Ireland

River Liffy-Dublin

Temple Bar District-Dublin

August 23, 2007-Friendly Folks

Poor David saw a laughable sight and couldn't share it. We'd all fallen asleep in the car on the way to the airport. We were on the expressway and had forty miles before we had to look for exit signs so we all nodded off. What he saw was a line of cows crossing the highway on a pedestrian bridge over our road.

If you know David you know he likes to leave plenty of time when going to an airport. We left our hotel at 6:30 AM for what the directions said was a two hour drive. We had four hours to make it and return the car. It took us three hours and we didn't get lost. It took us a half hour to return the car. We did get lost within the airport complex. We got chummy with a man we asked directions of several times and he wished us.  "All the best," each time. Even the guys in the security compound who came out (unarmed) before I could enter and violate all the signs on the door that I didn't notice called me "love" but couldn't help.

I was impressed that they had baby food for sale and baby menus available at the Manchester airport. David had seen them at lots of restaurants too. We flew Lux Air (based in Luxembourg) to Dublin. It was only a half hour flying time. Things were easier once we could find our gate. It wasn't posted until they announced that the flight was boarding. The flight attendants had their heads sticking out of the plane door wondering where everyone was.

Where’s the Green?

Ah, the wearing of the green! It was green when we hit landfall after flying over the mountains of Wales and the Irish Sea. We taxied along green runways. Then we hit Dublin. It's a city. It doesn't look polished and the buildings aren't charming so far but we're in an area that's being gentrified. I guess it hasn't arrived yet. We were used to pastoral charms and have to re-orient to citification. What more can I say? Our hotel, the Park Inn, is well located near the River Liffey and within walking distance of the Temple Bar district where there are scads of restaurants. The hotel is modern and funky. Kind of cute in an off-beat way if you like salmon red walls. We do. The disinterested desk clerk told us he knows little about the city or its services and didn't seem interested in learning. He's only in Ireland for a few months then goes home to Eastern Europe. The Ciminis didn't have a reservation when we got here despite having correct vouchers. On the other hand they had our booking correct but also had us returning on Oct. 1 for another three nights. Whoops! We got that all straightened out and David went off to buy a phone card so we could call the tour company in the States. They called back with the number of their local contact. We'll touch base with them tomorrow.

One thing that threw us was the traffic light system. Red traffic lights on either side of the road mean no turns. There's a small green arrow showing that through traffic may proceed. It took a couple of beeps behind us to figure that out.

We ate at La Med, an Irish/Italian restaurant in the Temple Bar district. We had authentic Irish stew. It had to be authentic. We were in its homeland. We would have slurped up the soupy parts but didn't want to embarrass ourselves. We used bread to mop up all the juices.

Tomorrow we'll do a hop-on hop-off bus tour and hope to hit the Guinness Distillery. I imagine our hopping may be impaired after that.

Toby

England?

Tintern Abbey

Church graveyard

August 22, 2007-Going Where?

When we got into the car to leave Betws-y-Coed, our two guys proudly told us they did an expert job of packing the luggage. They called themselves “Two Men and a Trunk.” For those of you out of our area, Two Men and a Truck, is a moving company. Karen also deserved bragging rights. Her bladder control was stellar last night. When we were joking about the sheep to mountain size ratio, she began to laugh uncontrollably. For those of you who remember, one of my emails from Florence, Italy told of how she wet her pants during a giggling bout there.

We had directions from an on line map service that proved to be overly optimistic in estimating driving time on these roads. They didn't take into account that there might be other cars, that some roads were too narrow even to warrant center lines indicating lanes since there was no room for two lanes, and they certainly didn't take into consideration prostrate sheep huddled against the foot of a hill next to the road with their rumps and tails infringing on our road space. David's only comment at that sight was, "Lamb chops."

