We first look at each other a bit suspiciously. But then it blinks to me like if it would ask me for a chance. Chance to show me, that unknown might be also fun. In my heart is a mixture of feelings. Vacations on 4 wheels are not my cup of tea, I so much more like free space and sky above my head, exploring the world by my legs...but this car looks so cute that you cannot hate it even if you would like to.
Four wheels, 5 seats, an openable roof with a tent, back seats that can be flattened to a bed, small kitchen hidden in a wardrobe, a tiny sink, plus storage everywhere you could imagine. This is our home for next 14 days. I can see also a mixture of feelings in the faces of girls - it is smaller than they expected, but it is cute. Should they like it or not? Robert just runs directly inside with full confidence and loves our new 4 wheel home from the first moment. For fourteen days he will answer to a question if he is looking to be at home without thinking: "doma tady, bus, campervan." (home is here, bus, campervan) and for the slower minds even points the finger directly to the campervan.
Let's have fun on these vacations. I hope we took all our bad luck today morning when we were getting up at 4 AM to be on time for our train, moved with all our suitcases, kids, bike and backpacks to Smíchov where we found out that our train was cancelled due to a special accident on the way. The only thing which was holding my mood up was that neither girls nor Robert didn't get angry so we managed to get back, Jan brought the Caddy, we pushed everything inside and drove till we reached Fussen in the south of Germany. There behind the borders, in Austria, was waiting for us our VW bus T3.
It was not easy to accept these vacations. My dreams take me over mountain tops, past streams, through wilderness. In my dreams I fall asleep in the middle of nowhere and wake up in the morning by coldness with sticks pressed against my back. For me, comfort equals boredom and detachment from myself. I love the independence of carrying everything on my back and selection of the place where to sleep just depends on my likings and immediate decisions. I like to have everything packed in my backpack, I like times when nothing can be bought on the way. I like to have the journey planned in advance so that I don't have to decide what I'm going to do every day, I can just live and perceive the world around me, and it also includes sore shoulders and legs and a sweaty back. This is my vacation. My time when I really live, when I come home feeling fulfilled.
Instead, the caravan is a symbol of the opposite for me. Mass tourism in parking lots and living on roads. Travel full of decisions to be done (where to go next, where to sleep, what to do), mostly searched on your phone. The constant possibility of buying new food somewhere, driving quickly through various attractions and having to decide every morning with the children where we will go tomorrow and whether they will go with us or stay in the caravan.
However, after long thinking I accepted that this year Robert is not the best fit for long hikes over mountains. He is too heavy to be carried together with a backpack and his two kilometers distance within 12 hours is just not yet enough for a trip and it makes both us and girls really annoyed. Overall, it seemed that it is just the best year to fulfill Jan's long-term wish and go with a campervan. Selecting this cute oldtimer guy made it for me acceptable.
And how was it? Check these small interviews illustrating how we developed individual features of the kids...
Positives.
1. Planning: We had a lot of sun. Unfortunately kids didn't realize how much effort was behind it. To keep always several plans in mind and check different time windows on yr.no so that we get nice weather everywhere.
Me: "Did you notice that we got almost no rain for the 14 days?"
Terka: "No, why?"
Me: "It is cool, right?"
Terka: "It is summer, it is normal."
2. Bargaining: Kids got very good in bargaining as illustrated on this small discussion after I fell in love to the mountain above Karersee (Cimon de Latemar) and wanted to look down to the lake from the top of the mountain.
Me: "Do you want to go with me for a walk up or stay here with Jan and Robert?"Maki: "And can I get two?"
Maki: "And will I get anything if I go?"
Me: "Maybe ice cream if we will manage."
Me: "Maybe, if we manage to reach the top."
Maki: "But only if Terka goes as well."
3. Appreciation: Thanks to the caravan we could easily split to two groups and not always walk Robert's speed and distance. I hoped to do it way more, but we had some nice walks anyway. And even girls appreciated it (or maybe more the ice cream aferwards?):
Me: "Weren't the views awesome?"
Terka: "Grrr..."
Me: "You didn't like it?"
Terka: "No, my legs are hurting. Maybe the views could be nice. But I cannot enjoy the views if my legs are hurting so much." (but she took a lot of pictures so she had to like it at least a bit)
Maki: "It might be good, but if you wouldn't force us to walk so much. You promised us that we only walk what Robert can manage."
Me: "I didn't force you. You wanted to go with me..."
Maki: "But you told me that I get something sweet if I go and you know that I cannot resist then."
3. Endurance: Ferratas around waterfalls (Stuibenfall, Längenfeld) were also something trully breathtaking and something that I never experienced before. Plus it was a lot of fun that we could go there together with girls, who managed them really well. We were observing how the emotions of the girls were changing every second as they got challenged to different levels by the climbing. This is a short sequence that I heard from Maki while going the Stuibenfall ferrata:
"Why is it so easy? It is boring."
"It is a nice view."
"Why is it so hot here?"
"Will it end soon? I am tired."
"Wow. The view is cool."
"I hope it is just a beginning."
"Can you take a picture of me?"
"Don't take a picture of me!!!!"
"Aaaaa. Spider."
"I never want to go again a ferrata. "
"Will we go tomorrow again?"
5. Expressing positive feelings: Girls even sometimes showed that they like the places. Every age has its challenges. The girls are this year in their phase,
when they definitely don't want to show us that they would enjoy
anything we do together. Whatever we do, doesn't matter how we try to
make it fun for them, no appreciation comes from them (maybe apart fun parks). So hearing "wow"/"it was nice"/"I had fun"/...
from them is really rare and it makes it something that I therefore
really appreciate and save to my memory for the times when they are just
frowning and pretending that they don't enjoy anything. Such as these small talks we had few times:
Me: "Wow, wow, Jani, Terka, Maki, look, it is amazing. Do you like it also?"
