This summer we are attending a family wedding in Latvia. My brother is (finally) getting hitched and the three-day event is taking place near his wife-to-be’s family home. Now, we have been before – to attend the Christening of their daughter a few years ago – and we drove all the way there, and back. It was a monster of a drive, but we paced ourselves with a long day of driving followed by a whole day exploring a city (Berlin, Warsaw, Klaipeda, Gdansk). The weather helped as the entire holiday took place in a heatwave! We are now looking to drive (again) to Latvia, but this time we’re planning on a different route. Our children (9 and 7) are well travelled; they are used to long drives in cars as we tend to holiday with our dogs, two stupidly lively English Springer Spaniels. The dogs are good travellers and we’ve mastered the Pet Passport ‘system’ (more of this in a separate post) so it’s all quite straightforward. We use booking.com to find overnight stops – family rooms with parking that accept pets. Europe is very pet-friendly, so we rarely have a problem finding somewhere nice, comfortable (and often on a budget).
What we found when we sat down to plan this next trip is that it’s quite difficult to follow a ‘different’ route as there’s one ‘obvious’ route between Calais and Latvia and that’s the one we took last time. So we’ve gone out of our way to factor in a whole new element … this time we’re taking an overnight ferry (with a dog-friendly cabin) from Germany to Lithuania. This will save us several days of driving and, being the owner of KidzCruises, we love being on the ocean so it’s win-win! We’re travelling with DFDS between Kiel in Germany and Klaipeda in Lithuania and we’re really looking forward to this! It also allows us time, before the crossing, to explore nearby Hamburg, a city I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, not least because I’m desperate to take my 7yr old son around the world’s largest model railway at Miniatur Wunderland … ok, so I want to visit myself too! Look at this YouTube video …
The dogs will spend a day at doggy daycare so we can enjoy this city stop together.
When we drive off the ferry in Lithuania it’s a short 2.5 hour drive to our accommodation, a rural spot a short distance from Kuldiga, where the wedding service is taking place a couple of days later. Our time in Latvia has been arranged for us as there’s lots of visits to family, parties … it’s very full on!
Our way back has been partly planned. No offence to Lithuania, but we’re not stopping there on this occasion – we visited the ‘highlight’ places we wanted to on our last drive there. This time we’re driving from Latvia straight to Poland, to an overnight stop in Bialystok near the border. We’ve factored in an overnight stop in the old town of Warsaw too, as we really enjoyed our stop here last time. My scientist husband Huw wants to take our 9 year old daughter around the Marie Curie Museum, while the rest of us (son, myself and doggies) enjoy nice cold drinks outside one of the many cafes in the old town.
From Warsaw we are heading to Krakow and then on to the mountain town of Zakopane – but our planning has stopped abruptly here – because we don’t where to go next! We have 5 days to get from Zakopane to Calais for the tunnel crossing back home … but where do we go/what route do we take? I’m hoping you might be able to help suggest some ‘must see’ places? This ‘adventure’ is centred round the children – stopping at places that will hold their interest/visiting attractions that will fascinate and excite them. Any ideas?!
