We usually start our summer vacation with a roadtrip. A great way to break with the everyday grind of the working week and get into holiday mode. Mostly it’s been up north to the mountains around Tärnaby and Ammarnäs.

This year we decided to head south instead, to the mountains of northern Italy. To make it more challenging we head into a heatwave in an electric car with three people and a dog.

The trip starts early Saturday morning down to Helsingborg and the ferry to Helsingør. Pretty straight forward. Then a stretch to Gedser and the ferry to Rostock. We sit out on deck with Cooper and hordes of vacationers from Sweden, Denmark and Norway also heading south.

Then on to the Autobahn. Our goal is the Hotel Normandie on the northern outskirts of Berlin. Booked online it turns out to be hidden away at the end of a cobblestoned street and pretty basic. It’s 36° and the temperature doesn’t drop much during the night. It’s too hot to take any pictures so this part is undocumented.