St. Mark's Square because of all the people and worse, souvenir shops! Many of the beautiful buildings were covered by advertisements and banners. I think the maintenance of such a place has forced the citizens to "sell out" to tourists and sponsors for financial support. It's a bummer, but if you wander the neighborhoods off the main tourist track and use your imagination, you can see what Venice must have been like in it's heyday. We enjoyed it, but I don't think I'd go back. It was SO expensive! Actually, the coolest part of the experience is that on the drive we listened to an audiobook of The Magic Treehouse (a kids' series) about Venice in the 1700's. We all learned about Carnivale and the flying lion symbol of Venice. The kids were really actively looking for the places that Jack and Annie went to in the book. It helped us see the real Venice through the throngs of tourists.
Here we are on our 80 Euro, 30 minute gondola ride. Fun, but expensive! As we were leaving Venice, we saw a girl with a Michigan State bag-how's that for a coincidence! She was totally taken back when we walked by and said "Go green!" She regained her composure and said "Go white!" back to us and said "that is just too cool!" I agreed!We left Venice around noon on Sunday (it's not easy to get from your hotel to actually being on the road-we aimed to leave earlier!) We thought we only had about 6 hours of driving to get to Split, Croatia, but it ended up being more like 8 hours due to stopping for lunch and getting a little lost at the Italy/Slovenia border. We had printed directions from Yahoo! and had our car nav system but apparently some new highways have been built recently! Our nav system had no idea where we were on the highway and the signs were confusing and not matching our printed directions. So we drove in circles for about an hour before we found the road listed on our printout. Then it was smooth sailing to Slovenia, where we bought a new map of Slovenia and Croatia! That was a good thing as our nav system was completely useless in most of Croatia. It only knew of the "old" roads, the beautiful new high speed highway was not on it! We just followed the signs to Split and used the new map and had no trouble. We were driving at least 140km/hr for the whole time on the new highway-a great way to make up lost time! The scenery wasn't much on the drive to Split. All the construction left a lot of barren dirt covered area, plus I think there was some residual damage from the war there in the 90's and it's kind of a desert-y area anyway. Once we made it into Split, though, the scenery changed. All of a sudden, we saw the crystal clear blue-green of the Adriatic Sea. There aren't many hotels, but there were a lot of rental apartments along the coast. We made it to our hotel (Le Meridien) and were very pleasantly surprised! We got a good rate online for what is one of the best brands of hotels, but seeing the hotels and apartments along the way, we didn't have super high hopes. But, wow! It is definitely one of the best hotels I've ever seen! We had a big room with a huge balcony that overlooked the marina where yachts that I can't even describe were docked (I can't believe I didn't take a picture of any of them!). There was a spa, an infinity pool, a nice, but rocky, beach and lots of restaurants. Even more, they had tons of free activities for kids and adults! There was a "Penguin Club" like a day care at the hotel that was free to guests and they did all sorts of cool activities. Aidan and Lainey really liked it and took free Croatian lessons, swimming lessons, did lots of arts and crafts, did a treasure hunt and played with water balloons. In the evenings they also hosted mini-discos (but we never made it to one). For adults, they offered lots of sports: archery, jet skiing, yoga, beach volleyball, etc. All of the activities were free to guests! Really a resort feel. In fact, we liked just being at the hotel so much, we nixed our plans for a day trip to Dubrovnik. We may regret it, once we hear what our friends say about it (our friends met us in Split for 3 nights before continuing to Dubrovnik for 2 nights), but driving 3 1/2 hours each way in one day couldn't compete with swimming more in the pool and sea!
Going to the pool area at the hotel
One night, after playing in the pool all day, we drove a half hour into Trogir, another 5th century town. It was amazingly well preserved and a cool experience. We wandered the maze- like narrow streets of the old town and had dinner there at a restaurant recommended to us by a girl Jason works with who's from Split. We had seafood that was swimming in the Adriatic just a few hours earlier, and Aidan even tried some! Here is a pic from Trogir:
On Tuesday, we went into the city of Split (our hotel was just outside the city on the beach). We wanted to see Diocletian's Palace. He was a Roman ruler during the 5th century and his palace has been preserved. It was unbelievable to think this huge structure has stood for over 1500 years! It's been converted into apartments and shops now, but they've maintained the heart of it. We climbed up the bell tower and had amazing views of the entire palace and sea.
