December. First week. It smells like snow. First mulled wine. Christmass markets. Family. Friends. All those lights in the city. Decorated Christmas tree. Last Christmas in 101 versions on the radio. Fireplace. Yummy dinners. Woollen socks. Expectations. Fairytale-like feeling.
December. All the other weeks on the month. Rain. And 10 degrees. Crowds on the streets, crowds in the shops, crowds everywhere. Stress, because you have no clue what to buy to your loved ones. Too much food. Pants get too tight. There is no snow, so you can´t ski. Stupid movies on TV. You´ve stopped listening to the radio anyway. And this gigantic tree in the living room keeps dropping its needles so you vacuum all the time. Can´t wait for the month to be over.
Anyhow, quite funny that I´ve actually visited so many Christmas markets this year I can hardly count all of them. We started by visiting Zagreb, Croatia, on the last November day. Followed by almost s week in Slovenia saying hi to family & friends. First in Ljubljana and in central Slovenia. After that we spent a few days in snowy Kranjska Gora.
And then it was finally time to hit the road again. Not just with any car. With our LR Defender whom we really missed in the last months as she had a bit of a winter sleep. First to the beautiful Italian Dolomites. Some skiing, some relaxing, sightseeing and yes, also Christmas markets. And we had a bite of the real winter. With freezing -12C we made our stops in Sexten, Tre Cime, Lago di Braies lake, Kronplatz and Brixen. Here we were sleeping in our car for the first time in the winter and despite the low temperatures,it was totally OK. After that we drove through Austria and did the last stretch of the trip driving on German Romantic Road.
We chose this road trip because we had to return to our German home, close by Hanover, to pick up Lu. School holidays were approaching and this year he was all ours until school start in January. And since Autobahn is so boring and we never had enough time to drive a different, longer, route, we decided to take this chance now. Stopping at many medieval towns and charming villages along the German Romantic Road was a very nice thing to do, especially in this time of the year. Read a full post with lots of pictures by clicking the button below the picture.
A few days in Germany to organise some things, pick up the post, unpack and pack again, seeing a couple of friends and we were gone again. Friday at noon, just after Lu´s school, we sat in the car and drove the usual 10 hours back down to Slovenia. So happy to have a non-nagging child. We will be taking the train back though, to see different landscapes and make a stopover in Munich too. But first, holidays back home in Slovenia. Main thing is to be together. Even if the pants are way to tight around the waist already. Greetings from the coast.