Terka: "That's really 'Wow' " (with the most ironic annoyed sound she could create)
But I don't believe them. I saw Terka taking many pictures by herself and showing them to us. Maki asked me to take a picture of the great waterfall when tere was a sunset on the water and she even went by herself to the viewpoint. So I guess they liked it even when they don't show it.
4. Hardiness: We went through several high passes and could enjoy the views where kids would not like to walk with us this year. We never slept in a camp (Park4Night works perfectly even under TreCime or next to Braiser lake) and only twice paid for parking, so I got fortunately also some outside experience. One of the memorable nights was sleeping at Timmelsjoch pass at 2500 m.n.m.. Getting a romantic shower by sunset with our naked bottoms looking to Italy and breast towards the Austria. There was this memorable conversation when we got naked and started watering ourselves from a water can.
Me: "Come here, nobody will see us."
Girls: "But we are on the top of the mountain. If someone has a telescope, they could see us. Do you think that dad could see us from home?"
Me: "Maybe, but hurry up, sheeps with a shepherd are coming."
5. Caring for others: For the first time in my life I visited Dolomites. And it was definitely worth it. We really liked all the places we visited. Karersee, Tre Cime, Jan's walk from Gares on the mountain ridge, Braiser lake,...The evening walk, when I ran 4 km up to Tre Cime, stopped by the viewpoints, then I almost passed out when walking on a narrow path with a thousand-meter abyss below me, sat on the grass and just admired the golden shields bathed in the setting sun, appreciating the view that was unlike anything I had ever seen before, the mountains were breathing towards me with overwhelming power and bewitched me with their magic. The romantic way down among the cows was just a nice end so I could come laughing when I returned to Jan and the girls...
Terka: "So how did you like your walk?"
Me: "It was so great. You have to also see it. It was really great."
Terka: "Ok ok. You can show it to us tomorrow, ok? But now go to Jan and be nice to him and take care for Robert."
6. Joy: Shallow sea was fun for everybody. Girls and Jan jumped to the sea immediatelly when we arrived and started to throw mud after each other. Laughing and shining with happiness. Seeing them leaving all their peals that normally cover their souls on the shore was really heart-warming. Terka was building ponds for Robert, Robert was happily jumping to the piles of the send and also to the water, splashing the water around, so we spent really nice time here, enjoying the shallow sea shore and benefits of the showers on the beach for the 5 star camp. Only pity was that Maki got a bite to her feet just before we arrived, it got really swollen, so she had to visit a doctor with Jan and not go for a day or two on the sun.
7. Laughing (also at parents): After walks, ferratas, sea, we also had a day when we just played minigolf (Robert had very funny technique - carrying the ball to the hole), girls went swimming to the outside pool with tobogan and Robert had fun on the nice Oetz playground. On another day we made a tour around the Alpine family "Disneyland" in Serfaus area - full of experiences, playgrounds, and other fun for families. I liked our day there, but it felt a bit too "prefabricated to be fun". Like if we would not be able to have fun without all those attraction. However Robert loved it, girls found also their fun. Going by lift from Fiss (there was the first playground), walked slowly to the top of lift from Serfaus, visited there enormous playground with a lot of attractions (girls appreciated especially huge ice cream as there was a Slovakian woman serving) with cool underwater tunnels (it was scary also for me), walked Six senses walk (those rotating huts were gorgeous), visited another playground with trampoline and lake for swimming and around the lift walk down. It was a nice leisure walk.
On the lake was a walk to an island prepared from moving stones.
Terka: "Mum, try it also."In the end I try it. Moving slowly from one stone to onether on my knees. Maki is running with no problems there and back, laughing Robert is walking in the water around me with the water only till his waist. Then I lift my head and see two foreign people watching me as a fun theatre how I try to move my bottom forward....I could not feel more embarrassed.
Jan: "You have to try it, it is fun. Even Robert made it."
Maki: "Look, I can run it there and back. It is easy."
Me: "I don't know, I will get wet..."
8. Destroying parents: Last important positive point is that although I was worried that it will be too lazy, on the last day my legs were hurting so much, that on the last trip I even was considering if to skip it and was happily going from the Klamm earlier back with girls.
9. Expressing themselves: Oh, I forgot, Terka was writing her diary - filling page after page with her thoughts, feelings, experiences, dreams, illustrating what is happening around her. It is her own achievement but I had this warm feeling in my heart when seeing it. Seeing that she found joy in writing, that she gets ideas for writing books, that she is trying to record her thoughts as a "podcast". For many years I always made them summer diaries with varying level of success. Quite often they managed to fill some part, but then never finished. Last year, I had to push them a lot to write the diaries at all and then I gave up. This year, I just reminded them to take a notebook so if they feel like it, they can write. Maki didn't. Terka did. Every evening she was writing as well as when we were driving. Some days she wrote even 4 or 5 pages and illustrated it with nice drawings. It felt good to observe.
Negatives? Not sure if there were any, only some soft points were touched...
The girls climbed, walked, were swimming, doing everything, helping with dishes. I think we had a great time together and we experienced really a lot and there were many activities even for them. Nevertheless, it was not fully harmonic and we had to push them - sometimes a bit, sometimes more than a bit to do stuff.
Do you know it also? You take kids to the most beautiful places in the world. You take them to the nicest places in the world and they ask you if they already finished their kilometers so that they can go home. Then their face totally shines with happiness, when they see a penis and can add "Jan" to it from stones, throw mud at you, or see you falling into the water. And try to drive you crazy by telling you, that when they will be bigger, they will just instead of going to mountains buy a running belt to their homes so they can just move, but don't have to go to any mountains. They really know how to touch the soft points.
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