Last Day In Galway

Our last day in Galway was relaxing. We made a short drive to Athenry which is a medieval town with pubs and a gas station. Up until a few short years ago the now tourist attractions were but old derilick stone structures grown over with weeds that the kids played on. Someone got the bright idea that they should clean it up and promote it with tourists. That seems to have worked because we are tourists and we bit on the brochure.

The town was worth the short trip and the priory and tower house were interesting. These 14th century relics survived the test of time and the restoration was successful. We had trouble finding the attractions and at one point made a wrong turn. This road led us out of the small town onto a road with no ability to turn around. Sue suggested that we should just turn left and we would be able to loop back into town. Logical yes, but not in Ireland famous for it's roads to nowhere.

We drove down a road that narrowed like many others and found ourselves at a locked gate. Before we could get turned around a man on a tractor pulling a trailer blocked our path. It seems he was out to move 8 cows to a different pasture by loading them into the trailer. He marveled at how lost we happened to be. "How in the world did you ever find this place?"  His question brought up an interesting thought.  Since we had "found" this place, how could we be lost.  Granted, we weren't looking for "this place" but we did "find" it.  How many tourists could say that they visited this very spot.

After a pleasant twenty minute conversation which included American presidential politics and the Celtic Tiger (overnight millionaires now penniless), we accepted his directions and turned down his offer to go back and get us some "wellies" to help him load his cows.  Even getting lost in Ireland can turn into an interesting and pleasant experience.

We found our way into town and visited our sites. At the priory we ran into a couple from our B&B who had stopped on their way back to Dublin. Ireland is indeed a small place.

We met a girl at the tower house who knew the history very well. In fact she was intimate with it. As it works out, one of the stone masons who worked on the restoration married her. She knew the extent of the work and mentioned that her husband took meticulous care using old stone chisels to keep things authentic. We also noticed that they used old mortice and tenon joints in the roof beams with wooden doweling when they repaired the roof. Much of the basement storage area roof was original and still showed signs of the wicker used to support the stone and morter when it was built in the 1300's.

We stopped at Dan's Bar and had lunch. My friend Dan doesn't drink so I was surprised to see he owned a bar in Ireland. We turned down the special which included chicken served with mashed potatoes and chips (french fries). Yes, both types of potato came together with the meal. The Irish serve chips with other potatoes and pasta without even thinking about the starch. We have also found that someone here thinks that if you mix regular peanuts with spanish peanuts you can package them as "mixed nuts".

One missed observation from yesterday's outing needs to be mentioned. At the Ross Errilly friary we were all alone. Our nearest mammals were cows in the adjoining pasture. Not a soul was visible for half a mile. You can imagine our feeling when we heard music at this holy site. The music was melodic and sounded like a distant organ. While this was quite appropriate for the setting it was of some concern. I moved around until I heard the sound a bit louder. I finally traced the music to......a fence post.

Actually it was the vertical pipe which was part of a gate near the entrance to the ruin. There was about a six inch rectangular slot in the pipe and the high wind was blowing across the opening just like an organ. I placed my camera near the source of the sound and recorded a bit of video. I hope the sound comes through in the recording. I was able to place my finger on the slot and I could change the tone. The wind was doing such a fine job just changing directions a bit that my fingering didn't improve on the sound a bit. We mentioned our find to another couple who also had visited this location and they too had marveled at the sound but had not discovered its source.

Tomorrow we are one to our last leg of the trip. We drive to Shannon for two nights. We will eventually turn in our rental car and catch a flight back to Miami on Tuesday. I may be able to get in another post before we leave but that will depend on the wifi and the packing gods.

Irish Democrat

A Trip to Cong

Another exciting day in Galway finds the two of us hurtling down the narrow roads, destination Cong. Along the way we noticed a friary designated on a tourist map. Along the road we found a brown government sign pointing the way. A quick turn off the main road down a side street for a couple of "clicks" (kilometers) we came to another brown sign pointing down a narrow path consisting of two paved ruts with a grassy divider. This road took us past a few houses and then through some pasture land until we spotted the friary.

This was the Ross Errilly Friary built in 1351. Like most such buildings here they knew how to build walls that would last hundreds of years but hadn't quite figured out the roofing business. It was remarkably well preserved. I hope I look that good when I am 650+ years old. After bumping my head for the 200th time on a low doorway on this trip I finally figured out why the friars are always depicted with that little bald spot on the top of their heads.

We had so much good luck with the friary we decided to try our hand at a cairne. We didn't know what a cairne was but we just knew that one called the Ballymagibbon Cairne had to be a good one. We drove down the narrow road for about 100 yards.  The beginning of the road was deceptively "car width narrow".  Later on the briars and brambles began scraping down the sides like primitive car wash brushes.  It was then that we discovered what a cairne must be. It has to be Irish for dead end because that's what we found. A locked gate prevented us from entering a cow pasture that looked, well, like cow pastures should look. It was full of muck, water, grass and cow pies. Off in the distance was what looked like a stone building. I assume it is this building that gives the locals a good view of the funny lost tourists who wouldn't know a good cairne if they saw one.

