Travel time

Getting the distance through slow motion

Last week we finally arrived in Greece, Kefalonia, after a 4-day trip over Italy and the Ionian sea. We decided to do this on purpose in a slow manner, not only because we wanted to bring our car with us to our new place, but also because we looked forward to jointly getting aware on the distance and the island nature of the new place, being obviously fully surrounded by water. Like this, we had the time to reflect on what it means to be and cross a certain country as you realize it much more when being for a few hours on the road or on the boat. Our kids grew up mostly during Corona-dominated years, so the only time we went outside of our home country Switzerland to visit the grandparents was usually in the airplane - for the rest we either didn't travel or only to the Swiss mountains. Like this, they now finally got a chance to learn what it means to cross a border, and why you have different languages, food and flags in each country.

While it was much more a struggle to keep our kids entertained during those travelling hours, we enjoyed the small stops we made along the route as well as sleeping on a ferry for a night. The trip was an adventure in itself, given that we could eat in an Italian cantina with 16th-century old paintings, eat unforgettable ice cream, watch all together the sunset on the ferry deck and discover sea turtles swimming in the sea when we woke up and ate our yoghurt. The anticipation of arriving in the new place, seeing the grandparents and going to swim in the sea also grew much more steadily than when flying quick and dirty with an airplane.

Now we can finally enjoy our daily swim in the unforgettable blue sea, and slowly adapt to the new life rhythm with long evenings and the quiet afternoon siesta - which unfortunately our kids don't like at all!