It's also worth pointing out that, in many European countries (Nordics, Italy, probably Germany as well?) it's perfectly ok to just take say most of July or August off, along with everyone else. It's disruptive to the business (to the point that it's taken into account when planning things), esp. in complex companies, where a couple of key managers or architects missing means an entire initiative can stall for the duration- but it's part of the culture and business owners are just accepting this.
Also, even the senior key people are often not really expected to answers emails during vacation. It might be different at the director level and above, but they're pretty much all workaholics anyway, so they don't mind.
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