As we made the rainy drive across the countryside from Bruges to Amsterdam I got more and more excited. We booked an especially nice hotel in downtown Amsterdam for our first wedding anniversary, and I was looking forward to a little luxury!
A minor anxiety attack crept up on me as we entered Amsterdam. Roads were blocked off and people were EVERYWHERE.
Read MoreWe had a great time in Brussels, drinking all the beer and eating way too much chocolate. We got on the road, headed west towards Bruges. I have been before, right after graduating from high school in 2007. Fortunately, not very much about the city has changed. It is a beautiful old city, protected by UNESCO, full of canals, cobble-stoned streets and medieval buildings. We didn’t have the best weather, but fortunately we managed to stay mostly dry.
Read MoreAfter Prague, we decided it was time to satisfy Charles' desire for beer from Belgium, so we hopped back in our rental car and headed west across Germany. Along the way, we stopped at Eltz Castle, which was recommended to us by my mother, Barb, as one of her favorite sites in Germany.
We stopped for a single night to break up the drive in a tiny town near the castle called Macken. The town was so small we struggled to find dinner that night, but when we did we had another taste of traditional German schnitzel in a restaurant where everyone knew each other, except for us.
Read MoreAfter Munich, Samantha and I drove "the Romantic Road" north. It's a tourist initiative to increase the flow of tourists to southern Germany, but it's also an unbelievably beautiful drive. Due to some unforeseen events, we swapped out our Opel Corsa for a Fiat 500 soft top. This obviously added to our enjoyment of the drive. Its mostly through small agrarian villages, which are gorgeous in their own right, but the real gems are Nordinglen and Rothenburg, two medieval walled cities dating back centuries.
Read MoreSamantha and Charles Parsons went a little overboard when planning their honeymoon. Instead of a few short weeks of travel, they opted for a year-long adventure around the world! Follow along as they leave their home in Denver, Colorado in the United States to travel the globe.
After two really increadible days of diving in French Polynesia our cruise continued east. We visited two more islands, Nuku Hiva and Pitcairn Island, however we didn't go ashore. In total we spent eight days sailing from Fakarava to Easter Island. It was pretty crazy looking at where we were on a map, with no land in any direction for about a thousand miles.
After a quick day in Rangiroa, we headed north to another atoll called Fakarava. There isn't much to see on land here, as its just a narrow ring of sand and palm trees surrounding a huge lagoon, but the diving was incredible. We booked two dives and everything we read said that the diving here would be very similar to the diving in Rangiroa. Other than the unbelievably clear, 80 degree water, we found it to be a completely different experience.
After visiting our friends in Hawaii, we flew south to Tahiti to board a cruise that would end our final three weeks of our year of travel. The cruise crossed the South Pacific Ocean, starting in Tahiti and ending in Valparaiso, Chile.
After a very full 30 days in Vietnam, Samantha and I were very much looking forward to our next stop. Our friends Greg and Kathy live in Honolulu and we felt like a visit with some friends was in order. We planned to spend two weeks in total in Hawaii, and split that time evenly between one week on Kauai followed by a week with them on Oahu.
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Charles & Samantha Parsons
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It’s been over a year since Charlie and I returned from our trip around the world. In May, we did a quick extended weekend in Moab, Utah to spend time in Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. For the first time since we returned, I had an urge to take some photos of our adventures and post them to the blog!