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Somewhere near LAX from the air.  City of lights.

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Last Days and postcripts

No, not the Apocalypse.  

It should have been Last Day, but man proposes and God disposes.  Or man plans and God laughs.

An extremely pleasant taxi driver (as all have been in both Ireland and Scotland) got us to the airport in plenty of time, and in due time we checked our bags, got new boarding passes, and went through Irish security.

Then, because Dublin is a US pre-clearance city (meaning the US has immigration and customs officials there to do all the security that normally we would go through on entering the US), we went through our second security and this time we had to take our shoes off (they don't do that in Europe).  Going through security is no one's favorite thing, and doing it twice does not improve it.  But at least we got it all out of the way.

Costco had booked us all on Delta.  Carol was going to Detroit via Boston and she was leaving first, about maybe 20 minutes before us.  We were going to LAX through Atlanta. 

Rather than give you a play by play, which is the way I would normally go, I'll hit the highlights.  At about 100 miles from Atlanta we were diverted to Detroit, because of high winds from the tail end of Hurricane Irma.  When we reached Detroit 2 hours later, after standing in re-booking lines for about 20 minutes, we found out that there were no flights from Detroit to either LAX or SAN.  So we were told to get back on the plane we had left.  2 hours later we were back in Atlanta.

After 40 minutes in another re-booking line, we were able to get seats on a 9:30 pm flight to LAX; we only had a 2.5 hour wait.  Then the flight was delayed 30 minutes.  Then we boarded and were on our way to LAX.  We landed there and got our baggage and then called John (Barbara Hudson's son, for those of you who know her) and told him we were there.  Poor John had started a couple of times to pick us up, because Delta was not always up to date; fortunately Sharon kept messaging him to tell him what was actually happening and to give him our final, final ETA at LAX.  Still, it could not have been fun for him, and we appreciate that he was already at the airport, and that he was his usual good natured self.

So at 2:00 (-ish) am Tuesday morning, John dropped us at the house.  We had been up for 24 hours and all we wanted was to go to sleep.  So we didn't bother with the suitcases, we just went to sleep. 

And that was the end of our Ireland and Scotland 2017 trip. ----------------  ------------------------  ------------------------- I need to add a couple of items as a postscript.

1) When we left, we asked Kathy from Road-Runner Errands to pick up our mail, like we always to when we go on trips, and left her the mailbox key.  For paranoid reasons, we don't like having our mail held by the PO.  But Kathy emailed us and told us that it was impossible for her to open our mailbox and a lot of stuff was piling up.  She was having difficulty with the key.  We were not surprised, because we ourselves have a little difficulty with the key.  So I told her the little tricks we use.  It still didn't work.  So like it or not, we had to put a hold on our mail.  Fortunately, it can be done online, so we did it from Ireland. 

Unfortunately, the hold ended on Monday, and Monday someone at the PO erroneously (they admitted to that) sent one of the packages we received back to the sender.  It turned out to be the package with the gifts we had picked up for most people (not the extra clothes).  We found out this when Sharon went to the PO on Wednesday to pick up the held mail.  The PO said they would try to retrieve it, but we all knew that wouldn't work.

Oh well.

Then after we got back, I asked Kathy to come by so I could pay her and so I could show her how the key worked.  When she handed me the key, my jaw dropped.  Stupid me had given her the front door key.  Still gobsmacked, I took out my key chain, and there it was, totally untouched and with me the entire trip, my mail box key.  I apologized profusely, but as I said earlier, Oh well.  

2) Every Irish taxi driver raved about the Gaelic games: hurling and football.  We managed to watch the All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship finals on TV the day before we went on the Ireland tour, and had a great time watching the game.  Then when Sharon went to church the last Sunday evening in Ireland, the priest told the congregation not to be surprised if the following Sunday he showed up with blue and white colors, the colors of Dublin County, because they were playing County Mayo in the All Ireland Senior Gaelic Football Championship Finals.

What our Irish taxi drivers told us is that County Mayo had not won a championship since 1951, and it's not because they have had bad teams (several times, like now, they've made it to the finals), but rather because of the curse.  We immediately thought of the Cubs' Billy Goat curse. 

It turned out that in 1951 when the County Mayo team was returning home from winning an away game, they passed a funeral in the town of Foxford.  The priest or the widow (the story of the curse is not clear on this) cursed the team for not stopping and paying their respects.  The curse stated that they would never win a championship as long as any member of the team was still alive.   Well, it appears that there are 3 members of the team that are still alive.  I remember making a joke (probably in bad taste) about how those 3 guys must not have been real fans; if they had been, they would have killed themselves already. 

When I was partially compos mentis, I went on the internet and found out that it was possible to see the Gaelic football finals because there is an Irish website that would stream the finals, for just $25.  It's a website for the Irish diaspora, all the Irish that have moved abroad and want to keep up with their two favorite sports.  The game would happen at 15:30 in Ireland, which I figured was 7:30 am today (9/17).  But you could also watch a replay instead.  So this morning we watched a replay of the finals, enjoyed them a lot, and I'm here to tell you that the curse is alive and working still.  County Dublin won by 1 point. 