Later that night, we had dinner with our friends, the Scarcellos at the hotel. We had a mini-birthday celebration for Aidan and their son Joe who turned 9 on the 31st.
Going to the pool area at the hotel
One night, after playing in the pool all day, we drove a half hour into Trogir, another 5th century town. It was amazingly well preserved and a cool experience. We wandered the maze- like narrow streets of the old town and had dinner there at a restaurant recommended to us by a girl Jason works with who's from Split. We had seafood that was swimming in the Adriatic just a few hours earlier, and Aidan even tried some! Here is a pic from Trogir:
On Tuesday, we went into the city of Split (our hotel was just outside the city on the beach). We wanted to see Diocletian's Palace. He was a Roman ruler during the 5th century and his palace has been preserved. It was unbelievable to think this huge structure has stood for over 1500 years! It's been converted into apartments and shops now, but they've maintained the heart of it. We climbed up the bell tower and had amazing views of the entire palace and sea.
Later that night, we had dinner with our friends, the Scarcellos at the hotel. We had a mini-birthday celebration for Aidan and their son Joe who turned 9 on the 31st. One of the things we really wanted to do in Croatia was get out to some of the islands. There are over 1000 islands off the coast of Croatia. It's a huge sailing and yachting area. We settled for a half day trip out to the nearest island, Brac. We had to take 2 boats, one for each family, but we met up and anchored out together. We had such a good time just riding and swimming, we never actually made it onto the island! We just went to 2 coves and played in the crystal clear water; we didn't want to waste time in another city when we could be on the boat! This was my favorite day of the whole vacation!
Here is a picture of a sunset at our hotel:
We left Split early Friday morning, and drove to Plitvicka National Park. We saw this park in our Rick Steve's video and it looked amazing. We didn't leave a lot of time for it, but we were able to see the waterfalls and beautiful lakes.
We kept driving up into Slovenia. I had read that the capital, Ljubljana was a really pretty city, so we stopped there for dinner. I LOVED Ljubljana! It was so pretty with all it's Baroque buildings and squares and old-town area. It was like Zurich, only more colorful! Plus, it's a little more modern and young than Zurich. Lots of trendy, funky shops and tons of restaurants. We ate in a funky Cali-Mex fusion restaurant-way more tasty and modern than anything I've had elsewhere in Europe. I'd drive back there just to shop and eat:). You can tell it's a city that is thriving with young people after being a communist country just 20 years ago.
We reluctantly left Ljubljana after only 3 hours there and drove the rest of the way to Salzburg, Austria where we were staying Friday night. We made it to Salzburg around 11pm and just crashed into bed. We woke up early Saturday and set off to see the highlights of Salzburg. We wanted to see Mozart's birthplace, the Sound of Music setting, the Festung HohenSalzburg (fortress) and Hellbrun Castle. We made it to all but the castle because it wasn't withing walking distance. The entire city revolves around their famous son, Mozart. You can buy just about anything from chocolate to Christmas ornaments with his face on it! They were having a summer festival with live open-air concerts, but we got in too late on Friday to go to any, plus Opera isn't really our thing. The fortress was really cool, and the kids loved it. We did an audio tour and went into the museum. It was built in the 5th century and was used as a fortress, a prison, and a home at different times. Now it houses a military history museum, a museum with artifacts from as long ago as 700AD, and a marionette museum. The marionettes were interesting but a little spooky! There's a marionette theatre in town at Mirabell Garden, but it wasn't having any performances that day. We went to Mirabell Gardens, too, where the Sound of Music was partially filmed. Now, I have to rent the movie to show the kids. I meant to do that before we left, but never did.