The inevitable happened and we stopped for gas. The advice we'd gotten when using a petrol station was not to look at the pump or the receipt. We didn't listen. We peeked. We're driving a VW Jetta. It took the equivalent of just under 10 gallons and we paid the equivalent of $76. That's almost $8/gallon. That wasn't half as scary as the sign posted before a bridge we had to cross that warned, "Weak Bridge." That sobered us up after that bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Tintern

It was a schizophrenic day. We thought we were going to be in Wales as we drove to Tintern in the South. Our goal was Tintern Abbey of the poem Wordsworth wrote in 1793. David said he saw a sign welcoming us to England. We pooh poohed him. Surprise! We thought we were only going to Ireland and Wales but found ourselves in England and stayed there most of the drive. We rode along the border and the only way we could tell where we were was to see if the signs were bi-lingual or the "Slow" stenciled on the roads also said "Araf." Our hotel, the Speech House is a charming inn and is also in England. It served as Charles II's hunting lodge in 1676 and later was converted into a meeting house and court house.

We swallowed hard and worked our way through the Forest of Dean, about 20 roundabouts, and on into Tintern. Tintern Abbey was a 12th century abbey built along the River Wye for the Cistercian monks. We'd been to the Abbey about twenty years ago and thought the Ciminis would love it. We remembered how much we enjoyed their audio guided tour and were relieved to see they still offered it. What an experience! Gregorian chants were the background for the narrative as we walked through the ruins. The sound effects were so vivid that when we heard a bell ring to call the monks to dinner we took our headphones off to listen thinking it was tolling in real time. Exterior walls are pretty much intact but the roof and floor are gone. There was the omnipresent green scaffolding rigged for the re-facing of the main exterior wall so we had to buy a post card rather than use our cameras. The decay is partially the erosion of time but mostly the greed of the villagers. When Henry VIII stripped the church of its authority and power in 1530 the locals stripped the churches of anything they could carry away. That included building materials.

We were supposed to meet Michael, a colleague of Karen's who lives in England. He was driving in from London. We were told that we could eat lunch at a hotel across from the Abbey, but they'd stopped serving until dinner. We decided to try to find the spot where Wordsworth sat to pen the Ode. We knew he was on a hill overlooking the Abbey and that he was in a cemetery. We thought he sat among Jewish graves. The proprietor of the hotel didn't know anything about the story but he directed us to a church ruin and graveyard up a hill behind the hotel. When Michael arrived we all started climbing the path but realized it was in the wrong direction. Ron and I took off up another trail while the others waited below. We did find the church and an ancient cemetery. The grave stones were mostly too weathered and deteriorated to read but we could make out a word here or there. I became excited when I made out what I thought was Hebrew lettering on one marker. It turned out that with the blurring of the letters I was really reading the word "died" backwards. Ron and I diligently went from stone to stone scrambling through knee-high grasses and avoiding sunken graves trying to discern the markings. We never found any sign or symbol of Jewish occupancy. There was a man sitting alone basking in the sun and we questioned him about the Jewish presence but he'd never heard the tale either. Nevertheless we enjoyed our hike and adventure. I'm sure Wordsworth had the best view from up there but in the intervening years the trees had grown up forming a screen. We got great shots of the valley, and cemetery but none of the Abbey. Besides, that scaffolding would have been in the way.

We never got to Cardiff and the seaside town of Penarth we'd hoped to see. Too many diversions. Too little time.

A sad update. The body of the 9- year old boy who fell in the river in Betws-y-Coed was found.

Again, to end on an upbeat note. We followed Michael and his GPS guided car to our hotel. He got lost and had to call the hotel for directions. It did my heart good. At least natives are confused by these roads too.

Tomorrow we leave the hotel at 6:30 AM. We don't believe the driving times on the directions anymore and are leaving plenty of time to get lost, return the rental car, and get to our flight to Dublin.

Toby

Still Wales

Snowdonia RR

Road to Portmerion

Portmerion

Self-explanatory

August 21, 2007-Sheepish

Every trip has to have one throw-away day. In Peru we spent a hell of a lot of money to fly over Nazca lines in the desert near Ica. We were air sick and visited a tacky oasis. At least today we didn't spend a fortune but we didn't get to all we'd planned to see. We did pick some losers.

