Day 1

What a crazy 24-hours of travel!! We finally made it to our first stop in Slovakia right along the northern border with Poland in a town called Namestovo.

First off, some background on why we chose to visit Slovakia of all places is probably warranted. It really came down to the fact that Jessica only had a couple weeks available this year that just so happened to be right in the middle of peak tourist season. So, we didn’t want to travel somewhere with a 1 and 3 year old that was super crowded with a bunch of long lines in the middle of a hot summer. So, we decided to pick somewhere a bit more “random” that may not have quite the tourist crowds, but that still offered many fun activities for the kids.

And here we are in Slovakia. To backtrack a bit, our travel began with ride to LAX (thanks dad!). Although bumper-to-bumper much of the way, we still made to the airport and to our gate with plenty of time to spare as the airport was surprisingly quiet. We had purchased a new device for Luke (a tablet with all his favorite movies, shows, and games downloaded) specifically to introduce it to him on this flight to keep him occupied during the 11 hours on board. We got boarded and up in the air right on time (again pretty rare for LAX). Sure enough, Luke was mesmerized with his tablet. A particular favorite was a dinosaur puzzle game that kept him busy for hours. For dinner, we were served some kind of barbecue chicken along with a few side salads – wasn’t bad at all. And Ryan even got his own meal which included mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, ham, cheese, and potato salad. I had a few of my favorite polish beers (we were flying on LOT Polish Airways) and then it was time for lights out. Ryan fell asleep very quickly on Jessica’s lap and then after a few more hours of dino puzzles, Luke was out as well.

Even though Jessica and I could only manage an hour or two of sleep, the kids slept great and both woke up with only a couple hours left on the flight. After some pasta and ravioli for breakfast/lunch, we landed in Warsaw and were ready to de-board the plane. After waiting for everyone else to leave before us, we finally gathered all of the kids toys and snacks before making our way off the plane – only to realize that we were missing Luke’s headphones. We tried to go back on the plane to look, but they had already locked it up – oh well….

At Warsaw airport we struggled with all our luggage and the kids to get through an immigration/passport check and then another round of security before reaching our gate for our connection to Krakow (major city in southern Poland and a close launching point into Slovakia). This ended up being a very quick 35 minute flight – although we had to take tram busses out to the tarmac for loading and unloading which added to the process especially with two little ones. Once at the Krakow baggage claim, we had to wait for some time to get our luggage along with the stroller, but thankfully the car rental process was fairly quick afterward. The only issue was that the car seats they provided us definitely are not up to US standards, so needless to say that we will be driving very carefully on this trip.

From the Krakow airport, we drove south for about 30 minutes before stopping for dinner at a rather random restaurant. It was located well out of town in a sort of woodsy area. Upon arriving we noticed everyone was sitting outside and we quickly found out why. When we went to ask to be seated, we went inside and it was sweltering hot, so we didn’t really have much of an option. Thankfully (?) they had a slide and swing set so Luke and Ryan got to play while Jessica and I chased them around. Once the food arrived, I had some yummy Zurek (Polish soup) and a Okocim beer, while Jessica had the Vienna-style schnitzel. All of us shared a plate of the grilled sausages and the kids had chicken fingers and French fries. For a starving bunch, everything was delicious despite feeling a bit rushed with some cranky kids and being very sweaty eating outside in the humid woods.

From there we had about an hour further drive through some thunderstorms before crossing over into Slovakia and arriving at our Airbnb right on Lake Orava in Namestovo. The Airbnb is a 200 year-old cottage that comes equipped with a sauna, firepit, canoe and many other amenities that we hope to take advantage of tomorrow. Once fully-checked in, we didn’t waste too much time trying to wind the excited kids down before putting them to bed. Jessica and I are now just sipping some Dunajec wine (region in Slovakia) that we found sitting around in the cottage and trying to plan out what we want to do tomorrow.

Stay Tuned!!!   (pics below)

















Comments

  1. LisaJuly 16, 2023 at 2:13 PM

    Wow! What a wild ride!! Let the adventures begin!

    ReplyDelete

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