I can't thank you enough for reading my blog. Cheers!

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Ireland Tour - Day 7 (9/10)

Today was the last day of the tour and tomorrow will be our last day in Europe. 

As predicted, continued cold and rainy, with very little sun.  I believe that Carol, Sharon, and I were smelling the finish line, and were ready to come home.  If a snap of the fingers would have gotten me directly to home, I'd have snapped my fingers so quickly they would have been a blur.  But alas, we would have to do it the old-fashioned, non-magical way and trudge through the last two days. 

Today we were told we were going to ABA - another bloody abbey!  It was in Connemara (C0. Galway), in the outskirts of Galway.  When we got there, we were impressed with the looks, size, and location of it.  It was being repaired, with scaffolding on both wings.  It was the Kylemore Abbey and Victorian Walled Gardens.

It was originally Kylemore Castle, a private home for a wealthy doctor from London.  The construction of the castle began in 1867 ant took one hundred men and four years to complete.  It had over 70 rooms with a principal wall 2-3 feet thick.  There were 33 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (that's it for 33 bedrooms?), 4 sitting rooms, a ballroom, a billiard room, library, study, school room, smoking room, gun room, and various offices and domestic staff residences for the butler, cook, housekeeper, and other servants.  The rich do not live like you and I.  Other buildings include a Gothic cathedral and family mausoleum containing the bodies of several original family members. 

The castle was sold in 1090 to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester, who after several years were forced to sell the house and grounds in 1920, to pay gambling debts (really?).  Irish Benedictine nuns purchased it after they were forced to flee Ypres, Belgium, during WWI.   As of now, the Abbey's gardens and Cathedral have been/still are being restored with donations and local artisans in order to be a self-sustaining estate - which is why we were there. 

Sharon and most of the others went to visit the Abbey and the Cathedral (in the pouring rain), while Carol and I repaired to the coffee shop that most of these places have.  After some restoration, Carol went to do some shopping in the gift shop, while I happily worked on my hot chocolate (to which I became re-addicted during the trip). 

I took a picture of the abbey and also of Sharon all ready to tackle the rain. 

Sharon then came back from visiting the abbey and the cathedral, and Carol finished her shopping and we had a pleasant conversation.  Another person from the group joined us, called Cheryl.  She and Sharon had already determined that they had been born in the same hospital, but 9 year apart.  When I started talking to her, it turned out that she and I both went to Douglass College (the women's college of Rutgers University), me as class of '66 and she as class of '74 (-ish).  We even stayed in the same dorms (lots of choices available)!  There is a reason they say it's a small world. 

From there we were driven to the Spanish Arch in Galway, to pick up shopping where we left off yesterday.  That meant that your truly went to the coffee shop that was directly across the way where we stopped, and proceeded to install myself with another hot chocolate and a panini in the upstairs, where there were fewer people.  Carol and Sharon went to purchase a statue that Carol had debated buying yesterday, but needed to think about it.  She thought about it and wanted it, so off they went.  Imagine my surprise when they were back shortly having bought some refreshments.  It turned out that the place didn't open until 45 minutes later.

Then they went and bought the statue.  Then came back and showed it to me.  Very nice it was, and I worried because it was a little fragile looking, but Carol said she'd carry it in her carry-on.  I didn't hear later on that anything happened to it, so I assume it's adorning some area of her house. 

At the arranged time we got on the bus and drove back to Dublin, to the Grand Canal Hotel, where it all started a week ago.  We said hasty goodbyes and we trudged off in the direction of our hotel, the lovely The Fitzwilliam, the same hotel we stayed in our first night in Ireland.  Fortunately a taxi took pity on us and did a u-turn and picked us up and took us there. 

We checked in and then went to print our boarding passes; one of the receptionists did it for us since we couldn't get into the "business center."  Then Carol came over to our room and we ordered room service and after we finished, we split up to do the last minute packing and then to sleep.  Costco had arranged for an airport transport from the hotel to the airport, but Carol had to do some phoning and following up with them because they were going to come too late for our comfort.

And that was the last day, Day 7, of the Ireland Tour (9/10).

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Galway’s river Corrib flowing past Spanish Arch

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Galway’s River Corrib and it’s strong flow

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Ireland Tour - Day 6 (9/9)

We got the news today that the weather was turning worse, meaning it would rain more and heavily at times.  The sun would shine, but not for long.  And that's the way it was for the rest of the trip.

We started out by traveling to a "portal tomb," which I am more familiar with as a "dolmen."  In any case, you can see that it's just side panels with a top. Very often they are covered with stones and/or earth, so that they look like little hills.  The earth and stones wash or wear away and you end up with just the stone showing, like this one.  