We started early so we'd be able to see what was on our list or allow time to get lost. We got lost. At one point it became so tedious passing the same sheep over and over that we began to name them. We came up with the inevitable Blackie and Whitie then got more creative with Shellie, Ewie, and Ramon. Tonight, after a drink, Karen thought of the Queen of Sheepa.

At last we got to Snowdonia National Park. As mountains go Snowdon is not huge at 2500 feet. As we approached the scenic railroad, clouds cast black shadows on the hills while mounds of slate and shale reflected purple. At least there was enough sunlight to cause shadows. Ron and I have had a difference in opinion as to whether or not the mountains were big. He insists that the sheep looked really small next to them. I concede that was true. I was comparing them to the Rockies, not to the sheep. Ron also had a drink when we had this talk. We did learn that the mountains are high enough to require 250 rescues a year.

The Snowdon cog railroad was built in 1895 and is propelled by a Swiss built engine. The steam locomotives are powered by coal and smell sulphuric. We were trying to imagine what it would have been like in a world powered by coal. There was a movie explaining the history of the railroad and the introduction to it was done by a young man whose English was unintelligible to me. I got the giggles and covered my mouth. He must have heard me because he asked if I had something to contribute. I didn't understand him and didn't know he was even talking to me. He realized he'd caught me off guard and muttered some more. Karen asked me if I frequently misbehaved in school. When he left us in the theater he had trouble closing the door. When he succeeded it slammed with an echoing clang and we were sealed in the dark. I mentioned that I half expected to hear the hiss of gas.

We bought tickets then waited 1 1/2 hours for our round trip of 1 1/2 hours. That included a half hour stop at the mid-point before reversing. Construction prevented us from continuing to the top. Eight people were crammed into cubicles built for six and, knees battled for space as we chugged on up. We packed a lunch planning to eat at the stop. When we got there it was so cold and cloudy we stayed in the cars to eat. Ron and David ventured out during the brief breaks in the clouds. We lucked out. The other people in our compartment decided to walk the 2 1/2 miles down. Our ride down was so much better since I stretched out and slept.

We got chummy with a couple from Kent, England while waiting for the train. She and I decided to go to the bathroom "just in case" since there were no facilities up top. I told her about "preventative peeing" and she told me that her kids still talk about "giving a squeeze."

Slow Going To Nowhere

Between the heavy traffic, narrow roads, and getting lost we averaged 15 miles per hour motoring to Portmerion a Welsh seaside version of Epcot and a rip-off at $13 per person admission. The entry drive was lined with a wall of hydrangeas and promised the magnificent gardens mentioned in the brochure. Ron, ever the optimist and always trying to put a positive spin on things, thought it only needed a coat of paint. It was designed and assembled in the early 1900's by an architect who should have known better. He tried to create an Italian village including what-knots from around the globe. The Buddha featured in the movie Teahouse of the August Moon lurked in a gazebo while gilt statues of Thai dancing girls pirouetted atop columns by the pool. There were too many improbabilities to mention. It was gift shop ridden and even the woodland garden trail was tired looking. When we passed a fountain into which people had thrown coins Karen warned that we should be careful not to drop any money in or we might have to come back.

We had no time to see the copper mine or castle we'd planned on so tried to save the afternoon by going to the nearby town of Porthmadog. It's not about dogs. Madog is an historic figure. Towns here close at 5:30pm. Most stores and restaurants fold up and roll their wares inside. We found a parking lot in time to leave.

We had great directions getting back to Betws-y-Coed but it’s a melancholy town today. We saw lots of emergency equipment yesterday and the news carried a story of a child falling into the river near a waterfall. There were police on every bridge peering into the water and helicopters hovering. I don't think they hope to find the child alive. It overcomes me every time we go through town.

I don't want to leave you on a heavy note so I'll mention the sign we saw outside a church. Although we missed the event it brought smiles to our faces. A Ferret Derby took place on August 12.

Toby

Wales Day Two

August 20, 2007-Sanity?

