As I said before, traveling is one of my biggest passions. Besides letterwriting! If you want, grab a cup of coffee or tea and read about my vacations and see some pictures.
We especially love to travel in the United States. I love to talk about our trips, though I don't want to bore you!
We went the first time in 1991, stayed 3 days in NYC and went to Boston by Greyhound. We then had a rental car and drove through New England, up to Acadia NP in Maine, back to CT, then all the way through to Niagara Falls, through PA to Washington DC. We stayed in Lancaster County, in Intercourse (strange name by the way!) It was in the middle of Amish country and as the Amish originally came from Germany and Switzerland it was very interesting for us. From Washington DC we flew to Los Angeles to visit my "oldest" pal. We never thought we'd visit the US for another time, so I wanted to meet her. I was so sad when we flew home, but only 1 1/2 later we went again...
...to Florida in the fall 1992. We of course stayed at Disneyworld and drove down the Atlantic coast to Miami, then down to Key West and back to Orlando at the Gulf coast. Back then we spend a weekend with a pal from Tennessee, but she doesn't write anymore. She and her husband took us to Gatlinburg, that is close to the Great Smoky Mountains.
Next time we went was the fall 1993, when we went to the Southwest. From L.A. we drove up the coast to San Francisco, then east to most of the Nationalparks. We visited Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia NP, Bryce Canyon, Zion NP, the Grand Canyon North and South Rim. We also spent a wekend in Las Vegas. It was absolutely fabulous! I loved it! Then back to L.A. and flew home.
In Jan 1995 we went to Florida again, I was already 4 months pregnant. We didn't drive much then, we stayed in Clearwater Beach, FL.
The first time we went with Nicole was in Oct. 1997. We went to Oregon and California. Ee drove down the coast, just the other way round! My pal in L.A. and also my pal near San Francisco were dying to meet my girl for the first time, so we decided to do the Westcoast.
In Oct. 1999, we spent 4 weeks in Florida. We went to Orlando, stayed a week in St. Augustine Beach and a few days in Panama City Beach, then returned to Orlando for the last couple of days.
In 2000 we stayed within Europe - we went to Lanzarote, an island, which belongs to the Canary Islands just off the coast of Africa. Politically they belong to Spain.
We went to Florida again in May 2001 and stayed three weeks in New Smyrna Beach.
In summer 2002 we went to Austria, to a place called Filzmoos. This was a vacation with mountains and not the beach!
We returned to the beach and the water though in 2004, when we stayed in Lanzarote once again.
In 2005 we didn't go on a bigger trip. We went to Prague, in the Czech Republic for a weekend, and Nicole and I spent a lovely week on the island of Mallorca in the fall break.
In summer 2006, we finally made a dream come true and went to Canada. We drove around British Columbia and Alberta for three weeks, with a motorhome. We went to Vancouver, Banff and Jasper, back via Vancouver to Vancouver Island, back to Vancouver. We flew to Toronto then, to visit a friend of mine, who lives about 2 hours north of the city.
That year, we also took the time to go on another city trip - these shorter getaways are fun! We went to Budapest, which is the capital of Hungary, for 4 days.
Last summer we went to Tenerife on the Canary Islands and just returned from a city trip to Rome in Italy.
2008 was the year we left our hometown Berlin to move to the Western part of Germany, work-related. From there, we went to the Netherlands in 2009, since we are not far from the border now :). In 2010 we resumed our habit of a short trip in the fall break and decided on Paris, since this is also not that far away anymore!
Next year a trip to the US is planned - the flights are already booked :).