I have since looked up the word cairne and found that is is gaelic for "mound of rocks". Since all of Ireland seems to be a never ending scene where rocks are mounded I can't see the facination with any particular mound. I have commented to the locals that if rocks ever become a valuable commodity Ireland will be the richest nation in the world.

Beware the Cairn

We now had the good fortune of not only being able to drive our small vehicle on a very narrow road, but we could now do it in reverse with no margin for error. This had to be accomplished backing up the hill with the left and right hand mirrors folded in as we were scraping the thorny brambles on both sides of the road. I tried to look in the center rear view mirror while Sue gave meticulous directions like, "turn". Followed quickly by, "no the other way".

When we finally got to the top of the hill where we had turned off the main road we now had to back into that road which was on a curve with oncoming traffic hidden by a hill about 100 feet away. As this main road was not terribly busy we waited for a few cars to pass. We then said a prayer to the monks of the last friary we visited and made our move backward onto the road, around a telephone pole and into a wide gravel strip where I could turn around. Since you are reading this you already know we were successful.

We then proceeded to our Cong destination and ignored the other brown signs that have probably been put up by mischievous locals and not by the government as we thought. Cong was the major film location for the movie The Quiet Man, staring John Wayne. We got pictures of another friary or abby (we don't yet know the difference) and we tried to get a drink in the bar that now sits on the spot where the original movie bar was located. The door was locked so we went across the street to Squire Danagher's Bar. For those of you who may not be familiar with the movie it was Squire Danagher who was the brother of Maureen O'Hara.

We had lunch with Guinness and white wine. We also had some good craic (crack) with the locals. One gentleman in particular who discussed with us his preference for Galway in the upcoming championship hurling match with Killkenny. He was in the quarry business where he ground up limestone into fine quality sand to be used in glass making. He also mentioned the day a short while ago when Maureen O'Hara visited for a Quiet Man celebration, that she met with and posed for pictures with the locals. He thought she was a very gracious lady. She was 91 at the celebration and still lives in Ireland.

A Couple of Days in Galway

We had our great full Irish breakfast and headed out per out host Ida's direction toward Klymore Abby. We took her scenic route suggestion through a flatland area with free range sheep wandering the roadways. We went through the peat bog area where they had freshly stacked and cut peat drying to be used for fuel.


We visited the Klymore Abby in a beautiful setting on a mountainside by a lake. We took our usual 500 pictures of the abby and surrounding countryside. We walked to the gothic church built in remembrance of a man's wife. We decided to pass on the nearby national park as it was getting late and the weather was getting Irish. That is to say a wet mist blowing at 30 to 40 knots.

We make the trek home and stopped at the John Wayne bridge. There is some question as to its authenticity but near the bridge they have a photo of "The Duke" with the same background as can be seen from the bridge. They didn't have Photoshop in those days but they still managed to make King Kong look real. In any case I had my picture taken with a tweed hat that made me look so much like John Wayne I had to look close to see I was shorter, carrying a digital camera and aside from the hat looked nothing like The Duke.

We took a few hundred pictures of sheep on the way back and got to our B&B by 1730 (military time is very prevalent here), We walked the "15 minutes" to dinner near the water. That water is Galway Bay.

The next day we decided to go back south and try the Cliffs of Moher. The weather had improved and we got to the cliffs after an hour and and forty five minute drive. The GPS estimate is much less than that but assumes you can do 62 mph (100kph) on a narrow mountain road with construction, small towns, farm equipment and stray sheep in your path. If I had done the posted 100kph my little black Suzuki would have looked like a Q-Tip after our first sheep encounter.

The cliffs were nice but Sue and I agreed that the pictures of the coastline on the Barra peninsula were more spectacular. Dunguaire castle was an easy diversion on the way home and is billed as the most photographed castle in Ireland. Since it is right next to a roadway travelled by tour busses I can see why. You could easily get a great shot through a bus window. Sue and I, of course, spent an hour photographing the castle from every angle.

We got safely home to our B&B, had our requisite glass of wine and/or shot of Irish whiskey, and went out for dinner. We were about 30 feet down the street from our warm abode when the Irish mist kicked in with a vengeance. Sue popped my umbrella since she lost hers after one of several thousand bumps on the jaunty ride the week before, and it managed to flip inside out more than once on our walk to dinner.

The pub we had selected was closed until 1930, to keep out the elderly looking for the EB Special we assumed. We changed our plans and returned to an Italian place we had used before. After a traditional Irish dinner of pizza and French wine we braved the elements for the walk home.

This is being written in the sitting room with my portable keyboard in my lap and the iPad on a piano stool. Since the piano was not in use and already had another chair wedged under it I thought I was safe to set up shop. As it turns out I saw only one other couple on their way up to their rooms since I began writing this. Sue is upstairs getting a head start on a good night's sleep. I will now join her. More later......

Driving From Killarney To Galway

I am now deaf. I used to only have problems with my right ear. Now with Sue sitting on my left I have lost the hearing on the other side as well. Her screams of terror now fall on deaf ears. I can only imagine what it is like to be a passenger on these roads. There is no visibility to the left or right as the vegetation is higher than the car or there are stone walls of similar height. She has no visibility behind as the left mirror is folded in. If the mirror wasn't folded in we would surely have left it in Dublin.

