We had a busy day today which was troubling and thought provoking to say the least. The day started with breakfast in a paper bag from a corner shop....pain au cabbage. That's not the Polish name but it describes it well. A kind of croissant with cabbage goo in the middle. Not for everyone and not something that I'll rush to taste again. Still, when in Rome and all that.... The shop was in the Jewish ghetto of Kraków. An area of 320 buildings that housed 20,000 Jews from 1941 to 1943, when the ghetto was "liquidated". Most people were killed there on the spot while others were sent to Auschwitz and other camps. There isn't honestly much to see in the ghetto but it was eery to imagine life there. This is the location of ... read more

Hello from Kraków! This summer's Summers family holiday is around central and Eastern Europe. First stop Poland, then Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic and France. Kraków (pronounced crack-orf as we learned from the Christophe, the bouncer-sized taxi driver) is Poland's second biggest city and has a long and varied history. From beautiful medieval castle to ugly communist-era tower blocks. We got here late Saturday afternoon and wandered around the old town for a while before the jet lag hit. Today, Sunday, was a slow start but we spent much of the day around Wawel castle and cathedral. Stunning architecture that is nothing we could ever see in the U.S. and a great reason to travel. The weather was warm but thankfully the clouds kept things getting too hot. The forecast ahead is much hotter and I have ... read more

Our second day in the Amazon started early as we jumped on a small boat to go fishing for Piranhas. On the way to there we saw several groups of grey freshwater dolphins. They're about 3 feet long and catching them is considered very bad luck by locals (it is said to lead to the death of your first child) so they're safely protected by superstition. We were hoping to see the larger pink dolphins but were out of luck. Fishing was fun and I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've used chunks of beef as fishing bait. The fishing rods/poles were simply wooded sticks with five feet of fishing line tied to the end. The last few inches before the hook was thick steel wire, the reason for which was obvious after ... read more

Today was our last day in Cusco. As I write, we are back in the capital city, Lima, for a quick overnight stop. This morning we had a few hours left for a little more tourism so we walked to the Coricancha in Cusco. This is a church and convent built by the Spanish right on top of a very important Incan sun temple. The Spanish apparently realized that the Incan stone foundations were extremely good and they liked the message of domination that went with building on top of the temple too. The convent covered up most of the Incan foundations until a massive earthquake in 1950 led to parts of the newer building crumbling away to reveal the Incan stones. The contrast between the Incan and colonial masonry is now very striking. From there ... read more

Here's an unusual thing that earned its own mini blog post....on lots of the mountains in the Cusco and Sacred Valley areas we've seen huge words carved into the ground. Photos included below. No idea if this is freelancing artists or sanctioned/official works, but we thought it was interesting.... read more