Preface this with that I love traveller's towns sometimes. The happy hours, the cybercafes, the travellers everywhere to chat with. Udaipur was like that, and San Ignacio in Belize too. Today we took the train to Aguas Calientes from Cusco. It was a long ride with a few beautiful vistas, but mostly territory we had covered before in our Sacred Valley tour yesterday. But at the end, we began seeing mountains covered in green foliage, misty mountaintops, and descended into the cloud forest that surrounds Machu Picchu. We were lucky enough to have gotten a hotel at the last minute - I had a pending reservation from two weeks ago that I never followed up on -we visited their office last night and ensured that we had two "matrimonial" rooms set up for us. When we ... read more

I just lost my whole entry. That´s okay, although I went into some detail on some interesting neighborhoods, I was mostly writing about the boring part of our day. I´ll give a quickie here and return and write in it later. altitude makes it hard to breathe, spanish speaking lots, san blas very different from neighborhood around train station, got tickets, no hotels in aguas calientes for us, andean travel web donation great, valley tour set up for tomorrow and got maps and stuff, saw Qorikancha and lunch at inka hut. The altitude makes it difficult to breathe here. It is funny how you feel like an old lady, as you huff & puff climbing hills that would not give you pause back at sea level. Cusco seems to be built on the side of a ... read more

This post is mainly about Clare County though we are staying in Limerick. Well, when last I wrote, it was Monday and I didn't expect much excitement for the remainder of the week. Last night, some of the local lads took us out to a place called Copper & Spice. The food was delish but I didn't think it worth writing about. Tonight, on the other hand, despite working until 6pm, we had an adventure. My co-worker's last night in Ireland is tonight, so we went out for a drive. Every site is marked by a brown sign from miles away. One of them sounded particularly intriguing, although I had never heard of it in my life. Craggaunowen. (Say that 5 times fast). We followed windy road after another until we stumbled upon its outer parking ... read more

Well, I've been here long enough that my own thoughts are in an Irish accent. That is to say, about 12 hours. I arrived this morning after a sleepless flight, and checked in at our hotel - the Clarion Limerick. Hard to miss, really. We saw it from miles away and just headed in the general direction of the modernist tower over the Shannon. I don't think the Irish breakfast agreed with me. I'm a bit sick today. I must say, their bacon is phenomenal. It's like thick-cut ham. I filled up on the breakfast buffet so that I wouldn't have to worry about lunch. After breakfast, I took a short nap and then cleaned up and headed out into Limerick. Luckily there are handy brown signs directing the aimless tourist like myself to the various ... read more

Today we are here in Padova, representing the first time we have gone some place new in Italy. Since Friday, we have been in Venice, that was just as wonderful as the last time we were there, and more comfortable. Yesterday, we went on a wine tour of the Venezia Friuli region, with the Collio wines mostly. These are wines grown on collinas or aka hills. Friuli produces many white wines and a few reds. One is the sweet pignoli, which is developed from a disease on the grapes and can only be made in this area. Another here is the Tocai Friuliano, in which they have lost against the Hungarian Tokay to keep the name of their wine, a sweet white that will now be called Friuliano instead. We had a wonderful lunch in a ... read more