The roads on this last leg of our trip got unbelievably narrower than before. At one point the paved road had a center stripe that was just grass. Couple all of this with uphill climbs, downhill speed runs, tight winding curves, the unexpected hump, blind intersecting roads, even narrower bridges and the occasional idiot in a motorhome approaching at full throttle and you have some idea of Sue's situation. She can only lean and scream. Her only relief this day was the twenty minute ferry ride and the 45 minute break we took in a small town pub for lunch.



The weather was blustery as gale force winds were being described on the radio somewhere nearby. We stopped briefly next to a seawall when the rain reduced visibility. The little Suzuki rocked back and forth with each gust. We arrived in Galway around 1730 and drove through an industrial section of town as we neared our B&B location. With some degree of trepidation we saw the approaching flag on the GPS which signaled our destination. We turned the corner and things got better and behind a wall we drove up the drive to see a lovely (they use a lot of "lovely" here) building.

We walked into Lower Salthill a mere 5 minute Irish walk from the B&B. A 5 minute Irish walk translates into a 15 minute American walk. We were regularly passed by speed walkers and several joggers. Given how cold it was I can understand their haste to get somewhere warm.

We are expecting a great breakfast as our host/cook teaches gourmet cooking classes as a sideline. I will publish this when I go downstairs as that is the only wifi reception area. I just wish I had more time here as I could help them expand their signal strength. Most B&B operators are very gracious and good at what they do. Unfortunately they have little interest beyond the ability to check the box marked wifi in their ads.

We are off to plan our day. More from Galway later.

Goodbye Killarney On To Galway

We have done Killarney proud.  We have photographed every tree, rock, church, ruin, castle, lake and boat within 100 kilometers of Killarney.  We have talked with all of its inhabitants and I don't think they have any more Guinness.  I certainly did my share of hiding the Guinness where it won't be found.

Our longest trip from Killarney was out to the Dingle peninsula.  It is here in our narrative that I must digress a bit.  We have seen many castles throughout Ireland and in London.  At most of these castles they had on display several torture devices, each more horrific than the next.  Lots of time has passed since the sixteenth century and they have finally perfected the supreme torture device.  It is painful beyond belief.  I give you the Suzuki rental car for Ireland.

This strange torture machine deserves its own paragraph.  I hit my head at least fifteen times a day on the door jamb when entering.  The seat has a new feature called reverse lumbar support.  Where some cars have an adjustable pad to provide extra comfort for the lower back, the engineers at Suzuki have removed all padding and have built a seat back less comfortable than The Rack  from the 1500's.  They have also removed any semblance of suspension so that the passengers will feel every pebble in the road.  I could not believe that the Japanese could develop such a device until I learned that Suzuki also makes wheelchairs.  This makes perfect business sense.  Cripple thousands of drivers and you will have more customers for your wheelchairs.

Now back to Dingle.  Our host at the Carriglea House is Eileen and she recommended a beach on Dingle.  I proudly stated that I was from Florida and had seen my share of beaches.  The Inch beach however was beautiful and contrary to its name it is many miles long.  Who would of thought, Surf Ireland.  We now have pictures of surfers shooting the curl on Inch.  There were also folks in kayaks riding the waves.  The town of Dingle is a cute touristy seaside village which is the gateway to the rest of one of the most scenic coastlines in Ireland.

Today started out with a shock.  For weeks I have been  drinking Guinness, Murphy's and a few other local brews, eating a full Irish breakfast almost every morning, which were followed by lunch and dinner  Each of these last two meals came with their own serving of beer and chips.  The shock came this morning when I couldn't get into my pants.  I got them to my knees and they could rise no further.  In our dark room I saw that the zipper had only traveled about 3 inches.  I fought with the zipper  for over a minute while mentally figuring how I could cut back on the calories.  It was only then that I realized that I had grabbed Sue's black slacks.

I found my own pants and went downstairs for my full Irish breakfast.  Today we toured Ross Castle and Muckross Abbey.  We also walked off lunch with a predicted 15 minute walk to Dinis Cottage.  This walk took us around 40 minutes.  On our way back we were passed by the guy who provided the 15 minute estimate.  He walked like The Roadrunner being chased by Wile E Coyote.  He passed us in a blur.  I would like to say he was young but he looked about my age, just in much better shape.

Tomorrow we head for Galway.  This trip involves about three hours in our Japanese torture device coupled with a 20 minute ferry ride.  We will have more for you when we can.  Sláinte.

Killarney

I am now sitting at a 100+ year old desk in a 150 year old farmhouse writing a blog entry on a less than a year old iPad.   The B&B history has it that Michael Collins was a friend of the owner and stayed here regularly. 

We are in Killarney.  On the way to Killarney from Ballinhassig (Cork) we stopped at the Blarney Castle.  We did not press our lips to the drool on the Blarney Stone.  The last tourist to do this turned green, shrank to a small size and started selling a sugared cereal in America.  The one before him now sells cookies for Keebler.  We took pictures and wandered through the druid forest with very strange looking trees.  There was a kitchen built into a tree with a stone chimney and there were cookie looking droppings everywhere.