(Photos: Llangollen towpath,

Llangollen falls,

Lladuno beach)

O. K., so I got it all off my chest yesterday and feel better now. Maybe it came out as it did because I was propped with my knee on an ice bag while the computer sitting on my lap was plugged into electricity. I'm happy to be here even though it wasn't at the top of my list. Scenery is scenery but if it's lovely I can still appreciate it after a good night's sleep. But I'm still ticked at the root causes of airport security. Bottom line is I can't cope well with disorganized living. It's a good thing I'm traveling with a psychologist.

Things looked up when I took a shower. The crescendo of the clanging and wailing of the water running through the pipes built until it became orgasmic and sounded better than any sex I've ever had. The problem of the phone message light being perpetually on (the desk agreed it was a worry but couldn't fix it) was solved by tossing David's underwear over it. We passed out and slept in our lumpy uneven bed comprised of two twin mattresses of different heights that had been pushed together.

The sun came out this morning and we were able to walk the castle grounds in comfort. A gardener took us under her wing and showed us to the whipping pit where prisoners were flogged before being taken to the drowning pool. If they survived that they were stashed in the dungeon until they died. The dungeon was one room about eight feet square that was reported to hold seventy people. She led us to the grave of "the gray lady," her husband, and his lover's head. The gray lady is said to haunt the castle. She hasn't been resting well since she lopped off her husband's head then she in turn was beheaded. I assume his lover was beheaded as well since her head rests with them. I don't know what became of the rest of her. Perhaps she was fed to the black adders that are said to exist in these parts. On a happier note: the grounds are inhabited by luscious looking peacocks of which I have more pictures than I need thanks to the freedom of digital photography.

Wanders

We pulled out of Ruthin past hills covered with heather (yes, we sang the song) and tooled on to our next stop. We encountered free range sheep and saw a truck carrying free range eggs. I guess they start their free range chickens young. Signs are all written in Welsh and English with Welsh being the first language on signage. The directions warned of "bad bends" in the road so we were concentrating on keeping David away from the stone walls and on his side of the of the highway. Highway here is a two-lane road. A motorway is what we'd call an expressway. That's how we ended up in LLangollen instead of LLandudno. Hey, they both start with "Ll."

Llangollen is a charmer of a village. Some of its earliest settlers were two women whose parents disapproved of their relationship. These lesbians set up housekeeping with their maid with whom they were extremely close. Read menage-a-trois. They were visited by numerous dignitaries including Walter Scott and Wordsworth. They’re buried with their maid in the church and a monument and marker were erected commemorating them all. Now I understand why the town is famous for its alternative festival.

We assembled lunch between a bakery (meat and cheese pasties) and a fruit stand (Italian peaches, local blueberries and raspberries) and walked over to the canal. We hopped onto a horse pulled canal barge to enjoy the scenery and our lunch. We could have been in Canal Fulton.

We didn't realize our error until we got into the car and looked at the map as we headed to our next stop. We corrected course and made it to Llandudno, a seaside town of Victorian architecture. I took tons of pictures while scampering on the stone strewn beach (see, my knee is functional) and we huddled together against the stiff wind from the Irish Sea until one of us gave up due to the cold. It was Karen this time, not me.

The trip to Betws-y-Coed (pronounced betus-ee-coyd) was through the kind of topography we see on the way to Wooster, Ohio. There were more sheep but the gently rolling farmland and rolled bales of hay could have been transplants. We were to stay at the Best Western Waterloo Hotel but when we arrived the didn’t have our reservation. We had vouchers for today and tomorrow. They relocated us to a major upgrade. We're at the Royal Oak, a sister hotel and stunning example of stonework overlooking the river Dee.

Dinner was at the Stables Bar. We've found bar meals are as reasonable as it gets here (8-9 pounds or $16-18 plus beverage,) varied, and filling. We lolled around the hotel bar afterward until we started nodding off. We have an early start tomorrow and a full day as we explore Snowdonia in Western Wales.

I think the emails from here will be shorter since we're not on a guided tour. We're a little short on historic background. I'm sure brevity is appreciated.

Toby