Every time my wife and I take our family back to Poland to visit the grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, great-grandparents, friends, and acquaintances, we simply must spend at least a day in neighboring Slovakia.

Two years ago, we went for a hike with our daughter’s cousin and some friends in the low hills just across the border from my in-laws’ bed-and-breakfast.

This remains one of my wife’s and my favorite pictures of that trip.