The Irish mist (light rain) fell in the morning of our first day.  We toured the Muckross House which was an inside activity.  We ran into a couple from our previous B&B and talked for a bit.  This is the second time we have run into couples we met at B&B's in towns other than where we were staying.  Ireland is not really big and I think I have seen the same old man in almost every town we have visited.  Considering the people we have met I would think the population of Ireland is 400 Irish and 2,345,859 American tourists.  We also met two folks from South Africa, four from Australia, five from Austria, two from Belgium and one from Israel.  The service industry seems to all hail from eastern Europe with the exception of the bartenders who are all Irish.

Today we did the Gap of Dunloe.  My grandmother did this in 1908 so I retraced her steps.  We took a very old bus to the boat landing.  From there we took a 40 minute ride through the several lakes to what I though was the famous Kate Kearney's Cottage.  I asked why it looked so different and a staffer told me that the view was from the other side.  When I made the trip to the other side the windows didn't match and there was only one chimney.  My grandmother's picture had a window, a door and then two windows .  It also had two chimneys.  I took many pictures and marveled at how it had changed.

I then walked up to a small outside bar and was told the drinks were free but the beer and wine were 2 euros.  I couldn't believe my luck.  I got both Sue and I glasses of wine.  When I was asked how I wanted my steak I began to wonder.  I asked and was told it was part of our package.  We didn't have a package.  I could have had a steak dinner but decided that honesty should prevail.  When I questioned the girl who had served us wine she asked, "Aren't you with the group?"  When I said no she just smiled and winked.

We then proceeded to a jaunty which is a two wheeled cart with an old horse up front and room enough in the carriage to literally bounce the kidneys out of two American tourists.  We proceeded up the Gap of Dunloe behind our trusty steed.  Our driver stood between us and yelled at the old horse for the next 45 minutes.  His yelling was broken by the occasional, "over there is the Black Valley and that's the highest mountain in Ireland".  Things were flying in our eyes and Sue proffered that it might be bugs.   The driver quickly affirmed her suspicions.  This was the truth until I noticed that I was covered in horse hair.  It was then our driver admitted his horse was shedding his summer coat.

We were also just inches from the end of the horse that doesn't chew.  We were quickly reminded of the Seinfeld episode with the Kramer horse carriage after the horse was fed Beef-a-Reeno.  We got the occasional whiff of something other than fresh air.

I was able to take pictures from some of the vantage points that had been in my grandmother's scrapbook from her 1908 trip.  We were dropped off at the real Kate Kearney's cottage with the correct number of windows, doors and chimneys.  It was all clear now that I had been at another cottage for the first set of pictures.  There were changes to this cottage as well but there was at least a similarity to the 104 year old photograph.

By the time our bus dropped us off at our B&B all of us on the bus were friends.  As the bus pulled out of the driveway everyone waved to us from their bus windows,

Tomorrow we are on to the Dingle peninsula.  The weather is supposed to hold for one more day and we are hoping for some great pictures.  Rain is in the forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday but the weathermen here are as accurate as they are back home.  Toss a coin and hope for the best.  It will either be a picture day or a Guinness day.  Both are good here.

Outside Cork

We just left a pub where we watched the news in Gaelic with English sub titles while also listening to 60's rock and roll in the background.  Sue had a burger that was served with bacon, mushrooms and cheese. It came with "chips" aka fries.  There also was a side salad that was topped, in lieu of dressing, with both cole slaw and potato salad.  I ordered lasagna with a salad.  It too came with the obligatory chips.  We have bacon served with almost every breakfast as it appears to be a staple.  I'm sure that by the time we leave Ireland will be short three whole pigs, five if you count the two overweight Americans on the British Air jet bound for Miami.

We had arrived at our dinner pub from the pub next door.  We entered this pub hoping for food (pub-grub) and a beverage.  We were informed that this was a REAL pub so we could forget the food.  We forgot the food and had a couple of drinks.  We struck up a conversation with a local that we could understand.   Most of the others spoke mostly Gaelic amongst themselves.  When we left for the eating pub next door they all did wish us farewell.  Sue promised them we would be back.

Earlier this day we woke to Billy's whinny.  Billy is the front yard horse who peers at us through our bay window from this active horse farm.  Our B&B is also a breeding farm for high end jumpers.  Two are destined for Spain this week and the vet was by today for their final checkup.

After our full Irish breakfast we departed for Mizen Head at the southwestern tip of Ireland.  After a two hour drive on the three major Irish roadways we came to the craggy tip.  For the uninitiated, the three major roadways are regular highways with 120km per hour speeds, narrow secondary roads with 100 km per hour speeds and the country roads with 80 km per hour speeds.  None of these roadways is capable of supporting these speeds.  The country roads barely fit my sub mini compact roller skate size car with the wheels that ride on both shoulders of the road at the same time.  These roads are supposed to serve two way traffic and are to be shared by  cars, trucks and a few very mad tour bus drivers.  My left side mirror has been folded back to avoid the side brush and the occasional unwary walking pub patron.

Mizen Head Lighthouse

Most pub patrons drink with their left hands and arms so they will walk with traffic.  This way they will only sustain car side swipes on the non important right arm.

One nice thing about driving through sheep and cattle country is that the funny smell in the car can't be blamed on me.   There are hundreds of other suspects. 

