Irish Adventure

We had a fabulous time in Ireland!  While we are big fans of Viking Cruises, when we were on the British Isles Explorer last year we could only dock in Belfast - the winds from Hurricane Erin made docking in Dublin impossible.  When our wonderful travel agent contacted us about credit we had coming with AAA Vacations from a previous trip and that there was a big Black Friday sale - we decided that the best way to see Ireland was a land tour, and along with AAA the Collette "Shades of Ireland with Northern Ireland" seemed perfect.  And it was!

Our hotel in Dublin was an old girls school with lots of history, just a little out of the main downtown.

We visited the Dublin Cathedral...

saw the stone from St. Patrick's Well,

and learned that Jonathan Swift had been a rector there and wrote Gulliver's Travels as a comment on the times he lived in.

A highlight of the trip was a tour of the Guinness Experience - 

It was fascinating to learn how the beer was made, and we loved the section that featured the people who worked for Guinness or lived in that area through the years...

and the pint at the top of the tour was wonderful !!!

Next day we boarded the bus ( the coach!) and headed out to explore the rest of the country - a stop at Shankhill Castle - a medieval castle that is now a working organic farm.

And you can never get far away from that Guinness harp!

then onto Waterford.  We chose to tour the medieval church and James Rice's wine cellar instead of the Waterford Crystal tour.

After dinner we went for a walk around town and happened onto this Pipe Band giving a concert near the river - what timing!  The next morning at the historic Granville Hotel we were able to add Bailey's Irish Cream to our breakfast porridge!!!

And then we were off to Blarney Castle...

It was quite a climb up to the stone...you lay down on a slippy mat, two helpers hold on to you and then you kiss the stone - and they spray it with alcohol after each kiss.  John did great...

I was not sure I was going to kiss the stone to get the gift of eloquence...figured I already have the gift of gab - but decided that at 71 years old I needed a booster!  I asked the guide what do I do?  He replied you get held by a strange man!!!  I am only 5 feet tall, so I tried and said...I don't think I can do this...then he said "yes you can" and pushed me down and I did it !

We had a great lunch in a restored woolen mill where "Blarney Bot" collected our trays, and then traveled onto Killarney where we had a great Celtic Steps Irish dance show.

We woke the next day to wonderful weather and a "jaunting car ride" (horse drawn carrige) through the Killarney National Park. 

Such a beautiful park...huge, and all natural. Nothing is cut or landscaped - nature does it all.  The only time they cut a tree is if it falls into the roads or paths.

Jocko was our horse, and Patrick O'Sullivan was our driver - he gave us a wonderful tour!

On the road to Ennis...with a stop for the best Irish Coffee I ever had! A nice chat with this man who asked us about life in America...

Found this cute little goat on the way...

A quick stop for lunch with a great view, and a gift shop that had "The Quiet Man" scarves for sale.   We just LOVE that movie, so even though I don't need one more scarf...it came home with me!

Last night in Killarney we had a traditional pub night with Irish music, dance, and I got to try ( key word is try ) Irish dancing!

That's it for this post - will take you to the Cliffs of Moher and some other wonderful Irish sights next time.

Thanks so much for coming along on our journey - have a great week and enjoy this summertime!

A dash of London!

 A dash of London...with 

Shades of Ireland to follow!

As you might have noticed, we love to travel !  They say there are three stages to retirement - Go Go, Slow Go, and No Go.

We are in our "Go Go Era" and recently returned from a trip to Ireland with a few days in London.

We love London...and since we had been there a few times before we had no real planned itinerary, we just wandered and explored.  I can never pass up a good bookstore, and this one in Trafalgar Square is a treat to explore.

One of our favorite things about London is going to the theater in the West End.  Our first stop when we arrived was the Tickets booth in Leicester Square.  Similar to the TKTS booth in NYC, you can get same day and sometimes next day tickets at a good price, and there are no very long lines like you find in New York.  We found this place years ago when and try to see a show each night in London.

First night in London we saw Oh, Mary - we had friends who saw it on Broadway and loved it - and we did too!  Very funny, very irreverent, and a great show.

And, we had to see Les Mis...One Day More, one more time for us!

We were there just before the big heat wave...a few showers, but mostly great weather.

Covent Garden, St. Martin in the Fields...we enjoyed wandering around the city.

Enjoying fish and chips and finding monuments we never saw before...this one to Edith Clavell - a nurse in WWI who was executed by the Germans for helping prisoners escape.  Back in high school I read a book about her so I was happy to find she was remembered.

Our travel package included a tour of the Tower of London, and though we had been there years ago, we are so glad we did not skip it this time.  Our guide was amazing, and we had a great lunch in the Tower Cafe...with some Pride cake!

One of the things I love about travel is happening on things like this...a young girl in the Underground sketching ( she was good ) and them a woman copying some portraits in the National Gallery.

Happy to find Paddington Bear, then our last night in London was attended Vivaldi's Four Seasons in St. Martin in the Fields.  Perfect ending to our time in London...

And then we got to Heathrow Airport for our flight to Dublin to begin our Shades of Ireland tour.  NOT SO FAST - when checking into our early flight the agent asked if we wanted to take an earlier flight and we declined...because of our timed pick up in Dublin.  BIG mistake...we were barely through security when I got the text our flight was cancelled.  Aer Lingus was consolidating flights due to the cost of fuel ( or so we heard afterwards ) and was giving priority to people with connecting flights.  No matter how many times I tried to explain that while we did not have a flight connection, because the flight they put us on was 9 HOURS LATER we were going to miss the welcome meeting and dinner with our tour group.  No luck - so we spent those hours walking around Heathrow, reading, and trying to be good travelers.  We try to go my the motto " Tourists, complain, Travelers adapt."   

We called our Tour Director and he called our pick up company - and when we finally arrived in Dublin I was sure that our welcome dinner was going to be the banana and granola bars in my backpack - but our driver was amazing.  Said the dinner would not be over, he'd get us there  - waited at the hotel while we dropped our bags and then drove us to the welcome dinner restaurant.  We arrived just after the appetizers ( and we still got an amazing salad ). 

Hooray - we were now ready to start our Shades of Ireland tour!

Thanks for coming along to London...I took way too many photos in Ireland and will cull them down for the next post.

Have you been to London or Ireland ?  Did you ever get stuck in Heathrow ?  Leave a comment below - I really enjoy hearing from you.  Enjoy the rest of July and stay cool!