46 km gives you sore legs We have many reasons for choosing Peru as our main destination for our vacation this year, walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was one of them. If you who read this are thinking about walking the trail you might want to have a look at the end of this blog entry. There we have written down some important advice to anyone who wish to walk the Inca Trail. The trek known as the Inca Trail is probably the mo [View Full Entry]

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Lima and the coast south of the capital The long vacation trip of this year goes to Peru with a short detour to Bolivia. Our plane landed in Lima so therefore it was quite natural for us to start the trip there. Our guidebooks tell us that it wise to not display that we are tourists because occasionally tourists are targeted for robberies and bag theft. So when arriving in Lima we decided to dress down, not have our cameras out and also keep the guidebooks and maps in our bags. After less than 5 minutes we met two construction workers [View Full Entry]

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Communist Symbols I have a soft spot for communist symbols, communist statues, Lenin statues etc. I don't like what they stand for, but I like the way they look. One reason for that is probably that you can take excellent photos of them, and I like to take photos. In the years prior to the fall of the Soviet Union people in the communist world were to be constantly reminded of how great a system communism is and so on. Therefore every town had a Lenin statue, there were always a few streets in each town named afte [View Full Entry]

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The sun hasn't set on this town yet I (Ake) had some time on my hands now after Emma and I came home from Dublin and had nothing planned. So I went to Murmansk in northern Russia. Emma had to work and couldn't join me. But she wasn't interested in going there anyway. She couldn't see the point in visiting Murmansk. When I arrived at Murmansk airport I was asked by a man I met there why I decided to go to Murmansk of all places. I happily answered: "Why not?" and he laughed. I explained that to us Murmansk actually [View Full Entry]

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Paris in Spring 2008 Since we enjoyed Paris so much when we were there last year we went back this year. This time we didn't go on our own though. We had Emma's sister, Anna, and Emma's niece, Jonna, with us. Last year our minds were set on visiting the Louvre and the Mona Lisa. This time Euro Disney was the main goal for our visit in Paris. Officially we were there for Jonna's sake. Unofficially, the rest of us wanted to go there too... Travelling with a small child, Jonna is five, is a bit different from what we are [View Full Entry]

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Short blog entry on a visit to Paris in 2007 In November 2007 we went to Paris over a weekend. But we never got around to write a blog entry about it back then. We do that now instead. We have both been to Paris before so we are familiar with the city. But Paris is a big city with vast amounts of cultural heritage and famous places so you can visit Paris many times and still find new things to see. But we were not that interested in seeing a lot of new places this time. Instead we made short [View Full Entry]

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A long wet weekend in Dublin, Ireland We have spent three days (four days for Ake since he arrived one day earlier) in Dublin this weekend. In the previous entry on the blog we talked about any weather better than the weather at home is OK when you travel. Well, this time we were not so lucky. But then it's our own fault since we decided to go to Ireland. To say the least we had a rainy vacation. But it wasn't too bad. We had our raincoats with us and were prepared to spend time indoors in museums and other [View Full Entry]

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New York City - The capital of the World Our favourite travel weather is anything that is better than what it is at home. We are happy even if it rains as long as it rains more at home. We say this only because we were happy about the weather we had during our trip in the United States. It was sunny and nice most days but more importantly it was raining a lot at home. In New York City we spent quite some time in various shopping centres and clothes stores. The exchange rate for the US dollar has over [View Full Entry]

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Washington - The Smithsonian It has been almost two months since we came back home from our vacaton in the States. We have been very slow at updating the blog since then. But now, finally, we have the next entry ready for you to read. We hope you will enjoy it. One of the finest, or quite possible the finest, museums in the World is the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. Parts of he vast collections of the Smithsonian Institution are displayed in several museums in Washington DC and elsewhere. One of the days when [View Full Entry]

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Easter vacation in the States - a hectic day in Washington DC Easter holiday this year we spent in the United States. We spent part of the time in Washington DC and the rest of the time in New York City. For a change travelling and sightseeing was only part of the reason for the trip. The other reason for the trip was to visit friends from previous travels, namely Harvey and Ivan. We met Harvey a few years ago on a trip we [View Full Entry]

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