Life Abroad / Travel

Our Trip to Croatia

We just returned from Zagreb, Croatia a week ago, which was just the beginning of our busy December. My family arrives in Amsterdam this weekend and we will all be spending Christmas together here this year (I’m so excited!) After the Christmas madness is over we will be heading to Rome with my brother, sister and her family for a week, which should be really fun.

But back to Croatia! I chose to pursue a home exchange in Zagreb because it is supposed to have some of the best Christmas markets in Europe.  Prim got to ride the carousel numerous times, which was a big highlight for her.

We liked the Christmas markets in Zagreb, but they were a little different than the Christmas markets we’re used to. The German and French-German markets tend to be a few food and drink huts sandwiched between numerous vendor huts that sell ornaments, handmade toys, and other fun trinkets. The Croatian markets were more food and drink-based with very few vendor huts, which was fun, but not totally what we expected. We walked all over the city each day, as we normally do on vacation. On our fullest day we clocked in over 9 miles walking, and hit between 4 and 6 miles on the slower days.

Zagreb has this weird tunnel that goes through a lot of the downtown area that was all decorated sort of like one of those indoor Disneyland rides, which was neat.

We woke up to snow on our first full day in Zagreb and it continued to snow throughout much of the day which was so magical.

And of course, who can resist that delicious European architecture?    Just sign me up for a chateau with all the fancy windows, please.

KC’s mom came with us on this trip, so we actually got to sneak away a couple of nights for dinner sans-kids (can you imagine??) It was divine. We so rarely get to go out on dates, and we are never kid-free on vacation, so this was a real treat.  I don’t even care that that picture is bad quality and maybe a little blurry. That’s us walking around the city alone after having dinner by ourselves and it was everything I could have wanted. ^^ That’s real life traveling with kids right there. Prim passed out in the stroller while we warmed up and had drinks at Esplanade 1925 (totally recommend — both the bar and the sleeping child); Prim unamused by the sign outside the craft beer bar we made a stop at; and of course Lark being nursed at a random coffee shop (Eli’s Caffe — which was delicious).

Oh, and if you’re wondering why Lark isn’t wearing pants in that picture even though the temperature was hovering around freezing most of our trip, it’s because she poured water all over herself at lunch that day and fully soaked her outfit. Luckily, I had a random extra onesie and had removed her sweater before the meal, but hadn’t brought spare pants with me (I mean, I’m a second-time mom, my diaper bag is like wipes and a spare diaper and that’s it) so she was pants-less. I was able to just throw her in our carrier and zip up the bottom of my coat around her legs, but I did get questioned by a woman at the coffee shop about whether she was cold, and I’m sure she just assumed I was an idiot and/or a terrible mother for walking around with a 9 month old baby without pants on.Croatia, you were snowy, cold and fun. Maybe we will be back to visit your beaches next summer!