We headed out of Salzburg around 2pm and drove into Innsbruck, Austria for dinner. We sidetracked a bit to the Swarovski Crystal factory, but didn't have time to go to the "crystal fantasy museum". We just went to the gift shop and played in the gardens. (I didn't even know it was in Austria-sorry mom, you'd have loved it I think! Maybe if you come back at Christmas...it's only 2 or 3 hours away) Innsbruck is smaller than Salzburg, and another cute old town. On the upside, it was much cheaper than Salzburg or Zurich! Lainey and Aidan each got a souvenir, we had dinner, wandered a bit and headed home. They were also having open-air concerts and we overheard a bit as we left. Here's Lainey with her souvenir doll and a performer:
We made it back to Zurich around 10pm last night. We were welcomed by fireworks over the lake! August 1st is the Swiss equivalent to our 4th of July. It was a really pretty drive along the lake. We covered a lot of European ground in a little over a week! We went through 6 countries along the way: Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, and a little drive through Lichtenstein! If we had gone to Dubrovnik, we could add Serbia to the list as you have to cross over a bit to get there, but I think 6 was enough for this trip! This vacation was the perfect blend of relaxation/beach time with history/culture.
Here is a picture of a sunset at our hotel:
We left Split early Friday morning, and drove to Plitvicka National Park. We saw this park in our Rick Steve's video and it looked amazing. We didn't leave a lot of time for it, but we were able to see the waterfalls and beautiful lakes.
We kept driving up into Slovenia. I had read that the capital, Ljubljana was a really pretty city, so we stopped there for dinner. I LOVED Ljubljana! It was so pretty with all it's Baroque buildings and squares and old-town area. It was like Zurich, only more colorful! Plus, it's a little more modern and young than Zurich. Lots of trendy, funky shops and tons of restaurants. We ate in a funky Cali-Mex fusion restaurant-way more tasty and modern than anything I've had elsewhere in Europe. I'd drive back there just to shop and eat:). You can tell it's a city that is thriving with young people after being a communist country just 20 years ago.
We reluctantly left Ljubljana after only 3 hours there and drove the rest of the way to Salzburg, Austria where we were staying Friday night. We made it to Salzburg around 11pm and just crashed into bed. We woke up early Saturday and set off to see the highlights of Salzburg. We wanted to see Mozart's birthplace, the Sound of Music setting, the Festung HohenSalzburg (fortress) and Hellbrun Castle. We made it to all but the castle because it wasn't withing walking distance. The entire city revolves around their famous son, Mozart. You can buy just about anything from chocolate to Christmas ornaments with his face on it! They were having a summer festival with live open-air concerts, but we got in too late on Friday to go to any, plus Opera isn't really our thing. The fortress was really cool, and the kids loved it. We did an audio tour and went into the museum. It was built in the 5th century and was used as a fortress, a prison, and a home at different times. Now it houses a military history museum, a museum with artifacts from as long ago as 700AD, and a marionette museum. The marionettes were interesting but a little spooky! There's a marionette theatre in town at Mirabell Garden, but it wasn't having any performances that day. We went to Mirabell Gardens, too, where the Sound of Music was partially filmed. Now, I have to rent the movie to show the kids. I meant to do that before we left, but never did.
We headed out of Salzburg around 2pm and drove into Innsbruck, Austria for dinner. We sidetracked a bit to the Swarovski Crystal factory, but didn't have time to go to the "crystal fantasy museum". We just went to the gift shop and played in the gardens. (I didn't even know it was in Austria-sorry mom, you'd have loved it I think! Maybe if you come back at Christmas...it's only 2 or 3 hours away) Innsbruck is smaller than Salzburg, and another cute old town. On the upside, it was much cheaper than Salzburg or Zurich! Lainey and Aidan each got a souvenir, we had dinner, wandered a bit and headed home. They were also having open-air concerts and we overheard a bit as we left. Here's Lainey with her souvenir doll and a performer:
We made it back to Zurich around 10pm last night. We were welcomed by fireworks over the lake! August 1st is the Swiss equivalent to our 4th of July. It was a really pretty drive along the lake. We covered a lot of European ground in a little over a week! We went through 6 countries along the way: Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, and a little drive through Lichtenstein! If we had gone to Dubrovnik, we could add Serbia to the list as you have to cross over a bit to get there, but I think 6 was enough for this trip! This vacation was the perfect blend of relaxation/beach time with history/culture.
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