Kilkenny

Well we finished up in Dublin and rented a car.  As promised the car had the steering wheel on the right and I had to drive on the left.  Of course Sue wanted to go the scenic route to Kilkenny that took us through towns and on narrow country roads.  This was a great decision....for Sue.  For me it was several hours of terror interrupted by a few scary moments.  

I have heard from Sue and some other people that I saw some great scenery.  What I really remember seeing was the white line in the road that I found I had to keep in a particular spot of the windshield in order to stay at least six inches from the oncoming traffic.  You have to maintain this comfy six inches in order to not scrape the left side of the car on the brush or stone walls that are a good five inches away from the other side.

Our Suzuki Alto Rollerskate

I have no pictures of any of the scenery that I am told I passed as there is no place to pull over even if you wanted.  At one point I was on a particularly narrow road with maybe four inches clearance on either side when I came upon a tractor trailer rig coming the other way.  I hit the brakes as did he.  I couldn't go anywhere so the truck driver had to put his rig in reverse.   He put the cab and leading edge of his trailer into a small area near a fence gate.  I squeezed by but couldn't help wonder how he even managed to move forward.

You have to keep in mind that I am driving a Suzuki Alto which is essentially two motorcycles welded together with a roof.  It was the amazingly Spartan offering from Hertz.  I am glad that it is as small as it is as I can't imagine trying to drive anything larger here.  These roads must have been designed by Leprechauns on a bender.

Before I go much further in our drive I have to correct an error I made in an earlier posting.  It seems that Gaelic football is another sport that differs from the one between Galway and Kilkenny that I watched in our Dublin hotel pub.  I misunderstood our bartender who was describing the sport.  You see over here they speak English.  This variety however drops vowels and consonants at will and all "H's".   I understand about every third word unless it happens to be a local idiom.  Then I don't understand much of anything.

Gaelic Football

I have also run into a few speed talkers.  The heavily accented language flies by your ears at the speed of a Guinness down a dry throat.  You will generally not understand even one word.  After a few pints you might imagine you understand.  You probably don't but at least you can give a better impression of a good listener.  Luckily most Irish really enjoy talking and you don't need to enter the conversation with more than a nod or a smile.

What the bartender was actually describing was hurling.  Now to me hurling is something you do if you have had too much Guinness.  To them it is a sport best enjoyed while drinking too much Guinness so you can hurl later.

Hurling, Irish Style

As a lapsed Catholic I haven't seen the inside of a church in ages.  On vacation I have spent more time in more churches than I had in all my years growing up.  The mere fact that these represent some of the oldest structures in all of Ireland seems to be their draw.  Most around Kilkenny are around 700 and 800 years old.  When you read about their histories you realize that being a priest, monk, bishop or the like in their day was not a bad job.

As a sign of the times I remember we passed a church in Dublin that had been converted into a nightclub.  There was another that was now a hotel.  When the times got tough in the thirteenth century the wealthy would build a church.  This would provide employment for the poor and a place for the wealthy to be buried where they could be remembered.  The joke was on them though as 98% of the tombstones have weathered and are illegible.

Today is my birthday.  It started off in our B&B at our breakfast.  Tom, one of our hosts came in with his 100+ year old squeezebox and we all joined in with Danny Boy, Molly Malone and one other that I recognized from the movie The Quiet Man.  [a video clip is shown below of Tom singing] Then they sang Happy Birthday in a manner I never heard before nor will I ever again.   I continued my celebration in Kilkenny at the Smithwick's (pronounced Smiddicks) Brewery which was an old abby.  This represents a much better use of church property.  As I understand the history of the place however the monks of the abby consumed a lot of beer.  During lent they would not eat solid food and existed on beer.  This sounds a lot like a few months I spent in college.

Tom Singing Molly Malone

At the end of our tour we had the tasting. Sue got a beer, I got a beer.  Sue doesn't drink beer.  Sue's beer did not go to waste.  While there we met a couple of "Dubs" as the folks from Dublin are called.  We had some good crack.  As I think I explained in an earlier post, crack is conversation.  We talked with these two for over an hour.  His wife also did not drink beer so he likewise benefitted from the situation.

Our Smithwicks Bartender

During this conversation we were told that we could expect to not understand the folks in Cork.  As I only understood about 2/3 of what he was saying I am not sure I got it all right.  If I did understand him I will probably be using my skills learned in Barcelona where I was speaking very broken Spanish with a bit of English thrown in and they only spoke and understood only Catalan.  Sign language and a lot of pointing will be the way to survive.

We finished my birthday celebration with an Italian pizza made at a French restaurant in downtown Kilkenny Ireland.  I washed it down with a Murphy's beer which is similar to Guinness.  We finished up at Mathew's Tea Room with dessert.  We made it an early evening as the town is about to be invaded with a Stags and Hens celebration which from all accounts sounds like an Irish version of Mardi Gras.  The Guarda (police) will have a strong presence and the ambulances will be standing by according to our B&B hosts.

We also today clarified the name on our B&B which is Dunromin.  It sounded very Irish and I wanted to know its derivation.  I was told the prior owner had been a traveling man in his work when he went into the B&B business.  He was merely stating that he was "done roaming".  It sounded Irish anyway.

