Monday 23 June 2008

A little note on travelling with kids and the Alps

So, throughout this whole experience so far...being in Rome, Florence, Germany, even simple everyday places here in Switzerland, I've neglected to mention the impact of travelling with small children...pretty much one of the main points of this blog.

Travelling to Italy with a six month old was much easier than travelling with the three year old. A baby is portable and goes with the flow. A three year old is very routine driven, still, and any gliches in that daily routine can cause the mother of all meltdowns....at the Collosium....the Trevi Fountain...the Domo...you name it...and we had a tantrum probably at every historical pit stop along the way in Italy. And the icing on the cake was being vomited on when our plane landed back here in Zurich.

Standing on a street corner in Rome some American sorority nut walked by and commented in her valley girl voice as she looked on at us in disgust : "who brings a baby to Rome?" Besides wanting to subtly stick my foot out and watch her tumble into the Forum, I wanted to correct her. It should have been "who brings a three year old to Rome?"

Besides all this, I realize you can't stay home until your kids are 18 and then don't want to go anywhere with their parents anyway. I don't NOT reccommend travelling abroad with small children, I just recommend making sure you're prepared...if that includes special toys to keep them busy, extra snacks in case they don't like the local cuisine, and having all your crazy pills packed and accounted for to keep yourself from having your own tantrum while standing in line to climb the Domo. And topping a tough day abroad off with a couple glasses of the house wine, helps make the evening go much smoother.

All that being said, we did some great hiking here yesterday in the swiss wilderness and got some spectacular views of the Alps because the weather was amazing. Even the three year old had some fun here and there. Photobucket
Hiking with our friends, the King Family

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2 comments:

Rick Longstreet said...

release your anger. Send the chick into the forum!!!

Great time at lunch today :)

AP said...

tres alpine. i'm jeal