It was standing by itself in the middle of a field of rocks.  The whole is very rocky, which is why the farmers usually fence their holdings with a stone fence.  In this part of the world they use angular stones, and just fit them together, not using any mortar.  Henry told us that this leaves the wall full of holes, which allows the wind to go through and provides less resistance to the wind and will not fall down easily.  Truthfully, the walls look like they wouldn't fall down no matter what.  BWDIK.

Henry told us a long story about a man with three arms, an oversize leg, and a magic cow.  And how he came afoul of three witches.  The end of the story is that from the magic cow's four nipples flowed four rivers in the Burren (the region we'd be driving through yesterday and today), the only ones that stay above the ground.  He pointed out two of them, but I only got pictures of one.  

Then we stopped at the Hazel Mountain Chocolate Factory (and organic cafe and shop) for a comfort stop and to taste some chocolate.  In contrast to the taste we had at Skelling (which included 4 different types of choc), this one consisted of tasting one.  But this was a much smaller place and had several buses there; don't think they could have afforded more.  It was tasty chocolate (as if there was such a thing as bad chocolate), and several of us ended up buying some (which is why buses are welcome).  The factory was behind glass so we could look in, but there was no one explaining what we saw.  So what; did I mention the chocolate was tasty?   Nice view from the front door of the cafe.  

Then we drove on to Galway, a long and mostly boring drive visually because it was so flat and the hedges at times obscured what little we could see.  We were dropped off at a place called Spanish Arch, a location from which there is nary an arch in sight, Spanish or otherwise.  I later found out where the arch was located and that it has nothing to do with Spain, so it's a mystery why it's "Spanish."  In any case, it's near Galway's river (the Corrib) and near a long mostly pedestrian shopping area filled with shops and restaurants.

I found a lovely basket of flowers on a bicycle and right after I took a picture of the lovely flowers, someone came and wanted her friend to take a picture of her bent over the handlebars, pretending to be going very fast, something that I found strange (but that's usually just me).  

We had something to eat at one of the restaurants and then Carol went off shopping while Sharon and I passed.  I was tired by this time so we decided to stop by the Galway City Museum which was very near, hoping to find a seat.  There was none at the time we went in (free entry), but we did look at the exhibits on the ground floor of this very small museum, which were mainly archeological finds.  There was a list of laws that were in effect at various early times; the ones that struck me most were the ones I took a picture of.  In 1516: "That no man of the town shall lend or sell galley, botte, or barque, to an Irishman."  And in 1522: "That no man can be made fre unless he can speke the English tonge and shave his upper lipe weekly," which commanded a penalty of 20 shillings.  

Finally, the museum had a sculpture of this lovely old gent whose name was Patrick O'Connor (actually he used his Irish name, which you can see in the background of the picture.)  We didn't know who he was until later.  But we did find a place to sit and contemplate him for a while.  He turned out to be an Irish writer and journalist who wrote primarily in Irish (gaelic).  In his lifetime he wrote 26 books, 473 stories, 237 essays, and 6 plays (according to Wikipedia).   He died at age 46 after complaining of internal pains.   A statue of him was unveiled in 1935 in the heart of Galway and was very popular with tourists, who had their picture taken with him.  Four Northern Ireland men decapitated the statue in 1999.  It was repaired and moved to the Galway City Museum, where we got to see it.  

Then we went for a walk by the river Corrib, just half a block from the museum, and got to see the Spanish Arch (which we didn't know at the time), which is just an arch in the remnant of old wall by the quay.  The Corrib is wide and flows strongly, so I took a video of it.  The area just in front of the arch seems to be a hangout for teens (for some reason I deleted that picture).  And further on for us tourists to take pictures.  When heading back to the bus, we saw nice fan shaped cobblestones.  

We are coming back to Galway Center tomorrow to the same exact stop - for further shopping I guess.  But we have one more stop before we go to the place we're going for the night, the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel, in the outskirts of Galway.  

So on to Aughnanure Castle, (rest from the brochure) dating back to the 1500's, near the Corrib lough.  It stands in what is virtually a rocky island and is a particularly well-preserved example of an Irish tower house.  In addition, visitors will find the remains of a banqueting hall, a watch tower, a double bawn (a smaller wall inside the larger one), bastions, and a dry harbour.  

Some of us were saying, Oh no! Not another castle.  Henry said it's called ABC: another bloody castle.  But this one turned out to be reasonably interesting, mostly because we had a docent all to ourselves, telling us about the different features of the castle.  

The first thing we noticed in the parking lot was the way this particular stone wall was constructed, with stones sticking up on the top, which some thought was decorative and others thought prevented cattle from going over.  As we walked to the castle, we saw flowing water by the side.  And then we made a turn and there it was, right in front of us.  And right before the arch, on the left was an ancient yew, which we recognized as such because it was labeled.  

In front of us was a tower pretty well preserved.  Remnants of walls.  The main house with its fortifications.  We were shown the banqueting hall, which one would never have known if not shown, and the arches were all decorated on the inside.  It was on the side of the main house, which seemed to stand on its own (but wasn't).   It was wider at the bottom than at the top, for greater strength and to allow objects thrown from the uppers stories to bounce off and hit invaders, rather than just fall down.  It has battlements on the top and all kinds of fortifications that I did not get the details of because I did not climb up the narrow staircase.  I stayed downstairs and sat on a chair.  Sharon sat with me and Carol went outside to take pictures.  

The dry harbor turned out to be a down slope in the lawn, where in olden times the water from the Corrib lough would have reached, and allowed a boat to come to the castle with supplies.  

The opening arch of the tower house had a heavy wooden door that was attached with chains that were passed into the house through openings that you can see in the sides of the arch.  Then if besieged, the chains could be pulled on and they would cause the door to raise and cover the arch, adding one more obstacle to be overcome.  There was an example in the lower level of a typical coat of mail.  

I took a picture just to make sure I got the name of the castle correct.  It's pronounced OCH-na-nure.  

We saw a poster of the most popular Irish names in each of the 32 Irish counties (26 in the Republic and 6 in Northern Ireland, although there they are no longer called counties), and took a picture of the website URL in case anyone was interested.  

The bastion tower had apertures that are wide on the inside and narrow on the outside; they give the defender a wider angle of view and present a narrow target to the outside.  There are apertures for arrows, and round apertures for cannon, and composite ones.  The roof is corbelled (narrowing upward) so that if there was an explosion inside (since ammo was stored in it) it would cause the roof to cave down rather than the whole building explode.  Why this is better, no one told me.

Then we drove to the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel.  

And that was the end of Day 6 of the Irish Tour (9/9).

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Henry’s Cliffs

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Another intermission

The Internet last night was incredibly spotty and I was unable to upload all of the pictures; only 27 of 91 or so uploaded.  

Today has been and will continue to be very busy, so don’t know if I can do much.  Tomorrow we’ll be back at The Fitzwilliams Hotel, where this whole adventure began, thus closing the circle. 

If there is time and bandwidth, I try to do more, but if not, it will be a little while since my body is looking forward to being home and sleeping for an extended period.  

But I will not leave you in suspense (assuming you are); I will finish with the rest of the tour, all two days of it (Saturday and Sunday) since we’re flying home on Monday.  Just not on a timely basis, probably.

Thanks.

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Ireland Tour - Day 5 (9/8)

Today's primary destination are the Cliff of Moher (pr. MO-er).  Took off right after breakfast in the direction of Tralee.  

While on the way, Henry told us how steeplechase got its name.  It appeared that in the old days there were so many churches, that it was easy to set up a race in which the riders followed from one church's steeple to the next one. Along the way they had to jump fences, creeks, or whatever else was in their paths.  Now the no longer chase steeples, they run in a circular track, and all the obstacles are man-made.  A lot of people like steeplechasing because the outcome is less certain than in a regular horse race, as a horse having a fall or misstep at a fence, for example, can cause the favorite to also tumble.  He said this in connection with some town we passed, whose name escapes me now, who have 8 days steeplechase races.  

We passed through Annascaul again, the home of Tom Crean and the South Pole Inn we saw earlier.

We passed a pasture where there were black cows with a wide white band around the middle of their bodies; Henry initially told us that they were painted that way so that they would be visible to traffic if they got out of the pasture at night.  Then he relented and said they were Galway belted cows.  

He told us that the European Union provided Ireland with a great many benefits to Ireland; not so much to their fishing industry (for instance they have lower fishing quotas in their own waters than other EU countries), but certainly for their farming and other industries.  

When we got to Tralee, we went to their famous rose garden.  Tralee is the subject of a famous song "The Rose of Tralee," but since the early 1950's it has also been the site of a Lovely Girl competition. It is famous for not having a swimsuit component, but requires a lot of talent to be won.  Women from all over the world can participate if they have at least a grandparent who was Irish (something like that).  This year's winner came from Chicago.  Because the competition finished in the last month or so, the gardens were still in bloom and beautiful.  We didn't have much time there, so I only took three pictures of the gardens.  

Last night the rain had woken me up, it was so strong.  It was raining buckets.  But by the time we got up, it was overcast and there was a light drizzle.  One of the problems this causes in the van is that when it rains the windows get wet and you can't take pictures because they either have blotches caused by each raindrop, or else the camera focuses on the raindrops and not the outside. In any case, the weather forecast is for scattered rain, at times heavy.  

We then headed for the Tarbert Ferry, which crosses the Shannon River and gets us to County Mayo.  So far we have been spending time on County Kerry.  The Shannon River is the longest and most important river in Ireland, and at Tarbert it is a tidal estuary, meaning that water rises and falls with the tides.  So when the tide is high, there is more mixing of the sea water and the fresh water, and the current wants to flow up river. When the tide is low, the river water flows into the sea and it is more peaceful flow.  

The crossing takes about 25 minutes and dolphins can often be seen because a large pod lives there and likes to follow the ferry.  I tried to go outside (but not upstairs) but the wind was so strong that I had to come back into the van after about 5 minutes.  

On the other side we proceeded along the coast to Kilrush, which is a town where travelers settled.  Travelers are descended from Irish people, and used to be the primary set of migrant workers that showed up to work on fields, and that produced tinkers and such.  They are like gypsies except they are not Romani, they are Irish. When the migrant work dried up as the farms became more mechanized, they started settling in towns, and Kilrush is primarily settled travelers.  They are for the most part quiet law-abiding citizens, but certain events, like weddings, tend to bring out the worst in them (says Henry) and they often have fight outside the wedding with things that can make real damage, like knives and the like.  

At Kilkee, a town by the sea, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called The Pantry.  Henry knew about this restaurant because the owner is his wife's home economics teacher.  She was there to greet Henry and us, and we had a very pleasant lunch.  As we left one of the other people in the van told us that one of her aunts (on the Irish side) had found a website that said they gave cooking classes and the aunt sent her the link, even though she thought it was in the middle of nowhere.  Imagine her surprise when she left the restaurant and looked up over the entry, and there was a sign that mentioned that the also gave cooking classes.  She says that this was the place that her aunt was referring to.  So she took a picture of the place to send to her aunt.

Henry told us that he thought the Cliffs of Moher were too overrun by tourists most of the time, because it had become the second most visited attraction in Ireland.  He had a set of cliffs that he called Henry's Cliffs.  They were really called George's cliffs, but George had dies a while ago and he felt entitled to call them his own, and very few people knew about them, so we could spend some time there and not worry about crowds.  

When we got there, they were very beautiful and the sea was multicolored.  For the first time I decided to take a video, since it was hard to capture the ebb and flow of the sea and the multiple colors of the water otherwise.  I hope to be able to post it as well.  

Then Dunbeg (also by the sea) where the sea formed rock pools that have been used since Victorian times for bathing at low tide, when the sea recedes and leaves behind pools that get warmed by the sun.  

Lahinch was next, a very popular place with surfers, there being lots of them in the water, although the waves were small.  There is a promenade there and as we were walking we heard voices between the boardwalk and the stones.  So I stretched and put my camera over the ledge and discovered that there were three ladies sunbathing.

There were shops and restaurants, and a strange store that taught surfing, paddle boarding, kayaking, but also rock climbing and all weather archery.  It seemed like a weird combination of skills.  Lahinch also has a links course.  I found out that a links course is a treeless course, by the sea, with sand soil, dunes, an undulating topography and where the land is not conducive to cultivated vegetation or trees.  There you go.

We passed by Liscanner, the town where the (supposed) Irish inventor of the submarine was born.

Finally we reached the Cliffs of Moher.  By then it had rained very hard and was down to a fine drizzle which stopped as we got out, and in fact the sun was shining.  However, we had a fair amount of walking to do, and it was so windy that at times it knocked you sideways or made your step falter.  It was also very cold.  From time to time it would rain a little bit, and the rain was driven sideways by the wind.  But we finally reached a good viewing place for the Cliffs, and it was a very impressive site, but frankly, not as beautiful as Henry's Cliffs.  It took almost an hour to go out to the viewing place (us and a couple of thousands of our best friends) and back to the bus.  Henry told us that there are so many visitors that tours are given scheduled times when they can come visit.  We were lucky that we are visiting Ireland near the tail end of the season, and Henry told us that the number of visitors up and about at all the places we had been was considerably down.  

On our way to the hotel, we passed by a town where a guy called Willie stages a month-long matchmaking event.  There are dances and other events were people have to meet face to face to find out if they have anything in common.  Apparently women (in particular) from all over Europe come for this thing.  There is usually a lot more women than men.  

We drove through an area called Burren (pr. burn) where we learned a lot about what we saw, but it was late in the day and I was tired from Moher, so I don't remember it all.  Then we hit the town of Ballyvaughn, and the Hylands Burren Hotel.  

Dinner at the hotel, then writing this up, then to bed.

And that was the end of the Ireland Tour, Day 5 (9/8).

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Doesn’t this really look appealing?

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Ireland Tour - Day 4 (9/7)

Today was a kind of free day. Some people were going to the Aran Islands as an optional day long thing.  Then at 2:00 Henry was going to take some people on a tour of some other parts of the Dingle Peninsula.  There was also going to be a visit to the Dingle distillery.

Carol, Sharon, and I opted out of everything.  I was going to stay at the hotel and work on catching up with my posts, and Carol and Sharon were going to go visiting all the little shops and perhaps buy some last minute gifts.  

As it turned out, I was up "early" and was able to go to breakfast with Carol and Sharon and then we parted ways.  I went to take some pictures of the harbor and they went shopping.  It was a very short walk for me because I couldn't find too many interesting things to take pictures of; I thought it was odd because I thought that I had seen the day before that there were things of interest.  It wasn't until later that day when we all went out that I realized I had gone out the door to the left and the good part of the harbor was to the right.  Well at least it gave me more time to work on the posts.

On a day when the temperature was 54 degrees and it was drizzling, we went next door to Murphy's an ice cream place that had been recommended to us by several people.  We all had different kinds and we each loved it.  It's all locally sourced and hand made.  The milk is from Kerry cows and they boast that they hand break every egg used in the ice cream.  It's a cool business as well.

I uploaded pictures from my camera to my PC, and then from my PC to Shutterfly, the latter at a painfully slow speed.  I don't know what happened to the WiFi but it appeared almost dead. Meanwhile I worked on catching up on the posts.

I finally did it in time to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant a couple of blocks away.  

Then came home, finished today's post.  I’m all caught up.  Time to go to bed.

And that was the end of Day 4 (9/7) of the Ireland Tour.

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The spiral staircase

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Ireland Tour - Day 3 (9/6)

We stayed at the Lansdowne Arms Hotel in Kenmare, a pretty little town with a couple of streets that were chock full of restaurants, pubs, and a million shops of every description.

We had breakfast at the hotel and there were two servers, a younger one whose name I didn't get and an older one called Mary that was delightful and friendly and helpful.  After breakfast we piled into the van, and next thing we know, Mary come running over and gets in the bus, and starts singing Rose of Tralee in a good enough voice and animated gestures.  She clearly was having a ball singing.  We gave her a big hand and she left.  Another Jason arranged surprised.  We were going to really miss this guy.  

Jason told us that Rose of Tralee really referred to a beauty competition that is held each year in Tralee.  Any female of Irish ancestry is permitted to participate, regardless of where she lives in the world.  This year's competition was won by an Irish-American from Chicago.  

Jason had prepared a map of Scotland where he outlined the route we were going to follow and the stops, and I finally realized that I had not taken a picture of it for reference, so I asked him to pass it back and before I got it, everybody else realized they also wanted to take a picture of it.   This morning we were going to a Sheep Dog demonstration at a local farm.  Over our first dinner, Carol had told some people all about the one we saw in Scotland.  We were curious whether there would be any differences.  The farm was called Kissane Sheep Farm in Moll's Gap, Kenmare, and there's lots of pictures of what the farm looked like.  What you don't get from them is how big the farm was.  They guy had 1700 baby lambs this year, and has another 2000.  So he really needs the sheepdogs.  He uses border collies like the other guy (BTW, I found out they are called border collies because they come from The Borders, an area on the border between Wales and England).

He doesn't use whistling like the other guy, but a lot of spoken commands. He made them bring the flock to him (a small part of his flock) and then put them back in a specific place, made them bring them to a small corral and be penned, and a couple of other maneuvers.  I didn't think it was an interesting demo like the other one, but this guy told us more about the economics of a sheep farm, and it's very hard to make a living.  He says he couldn't keep going if he hadn't diversified wherever possible, including doing this stuff for tourist buses (it was said very matter of fact, no bitterness), and he also has joint ventures with people who produce products for which he can provide source materials, like hand cream with sheep lanolin, which both Sharon and I bought. He says he got $1 pound per kilo of wool this year. The market is depressed at this point so he is storing his wool, hoping it will come back.  

Well intentioned people keep telling them to get Marino sheep, since the wool is so sought after, but they are not native to Ireland and they would not do well in Ireland's weather.  So he just keeps going finding ways to survive.  It was a sad story, especially when we found out he is something like 6th generation sheep farmer.  

We were going to Killarney National Forest today for a jaunty ride.  A jaunty is just a horse-drawn cart that has seats along the sides that face each other, with a canopy to keep out the worst of the rain should it come.  They keep blankets in the jaunties for days like today, when it was really cold.  The jaunty season I believe will be coming to an end soon.

But before that, we went back on the Ring of Kerry and stopped at the Ladies' View lookout, named after Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting who stopped there and were entranced by the view.  Took pictures, but you knew that, didn't you?

A little further on there was a waterfall just a short 5-10 minute walk up a somewhat steep grade road. I think that's where there was a Leprechaun crossing sign was, but I noticed it too late, after we passed it.  Carol, Sharon and I stayed in the van, and instead took a comfort stop and took pictures at the level we were, where the water from the waterfall flowed.  

Then we entered the Killarney National Forest.  Most of us on the coach had given Jason a gratuity earlier, now others did it too.  He gave each of us a big hug (or manly handshake for the guys) and that was that. Sniff.

We went to the jaunty area and since we had 13 it took three jaunties, one with room for 5 and two with 4. Since they all looked pretty much the same, I wondered how they handled 5, and it was by putting the 5th person up front with the driver.  As we went around the park (it was supposed to be an hour, but it was more like half an hour) with Sally pulling our particular jaunty, the driver (sorry, I remember the horse's name, but not the driver) would activate (he was very robotic) and deliver a factual piece in a totally affectless voice.  On the left, those black cows are Kerry cows. I had a little bit of trouble understanding all he said, but it seems to have been mostly me.  We saw Muckross House (very grand and beautiful), a place where the jaunty ride would end.  Then a tree alley which was Friar's Walk.  Then we stopped at the Muckross Friary, which was, naturally, in ruins.  I took a millions pictures. This stop is what made them claim it was an hour ride.  

Pretty place architecturally.  In the middle of the cloister walk, there was a giant tree.  It turned out to be a yew, a tree we had been told was poisonous.  It apparently produces little red berries whose pit is very poisonous, although the flesh of the berry is just fine.  Yew was also used to make the longbows which were used which devastating effect in olden wars.

Stupid me also walked up (and later down) a spiral staircase, but at least I got some interesting pictures.  

We got back to the jaunty before the 4th person, and so the jaunty driver took pictures of the three of us in the back of the jaunty, and a picture of the whole thing this time including Sally.  

Took pictures showing the other jaunties ahead of us, and later showed Captain, the horse pulling a jaunty with other people from our party, riding very close to us.  We were able to reach out an pat his head without having to move much. More Kerry cows, views, trees; my usual suspects.  

We were deposited at Muckross House Conservatory (which would be Conservancy for us) where we had some lunch after we wandered around lost looking for the restaurant.  We passed a wooden sculpture that kinda looked like a heart.  Then we went looking for Henry our new driver.  For some reason most of us decided to just mill around, but Carol decided to go out looking for him and as a reward, she found him and beckoned to us to come join her and Henry.

We said hello and he made sure we knew the safety rules (again) and then we went off to the Dingle Peninsula. After the Beare Peninsula we had been on the Kerry Peninsula.  Each of them is further north, with Dingle being the northernmost.  

Henry was also very nice, but we didn't warm up to him the same way; it may just be a question of time, of which we have a dwindling amount.  But he certainly knew his stuff and told it well.  We stopped at Inch Beach, which is apparently a famous surfer beach, although today was windy, cold and inhospitable looking.  

Then he started telling us about a guy called Tom Crean, a British Navy officer who was in the right place at the right time and got picked to go on Scott's expedition to the Antarctic in the early 1910's. Scott came in second to Roald Amundsen, but that was just sort of the middle of the story.  There was a PBS documentary that I remember watching which told the story and it was a fascinating one.  Tom Crean was a real hero of that expedition who committed various acts of bravery and was responsible for rescuing a lot of people.  

He was on all three British polar expeditions, his last one the infamous Shackleford expedition.  They survived for month trapped on the ice floes after their ship was crushed and journeyed with Shackleford and four others in a 21-foot lifeboat 800 miles across the South Atlantic armed with only a sextant.  When they reached South Georgia he had to scale the uncharted glaciers to reach a settlement on the other side of the island, to reach help for the colleagues left behind.  He received the "Albert Medal" for bravery.

Much later he opened a pub called the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, next to the river of the same name, and his home town, and ran it with his wife until his death in 1938, at age 61, of a burst appendix.  

So that's where Henry was taking us, to Annascaul to see the South Pole Inn and go inside and see the many old pictures and mementos.  Took very few pictures.  

Finally we drove on to the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula to our next overnight stop, the Dingle Bay Hotel, where we are staying two nights.  Yay!

One thing we hadn't done yet is listen to some traditional Irish music.  Dingle is supposed to be a good place for it.  So after we checked in, we decided to make a reservation with the hotel for dinner and music.  Dinner at 8 and the music starting at 8:45.  

We got settled in, put my feet up for an hour or so and then it was time to go to the restaurant.  We were seated at a table in a special raised section by the window and didn't think anything of it, but at around 8:30 three musicians walked in and started setting up and warming up and we realized that we were going to be two tables away from the musicians.  Good and bad.  Good because easy to listen to, bad in case we didn't want to stay.  Turned out good.  The food was good and the traditional Irish music was good.  (The Drambuie was also good.)

Then it got to be near 10 and Carol slipped away.  Around 10:15 we also got up and went to our rooms and went to sleep.

And that was the end of Day 3 (9/6) of the Ireland Tour.

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The lake near Gougane Barra Hotel

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Ireland Tour - Day 2 (9/5)

Today we were going to visit Bantry House and Garinish (pronounced Garnish) island.

Sharon and I were up a little earlier than breakfast was ready so we went for a walk. We saw through the window of our room that the sheep were sleeping.  Took lots of pictures of views of the lake and environs.  We walked to the modern church and saw the abbey ruins (17th C), then the cemetery. Took a close look at one of the boats on the dock and realized we woulde not go on a ride on one of them that was half-full of water and had a bailing bucket in it. Tucked away in the front hedge of the hotel was a little statue that looked like Nessie.  In the distance we saw Carol, but she chose to keep walking on the main walk, rather than the side trips we took.  

On our way to Bantry House, we made an unexpected (by us, Jason had planned it) stop at the ruins of Carriganass Castle on the Beare (pr. bear), which was really tiny, but interesting.

Bantry House and Gardens is a private estate, still owned by the descendants of the Earl of Bantry.  In fact at least one of the children was giving tours, and we had an unresolved debate whether a second one was at the door welcoming everyone and answering questions.  

Tons of pictures of different parts of the estate and its gardens. Took a limited part of the self-guided tour of the house and took some pictures there, only to find out when we were leaving that there was a sign at the entrance that said "no pictures inside, please." Oops, but didn't see it until much later.  

At the entry, there are three tile mosaics on each side. Because the mosaics cannot bear a lot of traffic, they had rugs made that look just like the mosaics.  They lay those on top and the rugs absorb the traffic.  From time to time one of the two official people lift the carpets to show people the original mosaics.  Happened to be there when it happened (took a picture and no one said anything, now that I think of it).

Other interesting pieces inside the house were a chess set, a piano made of birdseye maple, an ornate vase, a small table inlaid with JNRJ (an inscription we usually see as INRI), an ermine topped robe, and four brass instruments of the same family in different sizes.

Outside, there were many flowers and trees, a statue of Diana the huntress, a cannon, pleasure boats and fishing boats on Bantry Bay, a cemetery in the distance, a maze-like planting of hedges, and in the center a fountain with a strange rock(?) in the middle with objects on it.  It's surrounded by twisted wisteria.  Saw an ornate Corinthian capitol on the outside in an otherwise pedestrian eating area.

Then it was time to go to Garinish Island. The only way to get there is via a passenger ferry that takes off from Glengarriff. From the website:

Garinish Island is located in the harbour of Glengarriff in Bantry Bay.  It is world renowned for its gardens which are laid out in beautiful walks and that have some stunning specimen plants which are rare in this climate.  

The gardens are the result of the creative partnership of Annan Bryce and Harold Peto, architect and garden designer.  The island was bequeathed to the Irish people in 1953.  

The island boasts a Martello tower on its southern shores that has been restored.  There is an amazing view of the bay from the battlements of the tower.  

The ferry was there when we got there and we paid a fee of $15 euros for the round trip crossing.  The ferry only has seating on the inside, but plenty of it.  We were told that we would be able to see seals as we crossed, that it was practically guaranteed, but that in some rare instances, it was also possible to see a dolphin or two.  We didn't see any dolphins, but we did see seals, including a pup.  On top were perched two cormorants.

We saw a big hotel on the shore and then it was pointed to us that Maureen O'Hara was from this area and her house (with two white chimneys) was pointed out to us, although we were also told that she died in La Jolla. She actually died in Boise, Idaho at age 95 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery where her third (and last) husband was buried. He was a brigadier general in the US Air Force. There is an annual golf tournament held in her honor in Glengarriff.

Lots of lovely flowers on the island, no problem.  We also managed to walk up to the Martello tower, although I came to regret it given the hundred steps to get there.  Martellos were small defensive forts that were built by the British during the 19th century; most were coastal forts.  When we got there, I discovered that not only were there more steps, but these led only to the first story, and that I had to go up a narrow, winding staircase to get to the upper part - do the words "no way" convey my position clearly enough? But at least Carol took our picture at the foot of the tower.

On our way down we saw a tree with cancerous-looking growths and a pretty pine tree. Then the ferry was there, and after a bunch of Dutch-speaking tourists got off, we got on and went back to Glengarriff.  

We drove on a very, very curvy road, where many of us got rather queasy, called Healy Pass in the Beare peninsula.  Jason told us that he had been warned that there was a farmer called John who was in the habit of stopping tour buses (with his tractor, I believe) and demand to come aboard.  It was also said that he was also a bit amorous and like to flirt with the women.  He told us that because at one point it did look like a tractor was going to come onto the road, but then it didn't. He said he was told by the office to never open the door to the van under any circumstances to this guy.  We all laughed and assumed it was one of those Irish tall tales.

Jason then told us that he was reaching his legal limit for driving consecutively and that there was a machine installed in all commercial vehicles that allowed the government to monitor the hours (we also heard it elsewhere), so it couldn't be circumvented.  Normally, he would just stop for the next day of the tour and let a driver with local knowledge of Dingle drive the van, but he had just found out that the man was unavailable, and that unfortunately, he would have to turn the van over to another Driftwood driver for the duration of the tour.  We were very upset because we had all bonded with Jason and loved his sense of humor and just plain niceness. So today was going to be our last full day with him.  The changeover was going to take place at Killarney National Park.

On our way to wherever we were going to stay overnight, Jason asked us if we wanted to see a stone circle. I thought he meant stone circle and so decided to stay on the coach.  It turned out to be a stone circle like Stonehenge, only way smaller.  So I snoozed.  But there were some pretty views out there anyway, including a brook and a bridge.  A farmer owns the land where this stone circle is and he decided to make a little bit of extra money by letting people come view it.  He has a donation box and over it a CCTV camera.

We then continued on to Kenmare where we were to spend the night.  It was a nice hotel except for beds that had a low point in the middle.  We went out to dinner and then retired for the night.

And that was the end of the Ireland Tour Day 2 (9/5).

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Greens and Greys