Dunromin B&B

Tomorrow we are on to Cork via the Rock of Cashel.  More later when wireless and free time present themselves.

Last Day in Dublin

We were up at the crack of 9:00 and went down for our traditional Irish breakfast.  I have to say these morning meals are fit for a middle line backer.  Between the several pints of Guinness each day and the hearty breakfast I should weigh around 300 pounds when I return.  If it wasn't for the forced marches all over town I would have to return to Miami on a freighter.

Irish Breakfast to Start the Day

There are almost as many churches as there are pubs in Dublin.  We managed to visit our share of both today.  We ended up at the Temple Bar where we enjoyed some Guinness, white wine (Sue) and some traditional Irish music.

Temple Bar Entertainers

We visited churches and cathedrals that dated back to the 12th century. We visited pubs that dated back to last year.  Some went back several hundred years.

England Takes One More Shot

We did not escape London without the Brits taking one more shot at the folks from Miami.  Our trip to Heathrow was great.  Our driver was a 22 year career driver formerly of the Royal Navy.  We exchanged war stories on the trip to the airport.  The driver told us he was really surprised to find out that we were Americans.  Our carry on bags were sent out to him before we exited the hotel.  He said our bags were too small and too light to be accompanied by someone from the US,  Normally a woman's bag would be large and heavy.  He couldn't tell the difference between our bags.  What he didn't know was that, in anticipation of Aer Lingus weight restrictions I had placed about 15 pounds of tech gear in my tech jacket with the 23 large pockets.

This is how you feel after an Aer Lingus flight

We arrived over two hours before our flight time.  Going through security was a breeze.  This would be the best part of our day.  The Brits have the next step geared for pure excitement.  You now sit in a lounge not knowing which end of a mile long airport you will need to be in when your flight takes off.  They post the gate assignment 30 minutes before your scheduled time.  Our flight was assigned to Gate 80.  The sign to our right indicated Gates 6 thru 9 and 75 thru 90 were down this hall.  We went down a ramp.  There was a small sign on our left that indicated this turn was for the Aer Lingus Gold Card holders and was by invitation only.  We continued straight ahead and came to an escalator.  At the top of the escalator was a woman at a desk with a sign that read "Flight Connections".  We asked the girl at the desk, "Is this the way to Aer Lingus Flight EI157 at Gate 80.  She answered Yes, Flight Connections.  A closer look at her may have given some indication that English was a second language and that the only three words she had managed so far were Yes, Flight and Connections.

What she didn't state and signs didn't indicate was that this was the exit from the seure area.  We walked down a long long hallway with not a soul in it.  There were a few other lost souls way behind us but we were basically on our on.  We found a floor cleaner who gave us an indication of our plight.  We would have to go back through security and find Gate 80 all in the next 20 minutes.  Our two hour cushion was now down to 1,200 seconds.

We raced down long hallways, took an elevator (lift) and ran to the security area nearest Gate 80.  The lines were long and snaked back and forth seemingly forever.  We made it to the desk where they scan your face.  Sue's hair was now in her eyes and they couldn't match her with her passport.  Several finger passes through her hair and finally they thought Sue was Sue.  We now sprinted down 9 more hallways, around three major roundabouts, across a bridge, over the river and through the woods before spotting Gate 80 with the sign that said the gate was closed.

This was just one more one more stab of British humor.  We still had 8 minutes to spare.  We were now to face the Aer Lingus luggage screening.  Aer Lingus thinks (listen up Lilies) a normal US suitcase is Air Cargo, a US roll aboard is checked luggage with penalties.  Our smaller, European standard bags were close to their limits but were yanked at the gate for check in.  We did dodge the 15 Euro baggage charge which would have cost us about $42 US.

On board the flight we found out that Aer Lingus is not in the business of air travel.  They are in the business of running a small retail outlet at 30,000 feet.  On our 50 minute flight the crew came down the aisle and asked if we would like something to drink.  Sue asked for a glass of water.  The flight attendant gave her a strange look and indicated Sue would get her water when she was through with this run of beverages.  Observation found that they sold everything.  Cokes were 2 Euros, a cup of coffee was 2.50 Euros and a shot of Jameson's Irish whiskey was 7 Euros.



We though they were joking when they gave the safety presentation.  "In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, please insert 5 Euros in your armrest slot and an oxygen mask will be deployed."  "Life vests may be had when exiting the craft for a mere ten Euros."

We saw our flight attendant once more when she made a run with ballcaps, tee shirts, key chains and paperbacks.  They also made a pitch for a whole array of duty free merchandise including booze, perfume and an Irish birth control product which turned out to be a picture of Margaret Thatcher.

Our driver met us at the airport and drove us in the direction of Dublin.  This too was to be not with out incident as it seems we arrived in the middle of their World Series.  Actually it is Hurling.  This is a sport played by amateurs that turns out to be their equivalent to our Super Bowl.  If I seem to be mixing my sports analogies this is only because the sport defies a direct comparison.  It seems to be a cross between football, hockey, croquet, soccer, baseball and a Teamsters union strike from the 1950's.  It involves a small leather ball and eleven men on each side with long flat sticks.  The objective seems to be to run with the ball when you can and then you whack the ball to the other end of a large almost square looking field.  There is a goal post for each side with a goalie guarded net beneath the goal.  If the ball is hit through the upper posts they get one point and a ball hit into the lower net gains three.

In Hurling you get 4 points if you break your opponent's knee

We watched the whole thing from our hotel bar where I was served my first Irish Guinness.  The game ended in a tie so everyone went home happy.  A playoff is now scheduled for September 30th.  This is the first tie in over 50 years..

My first general observtion of Ireland is that I was misinformed that they speak English here.  It is close but I understand about as much when they speak as I do at home listening to two Miamians talking the official language of our town, Spanish.

Final Day in London on 2 Dublin

We have now walked through two pairs of sneakers and we are only four days into our vacation.  Today we poked London in the eye.  We got on board the London Eye for an ariel view of why we got lost so often.  We looked out and immediately saw our problem, London was laid out originally by an architect with a sense of humor.  When nobody got the joke they burned it down and started all over again.

The London Eye at Night

They had one more opportunity to make changes after WWII but by then everyone sort of got to enjoy getting lost and even more enjoyed acting like they knew where they were so they could give false directions to tourists.

View from the top of The London Eye

The London Eye was a great ride and the views were spectacular.  We wanted an easy last day before having to go through the ordeal of the airport once again.  We finished up our stay at the Churchill War Rooms.  This is a fantastic location for history buffs as many of the rooms had been closed up and left as they were at the end of the war.  They were then reopened as a museum.  Those rooms that had been cleared were then set up with artifacts based on the many photographs taken in this hidden bunker.

Inside the Churchill War Rooms

Sorry this is going to have to be brief as it is getting late and we have a 5:30 wake up call scheduled.

Day Three In London

We started our day with the hotel's typical English breakfast.  It is a great breakfast.  It also answers a lot of questions like how their health care system, the NHS, works so well.  The health system works because after a mere 40 years of eating eggs, ham, sausage links, baked beans, grilled mushrooms, cheeses and cakes, they all just have a quick coronary and die.

We should have London figured out by Sunday on our way to the airport.  We used the last half a day of our hop-on-hop-off bus pass to get to the Tower of London.  Hop-on-hop-off is misnamed since it should be named something like try-2-find-a-stop-and-wait as we spent our time trying to figure out their map to find the nearest hop back on location.  What would normally be just a simple inconvenience was exacerbated by the Special Olympics which regularly rerouted busses at a whim.

The Tower of London

The Tower of London was the scene of English beheadings and torture.  I gather from their records only 8 people were ever beheaded there and fewer than 100 folks were tortured.  This seems insignificant, unless of course you happened to be one of the famous unfortunates.  Various sections dated back to the 13th century.  Nothing that old would ever survive in Miami as it would have been rezoned, demolished and a new shopping center would be built on the site, just across the street from the other mall.

After our visit to the Tower we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch.  The weather was beautiful and there were people eating outside.  Unlike the English locals we had seen the sun before and elected to eat inside.  They left the front doors open so it was almost like eating outside.  I had a large smoked salmon salad and a beer.  Sue also had a salad and a glass of wine.  When it came time to settle our bill the waiter came over just as a large fly flew into the dressing left in the bottom of the bowl.  This was no regular house fly but large British Airways 747 size fly.  Since I was through with the salad this wouldn't have been interesting except, while the waiter watched in amazement, the fly rolled over, kicked a few times and died.  Now I was a bit concerned since I had just eaten a much larger portion than the fly.  I tossed an easy one liner to the waiter by asking, "what's this fly doing in my salad?"  Since I guess he had never seen Groucho Marx knock that one out of the park he just stared back.

After leaving the restaurant I spotted a very old looking church.  It didn't look famous and it wasn't on our list but after watching that fly die in my dressing I thought a little time in a church couldn't hurt.  We were greeted by a nice London tour guide.  We found out later from his associate that being a London tour guide requires a two year course of study and a strict exam.  It covers all aspects of London history and the guide knew quite a bit about the church even though he said he had only been covering the location for a few weeks.  He took us down into the crypt which had stones laid by the Romans in about 860 AD.  After hearing we were Americans he showed us two of the church records.  In two separate books were the recorded marriage of John Quincy Adams and the baptism of William Penn.  Both had taken place in that church.

All Hallows Church near The Tower of London

The church was an amalgam as it had the lower portions which were very old and the outer walls and steeple were ancient but the center of the church dated to the 1950's.  It seems a German bomb found it's way to the center of the church which was destroyed.  They had rebuilt the center in a more modern style and kept the outer walls.

Baptismal Font in Hallows Church

I considered taking The Tube back to our hotel but Sue ruled in favor of another boat ride on the Thames.  We walked back to the hotel and got ready for dinner.  We walked the 0.4 miles to the White Swan Pub.  Just before arriving two English women stopped us and asked for directions.  To my surprise they asked me for the location of the only place I was quite sure of.  I was sure since I had just passed it.  I was sorely tempted to give them the old English "mess withy their heads" routine but I was so tickled to know where The Tate museum was located I didn't even give them deceptive hand gestures.

Tomorrow we will be taking it easy.  We don't plan forced marches of more than 12 miles.  Of the 60 things on our well thought out to-do list we only have 56 to choose from.

