Europe road trip

I’ve finally gotten around to blogging about our European Adventure and included links to all the places we stayed which I highly recommend! It was an amazing trip and we saw so much! Will forever remember being with my best friend and our daughters! Here is the basic itinerary for our spring European road trip. Our home base was my best friend Lindsay’s home in Breda, Netherlands.

May 1-12, 2018.

We got a lot done on this trip in a short amount of time. Using the car was the key to moving quickly. We didn’t have to wait around for public transportation and could stop wherever we wanted if we saw something neat.

I did not drive, but it didn’t seem much different than the US. In Germany there was no speed limit most of the time, so we made great time on that long leg of the trip.

We mainly visited attractions early in the morning then drove in the afternoon to the next destination. This way the girls could take a nap in the car and we could stop in a new country or city for meals. The days were LONG! I mean we were up at 7am and out until 10pm most days, which is a lot for little girls….and me! But there was so much to see that I didn’t care how tired I was.

May 1: Kansas City → Chicago → Amsterdam Airport
May 2: Amsterdam Airport → Lisse Holland → Breda, Netherlands
May 3: Breda → Cochem, Germany
May 4: Cochem, Germany→ Burg Eltz Castle → Schwangau, Germany
May 5: Neuschwanstein Castle → Liechtenstein → drive through Austria → Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
May 6: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland → Eguisheim, France → Colmar, France
May 7: Comar, France → Luxembourg → Breda, Netherlands
May 8: Breda → Zaanse Schans → Amsterdam → Breda
May 9: Breda → Versailles, France
May 10: Versailles, France → Giverny, France
May 11: Giverny, France → Antwerp, Belgium → Breda, Netherlands
May 12: Breda, Netherlands → Chicago → Kansas City

Road Trip Part One

For part one of the trip we were lucky to have Lindsay’s husband Ivan drive us since this was the long part of the adventure. We also had their dog Winston with us which was fun.

Breda → Cochem → Neuschwanstein → Liechtenstein → Lauterbrunnen → Eguisheim → Colmar → Luxembourg → Breda

Stop 1: Lisse, Netherlands Holland

from Amsterdam Airport right to the Tulip Fields of Lisse, Holland

Stop 2: Cochem, Germany

Stop 3: Burg Eltz Castle

We stopped at Burg Eltz Castle on the way to Neuschwanstein

Stop 4: Neuschwanstein Castle

May 4th we drove from Cochem to Schwangau to stay the night. Then spent the next day May 5th at Neuschwanstein Castle

Stop 5: Principality of Liechtenstein

May 5th after visiting Neuschwanstein we stopped in Liechtenstein for the afternoon on our way to Switzerland

Stop 6: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

We arrived in the evening on May 5th in Lauterbrunnen and spent the next day in Switzerland

Stop 7: Eguisheim, France

The evening of May 6th we stopped in Eguisheim to tour the little town and eat dinner

Stop 8: Colmar, France

We spent the night May 6th in Colmar and toured the town the next day

Stop 9: Luxembourg

May 7th we left stopped in Luxembourg on our way back home so we could cross another country off our list

Road Trip Part Two

This part was just us four girls, no boys or dogs, but we still had fun!

Breda → Zaanse Schans → Amsterdam → Breda

Stop 10: Zaanse Schans Netherlands

May 8th, back in The Netherlands we visited Zaanse Schans in the morning

Stop 11: Amsterdam

Afternoon on May 8th we stopped in Amsterdam for the afternoon and evening

Road Trip Part Three

For this part of the road trip it was also just us four girls.

Breda → Versailles → Giverny → Antwerp → Breda

Stop 12: Versailles, France

May 9th we left Breda in the morning and drove straight to Versailles and spent the day there

Stop 13: Giverny, France

May 10th we drove to Giverny and toured the town

Stop 14: Antwerp, Belgium

May 11th we left Giverny and spent the afternoon in Belgium on our way home. May 12th we spent the morning in Breda and flew home that afternoon.

May 11, 2018

Last stop on our adventure….Antwerp, Belgium. We drove through on the way back and well, the Belgian chocolate and waffles were calling our name!

about a 4.5 hour drive from our Giverny Hotel to Antwerp

Antwerp was a great place to get a taste of Belgium for a few hours. The old gothic style buildings were so ornate and the city was lively.

There was a chocolate shop every 50 feet! Like fancy chocolates that were so pretty. It took us a while to decide which shop we wanted to buy our chocolates at. We got to pick out the ones we wanted and put them in a pink Belgium house tin, which was a bonus because we collect little houses from everywhere we go.

There were street entertainers that the girls just loved to dance to their music. We found another castle and climbed on all of the monuments. I was worried Eloise would get bored in the city, but the girls just made their own fun adventure wherever we went.

I was glad that I only had one of my kids with me though. It would have been difficult to keep track of 4 kids. I was able to relax only having to keep an eye on 1 kid running around. I would have been totally on edge with more than that. Totally doable, but the stress factor would have increased greatly.

We still can’t believe how lucky we were with the weather at every place we went. It was like the perfect temperature, the sun was always out just enough so that it wasn’t blinding us or we were sweating all day. Never had to mess with sunscreen! Not to cold that we had to mess with big coats. If you have kids you know that coats/hats/gloves and sunscreen are just a hot mess.

So if you do this trip (which I highly recommend) May 1-12 was the perfect time to go to all of the locations. I may even recommend to go a few days earlier to make sure to get the tulips in Holland as we cut it very close to deadheading time.

I hope documenting our adventures gives you some ideas and inspiration for planning your trip! I can’t tell you how helpful all of the bloggers out there were when planning this trip. So many places I would never have though to adventure came from other bloggers.

There really wasn’t a whole lot I found online about traveling to these specific places with young children so I for sure wanted to get it blogged to help some parents that travel with kids. I absolutely love traveling with my kids and I really don’t like traveling without them, but to be done right it takes a lot more planning when the kids are along.

Spring Europe Road Trip: Netherlands, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium