Glendalough

Today ended our rainless streak in Ireland. Not easily daunted, went down and tucked the rear view mirrors in, maneuvered past the very narrow stone archway where are car was parked and headed south to Glendalough. Glendalough is an amazing 6th century monastic village in the beautiful Wicklowe valley about an hour south of Dublin. Someone said Glendalough looked good in the rain. 6th century ruins look perfectly natural on a dreary, rainy day. St. Keven was a very influential man of God that attracted many understudies to his community. This area is probably the coolest thing we have visited so far. We did the hike up to the upper lake. This area is a perfect combination of nature and archeology.
In a bit of an American touch, there is a hotel now in the valley. However, it turned out pretty well for us, they had a very nice lounge with good food. Seafood chowder and the ubiquitous Irish brown bread was delicious after a morning in the rain. Linda’s chicken salad sandwich and with ham was also excellent. The weather started to clear and the Energizer bunny disguised as Shannon talked us into stopping by the Powerscourt Gardens. We got there with just enough time to see the gardens before they closed. These are formal English gardens with a variety of areas including magnificent Japanese garden area. Linda kept walking around uncontrollably saying ”beautiful, beautiful” over and over again. To many I assume this stopover sounds dull. It definitely was not. We all enjoyed it immensely.

Back to Dublin and beautiful Indian dinner at a place called Tulsi. Chicken Tikka Masala and Chicken Korma. Not as hot and spicy as it should be, but very good nonetheless. The guy working the desk at the Fitzwilliam townhouses is from Mauritius (lots of ethnic Indians) and he claims the one across the street from Tulsi called Mantraa is much better, but it was closed. No pubs tonight.

Photo Update

getting photos posted is proving difficult. Will get the rest of them up when we get home.

Coffee

Late Start today. Very late breakfast. Coffee in Ireland seems to be almost universally good. Often regular coffee is in the form of an Americano and if it is brewed it is good. And strong. Just don’t ask for cream. In Europe, cream means whipped cream. I knew that, but sometimes forget. They don’t seem to have half and half.

Bread

Two things are fairly universal. Scones are always available for breakfast and are well done. Bread with meals (usually with soup) is what they call Irish Brown bread, which seems to be simultaneously whole grain and soft. Good stuff.

History

This afternoon we went to the National Museum. Lots of Viking artifacts and also amazing Celtic gold and bronze items for 900-1100 A.D. Slowly starting to get the history stuff pieced together, but it is going to take a while yet. I hope to find someone knowledgeable that is willing to sit down and chat a bit and fill in the blanks for me.

Transportation

At the end of the day Aaron and I walked down to pick up our rental car. The guide books all say not to let them bump you up to a midsized car. They don’t fit on the back roads. So..... we let them bump us up to a midsized car. We couldn’t see how all 4 suitcases and a backpack would fit in the compact. Well, I couldn’t. Aaron thought they might.

Friends have recommended getting the SatNav (GPS). Yeah, but it costs a lot !! We decided to try without it. We started to doubt the wisdom of that one on the way back to the rooms. I do want to go on record that driving in Dublin is not the big deal everyone says it is. It’s just like any other city. Well... except for the fact that the street names change every 3 blocks and they don’t bother with street signs much. And well, OK, the one way streets are a bit of a bother. Parking is also a problem. We got the car today so we would have transportation first thing tomorrow morning We parked it in the car park (free on weekends only) and walked for the evening.

Indonesia

When we were in the Temple Bar area yesterday, I spotted an Indonesian restaurant called the Chameleon. The serve 5 to 7 small courses for a fixed price. A fairly hefty fixed price, but not really out of line with other restaurants in Dublin. Thankfully, the Euro has continually shrunk against the dollar, so it isn’t quite so painful. Forget the Euro, the food was fantastic.

Traditional Music night #2

The guys at the pub crawl suggested a couple of “local” pubs to try out for Saturday night. I picked the closest one and we headed there on foot. The route went through a few blocks of less beautiful Dublin and my companions began to mutter loudly under their breath. When we got there, there was some discussion about whether we would go in or not. In the end it passed the Mary Zoet test (windows that you can actually see inside with), so we went in. I promised the girls a cab ride home as part of the enticement deal. We headed upstairs where the music was supposed to be and were the only ones there. Hmmm.... after a little while a guy came up with a guitar, then a someone with a little Irish squeezebox called a concertina. They played half heartedly for a little while then, two young women showed up with violins and they brightened up considerably. Soon the music was cooking and more and more people kept drifting in until the entire place was full. Turns out one of violinists was a young woman from Peru that was quite the master. The other young woman appeared to have been an apprentice. Lots of fun and good music. I kept my promise of a cab and we were home pretty early.

We rose determined to do more power sightseeing today. We toured Saint Patricks cathedral in the morning. The site had a church on it since St. Patricks time around 600 AD and this spectacular cathedral was built in the 1100's. It was spectacular and we spent a lot of time there. We were a bit cathedraled out after that one, so we enjoyed ChristChurch from the outside only.

Lunch

Keeping the ethnic variety going, we had lunch at a nice Italian place. Lunch is a lot cheaper than dinner here, even more so than in the US.

Dublin Castle

After lunch, we toured the Dublin Castle. We actually took a guided tour this time and got a 45 minute dose of history. It was all quite interesting. The English / Irish interactions dominates the story. Perhaps the English aristocrat's arrogance in the 17 and 18 hundreds is best exemplefied by the "whistling hall" where the servants were required to whistle while delivering the food to the English Viceroy's guests to prove they weren't eating any.

In a single sentence, the Vikings ruled Ireland around 600 AD, the Normans took over in 900, only to be replaced shortly by the English, who lasted until 1922.

Temple Bar

We never made it back to our rooms at all on Friday. We ate dinner in the funky Temple Bar area at a tapas restaurant called Pintxo. Lots of fun to share, food was pretty good and most importantly..... not Irish (remember our Dublin goal).

Friday evening we had reserved tickets for a musical pub crawl. Good thing too, since all 50 or so spots were full. This was a fun evening where 2 musicians take you to two different pubs and teach you about traditional Irish music while preforming and demonstrating jigs and reels and ballads. The 2 1/2 hours went by like an hour. At least for the three of us that really like Irish music. I will leave you to speculate who number 4 might be. We made the long walk back to the rooms after 11 and dropped like rocks into bed.

Dragged out of bed slowly today. Managed coffee, but really didn't get moving until noon. We started our walking tour and had lunch at an uninspired vegetarian Indian restaurant called Govindas. Aaron and Linda had a more favorable opinion than mine. You will note we will do very little in the way of Irish food while in Dublin, anticipating less food variety once we hit the countryside.

We walked around town and ended up at Trinity College where the famous book of Kells is kept as well as the spectacular Long Hall packed two stories high on both sides of the room with incredibly ancient books.

Shannon and Linda somehow squeezed in some shopping and then we had no energy to look for food, so we had pub grub for supper. Shannons supper was notable. She had the 3 piggy sub with no less than ham, rashers (bacon) and bangers (sausage). This all covered with cheese. And they say Americans eat poorly.

We walked back to the apartment and crashed immediately.

Day One

Only a couple hours into our trip we are already having cultural experiences.  I experienced classic 5 way chili , Cincinatti style on short stopover.    Unique ground beef chili, with difference seasonings including a prominent taste of cinnamon.  This chili is served over spaghetti, and topped with onions, beans and cheese.  I ordered it light on cheese, so it was only a small mountain.  Good Stuff!

I stuck a $1 bill into a massage chair to get the second cultural experience.  Best dollar I ever spent!!

On to JFK airport in NYC.  As you would expect.  Great people watching.   Ate dinner here.   Bill was just under $1000. Linda cliams some of you might not know that was sort of a joke.  Oh hey, the next table over was taken by “Big Mike” from American Idol.  And before you ask.  No.  We didn’t.

Off on the red eye to Dublin at 10:30PM, delayed until 11:30.   End of day one.  Kinda still seems like day zero.

Day Zero
Several months ago, our daughter-in-law (whose maiden name incidentally, is Shannon Sullivan) called up to ask if we wanted to take a trip to Ireland with her and our son Aaron. Travel. Family. Two of our favorite things. We’re in!! Below is some trip information we gleaned. If you want to skip to Day One, just CLICK HERE

All Photos Uploaded to datePhotos CLICK HERE

Daily photos will also be posted on that days entries

We are not tour people, so we began researching the trip right away. We also talked to a lot of people who had already been there. Here are the things we discovered so far.
Flights- The Aer Lingus fly drive packages look great if you have the patience to wait for a 2-3 months before to make arrangements. The only drawback is being limited to the bed and breakfasts that participate in the voucher system. We ended up using frequent flyer miles on Delta, so it was not an issue. Aer Lingus is probably your best deal if you aren’t using frequent flyers.

Car Rental- Important Point: The car insurance provided by Visa and American Express has two or three countries excluded. And Ireland is one of them!! Therefore, make sure you get an “all-inclusive” price with collision damage waiver (CDW) and theft included. We got a great offer from American Airlines. This is great until you find out that it will cost an additional $150/week for insurance.
The best deal for car rental is through the Aer Lingus website. They imply it is for those that fly with them, but actually, you can get the discount by just following the car rental links.
Guidebooks and Websites- The http://www.IrelandExpert.com website is great and has a question and answer forum where Pat answers questions within 24 hours. We liked it so much, we bought her book Ireland 101 and found it gave a very different perspective than other guidebooks and it was well worth the price.
The plan: We plan to spend a few days in Dublin and then do a circle past the Jameson distillery and up the west coast. We will stay in a bed and breakfast until we run out of things to do and then move on. Who knows how far we will get. The farthest north we can possibly make it will be Galway.
OK, no more until we actually get going.