Across The Pond

Here we are across the pond. At this point we have been to the loo and eaten fish and chips.  Not necessarily in that order.   Our car service drove us to our hotel on the wrong side of the road while sitting in the right hand passenger seat complete with steering wheel, petrol pedal (I'm guessing here) and a brake pedal that Sue would love to have in the States when I am driving.

Our first day had us checking into our room and crashing for about an hour.  Anyone who claims to sleep on a transatlantic flight must be an American politician running for office.  Our room is spacious by European standards.  This means you can stretch all the way out on your bed and not touch both walls, if you are four foot two.  Actually this room came with two drawers to put all your stuff in.  There is also a closet which is actually a two foot wide cabinet.  As promised they do have a computer in the room, if you count Apple as a computer.  I am writing this entry on the Mac and my only problem is the keyboard which has one of these keys (`) where a shift key should be.  We have a great shower and the bathroom is larger than the closet, er, cabinet.  Actually our entire room is larger than Sue's walk in closet that held her and a family of four during hurricane Andrew.  Sue did have to take out her Imilda Marcos shoe collection however.

Apple Computer in Room

We got up and began to venture out to see what our 4 months of planning would provide.  The first thing it provided was that we should have planned less and just said lets fly and see what happens.  You can never do all you think you can do and certainly not on a schedule.



We have learned one thing, the Brit's have a sense of humor.  Not the Benny Hill/Monty Python variety but the "we just love messing with your head" kind.  If you ask a Londoner for directions they will give one set of verbal instructions while giving a completely different set of instructions with gestures.  If they for instance say, "Go down this street and make a left after two blocks" they really mean you should proceed in the direction they are pointing for about 5 blocks and make a right.  You must pick all of this up with the force of the arm thrust to get the verbal 2 blocks to stretch into 5 and the slight bend of the wrist to the right while pointing.

They are among the friendliest folks you would ever want to meet.  Giving directions is their one small pleasure in life after paying the prices they charge for everything here.  Things only sound slightly overpriced until you figure that you still need to add over 50% to convert that figure into dollars.  That small £8 pound beer just cost you over $12 and weighs no where near eight pounds.

London is billed as a walking town.  Once you are in the town center, which is where our hotel is located, you can walk to a great many locations.  This is only partly true.  Street names change at random and certainly will change if they curve even slightly.  It seems like a Londoner helped out Google when they were mapping the area because Google seems to be in on the "let's mess with the Americans' heads" joke.  We Google mapped directions to our hop-on-hop-off bus location.  It involved about fourteen street names.  They had us walking down streets that were named but only existed for about 3 feet.  It seems any jog in the pavement of at least 1 meter warrants a new name.  When we finally found a Bobbie, all of the cops in London seem to have the same first name, he laughed at our dilemma and asked why we would follow our complex directions.  He indicated that all we had to do was walk out of our hotel and make a right (actually a left) and walk the mile and a half to one simple turn and we would be there.

Our Hop-on Hop-off Bus Stuck in Traffic

I misspoke when I said we found a Bobbie as he actually approached us.  It seems that all you need to do is pull out a map with a puzzled look on your face and a Bobbie will ask you if you are lost.  Sue and I have the puzzled look down to a science and hope we never lose the map.

We followed his new directions and arrived at Victoria Station.  Our hop-on-hop-off directions stated that we had to go to this station and visit their "office" across from platform 8.  We found platform 8 in Victoria Station but there were no offices to be found.  Eventually we were directed to their office as outside of Victoria Station, actually about 2 blocks away.  The "office" was not an office but merely a man on a sidewalk with a small computer/printer hanging on his waist.  He took our voucher and printed a ticket.  Since we had seen their tour busses stopping at this location we assumed this is what we needed to do.

When we waited for a while and no bus showed up we asked a lady that was nearby.  She said that we wouldn't be happy with these busses as they were all in foreign languages.  What we really needed was the yellow route where they spoke English.  Fine, where do we do this?  Just down there was the spoken direction but the very important hand direction was indicating that we needed to go down there and then down there and then we needed to go to this other place.

We were lost in London again.  We luckily had the bus map with all of the marked stops for the yellow line, the red line, the blue line, the pink line, the clothes line, the stop line and several others I am probably forgetting.  We approached another Bobbie who gave us directions which happened to be the direction he was going.  He walked ahead of us for half a block before he turned around and said that perhaps he had made an error.  He then sent us in the opposite directions where we finally found our pick up spot.

Bobbies Ready to Give Directions

This Bobbie probably had just received word on his radio that the Americans behind him were about ready to commit an act of violence and it was time to stop messing with their heads.  The joke was over.  They could do this because the entire town is covered with CCTV.  If you are outside in London you are being watched by at least 32 cameras at any one time.  This number of cameras watching your every move drops to only 4 if you are in the loo.

The one nice thing about all of this is that Sue and I are walking off all the fish and chips and beer we have been consuming.  Actually Sue doesn't drink beer but if you had been able to see my hand gestures while I was relating that last little tidbit of information would have known this.

Inside an English Pub

Well, we have in a day and a half, managed to walk 16.34 miles on our three 0.9 mile walks.  I'm tired just thinking about it.  More later, we have a full day tomorrow.