Maybe we’re crazy. Maybe we’re not. But we have courage, that I’ll tell you. With our 10/ 11 month old baby we’re hitting the road within a few weeks and leave for Slovenia! A new country, a new family, a new way of traveling. Are we excited? Yes! Are we scared? Double yes! Are we ready? Hell no! But we weren’t ready to become parents neither, and so far it all turned out okay.

We are doing it a bit different from now on, a bit more … ‘relaxed’ without skipping things to see. I mean, that is what I’m hoping for at least. We’re taking the car from Belgium to Slovenia, so that in itself is a long journey and we’re taking a few days to get from point A (Belgium) to point B (Slovenia). Let’s say it’s becoming point D actually. In Slovenia we’ve booked three appartments in which we will stay for four nights each before returning from point F back to point A. Getting confused? Of course you are, that was my goal ;-).

Curious about our planned itinerary? Me too! Because I don’t know when our little one will need his naps within a few weeks and/ or if he’ll still be able to nap in our baby carrier during our walks. Our how quiet he’ll be in the car… We have no idea how our trip will turn out this year. Or what we’ll be able to see or do. But I have hopes. Big hopes. And a plan. I always have a plan. Not a back-up plan though. That would be… staying right where we are.

Day 1 Belgium – Sommerhausen (Germany)
Being ‘on our way’ is part of the journey. If you’re doing a “road trip”, being on the road is part of the trip. So I always do my best to try and find things to do along the way. Even when it’s not in our ‘land of destination’. In Germany there are a lot of castle, and lucky for us, there are a few along the way towards Sommerhause. After checking them all out we decided to go for Schloss Drachenburg near Bonn. Which is rather on the middle of our journey (given that we will not know any set back).

Day 2 Sommerhausen – Salzburg (Austria)
Not the fastes route towards Slovenia, we know. But I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go to Salzburg (and Vienna and so on). So this was the perfect opportunity! It still is quite a ride to get there, so our ‘holiday thing’ for the day would be visiting Nuremberg. Still not sure if we will be visiting the old center of the town or just the Nuremberg Castle. Let’s leave that part a surprise, no?

Day 3 Salzburg
Citytripping within the roadtrip. I love it! Well actually I don’t love it as much as I thought. Because I always prefer being surrounded by nature than being surrounded by noisy people. But still… yay!
Our hotel lies in the center of the city, so I made an hour walk along some sceneries… hopefully that’s doable with our little man :-). We will be seeing Mozart’s Birthplace and house, the Cathedral and the Fortress.

Day 4 Salzburg – Križe
Our first stop in Slovenia… a bit further than I wanted, but still close enough to the Triglav National Park. Again… the road will take up quite some time… mainly because I want to take a mountain pass, the Groβlockner Hochalpenstraβe.

Day 5 Križe
The next couple of days will be filled with lakes and rivers and so on. But today not those you would expect. Today we’re heading towards Kranjska Gora en stop at Lake Jasna, Lake Zelenči and, if our little man cooperates, maybe even Laghi di Fusine in Italy. Ow yeah… I see it big.

Day 6 Križe
Now today we are going to spend some time (a very short amount of time) near a lake that you would expect to see during our roadtrip: Lake Bled. But as we will be traveling in high season and there will be a large amount of people, I don’t see us hanging around for a long time. What I do really want to do today is walking the trail towards the Vintgar Gorge.

Day 7 Križ
Another day, another lake! Lake Bohinj for the win today! And Mount Vogel. Let’s say that we’ll spend our day here in the neighborhood. Plenty of things to do.

Day 8 Križe – Dekani
We leave our little apartment and head for the next in Dekani (southern part of Slovenia – the coastal part). But before we do that, we have to do a little detour along the Soča Valley, Kobarid and Tolmin – to walk or the trail towards Slap Kozjak or towards the Tolmin Gorge. I also would love to drive through the western wine region – but we’ll see where the road takes us.

Day 9 Dekani
Time to discover the beach (!) area. There are a few little towns in the neighborhood and today we’re starting with the lesser important ones like Izola and/ or Koper. I don’t know if we’ll actually going to visit those places, or one of them. But the main attraction today would normally be the Strunjan Nature Reserve.

Day 10 Dekani
We’re crossing a border today (again) and are heading for the southern part of Istria in Croatia to go and see the Cape Kamenjak (Nature Park). If we hadn’t had our little man, this would be a roundtrip Slovenia-Croatia… so this way we still have a little bit of Croatia with us

Day 11 Dekani
Time to visit the most popular place here in the southern (beach ;-)) part of Slovenia and go to visit Piran! Small but overcrowded with people. Can’t wait to go and see it with a baby in a stroller!

Day 12 Dekani – Kamnik
We’re leaving our second apartment (already) and head towards our final destination in Slovenia: Kamnik. But not without visiting one of the spectacular caves of Slovenia: Postojna Cave. Nearby there’s also the Predjama Castle. Not sure what we’ll be doing with that one though.

Day 13 Kamnik
Capital City time! Ljubljana was always one of my favorite capital cities (to pronounce) so I’m so excited to finally go and visit the place! Only heard positive things about it as well.

Day 14 Kamnik
Not quite sure what to do during one of our last days in the country… What I do know is that we’re going to visit the eastern region of the country. But I’m not quite sure if we would drive all the way up to Ptuj or just go to Celje and return via the Logarska Dolina (Logar Valley). According to driving time and available nerves with a baby in the car… I think we’ll spend as little time in the car as we can.

Day 15 Kamnik
Up and away towards Velika Planina, one of the last remaining settlements of herders. The sunset looks amazing up there as well – so maybe we can postpone bedtime for our little dude today ;-).

Day 16 Kamnik – Dachau (Germany)
Time to head back home! Again, we need a few travel days for our journey back – especially with a baby. At least if we want to arrive home sane. We’ll stop in Dachau but make a stop near the Berchtesgaden National Park. There’s a lake there (Königssee) that’s not a giant detour where you can take boat trips. That would be a nice change of scenery.

Day 17 Dachau – Luxemburg City (Luxembourg)
We end our journey with something heavy. We sleep in Dachau. Dachau means concentration camp. At least in my book. For some unknonws reasons I’m interested in the history of Europe when it comes to the Great World Wars, so of course we will be visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. Not the best way to end a journey – I know.

Day 18 Luxemburg City – Belgium
But it’s not the end of the end yet! Because today we’ll be doing another citytrip during our roundtrip and visit the capital of a country even smaller than Belgium: Luxemburg (City)!
I’m excited to see what we’ll actually be able to do when time comes. Please little man… don’t be a pain in the … you know… *fingers crossed*.