England & Ireland for a month

[Eagle]

I'm finally getting a few spare minutes, so thought this would be a good time to post a few thoughts on my recent travels. Sorry for the delay. I've been back for a few weeks but had to deal with some "computer issues" and in addition I was suffering from an illness (which I probably acquired at the end of the Ireland portion of my trip). Fortunately it didn't happen at the beginning!

This year I spent two weeks exploring parts of southern England and another two weeks in Ireland on a Rick Steves tour. I had a great time, and once again enjoyed the freedom of travel, with each days adventure being somewhat spontaneous (and not having to wake up for work!).

This is a brief synopsis of the areas I visited:

> London - there's never any shortage of things to see in London! Some of the sights I visited:

> Imperial War Museum - as with the one in Manchester, the size of this was somewhat deceptive and I spent far more time than I had anticipated. It was all interesting though!

> HMS Belfast - this was a fantastic visit, as there was so much to see! The IWM did an excellent job with the displays, and I was surprised at how much of the ship is accessible for visitors, including the ammunition compartments and engine room. I spent several happy hours climbing throughout the ship, and enjoyed talking not only to the staff but also other visitors.

> Tower of London - of course an essential stop in London. The Yeoman Warder / Beefeater did an exemplary job of describing the somewhat colourful and gruesome history of "The Tower". I made a point of visiting the Crown Jewels first, to avoid the crowds and that worked well. The Crown Jewels were being guarded by the Gurkhas, so I'm sure they will be completely safe!

> Tate Modern Museum - this also took more time than I anticipated, by the time I wandered through all five floors. Unfortunately, the "Turbine Hall" section was under construction, so I didn't see that.

> London Eye - I didn't bother with a reservation, but chose a time when it wasn't too busy. Fortunately the weather was decent.

> Other highlights of London.....

- seeing the musical Mamma Mia at the Prince of Wales Theatre (the bar they had at Intermission was awesome, and I made sure to sample some of the "beverages" on hand).
- there was a huge Festival on the South Bank one afternoon, and I was amazed at the number of people that attended! What an event with all the performers, concession stands, and people from all over!
- the other sights, such as the Millenium Bridge, St. Pauls, the Houses of Parliament, dinner at Santini's Restaurant (where Frank Sinatra used to eat), dinner at Fifteen Restaurant (Jamie Oliver), and just the ambience of the city and the people!
- the OysterCard was incredibly convenient! I'm really impressed - it made travel on the Tube so effortless (there always seemed to be a queue for tickets, and I'm thankful I didn't have to put up with that - I hate lineups!). Unfortunately I added too much time, and didn't bother getting a refund when I left (that will be incentive for a return visit!)
- one minor annoyance though - there didn't seem to any rubbish bins in any of the stations. I completely understand the reason for this, but it does make things a bit inconvenient for travellers.

In London I stayed at a Hotel / B&B in the Belgravia / Chelsea area (Ebury Street). It was a wonderfully convenient area - close to Victoria station, walking distance to many sights and only a two minute walk to Victoria Coach station for my journey to Bath. Visiting with the group at breakfast was always interesting, as there were people from all over (both from the U.K. as well as North America). The Ebury Wine Bar on the corner was fantastic, and I stopped there more than once. It must be a nice area, judging by the number of Bentleys, Mercedes, BMW's and Land Rovers parked in the streets!

> Bath - This was my first visit to Bath, and after hearing so many great comments about it, this was one place I was really looking forward to seeing. The city didn't disappoint, but I would have liked to see more than I did. Will have to plan a return visit.

While in Bath, I hired a car and paid a return visit to the Tank Museum in Bovington (an £18M expansion is now underway!), and also the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton. Both places were extremely interesting for me!

In Bath I stayed at a small B&B close to the Royal Crescent. Again it was a very convenient area for walking to sights, and a car park was provided. Again, it was always interesting to talk with the other travellers at breakfast.

> Cotswolds - Another area I was really looking forward to visiting, but again I felt I didn't have enough time to see as much as I wanted. I based myself in Stow-On-The-Wold and explored other towns such as Bourton-On-The-Water, Upper & Lower Slaughter and also took a Mad Max tour to Stonehenge.

In Stow I stayed at one of the Hotels in the centre of town. It was a very old building, but with lots of character. The meals in the restaurant were excellent, but the portion sizes were large (almost too large for me, and I have a good appetite).

While driving in England this time, I decided to try a GPS unit, rather than rely on maps as I had last time. This method worked well for the most part, although I'm still not sure how the goofy machine chooses it's routing. There was one occasion where it directed me to turn onto a small one-lane road heading into Stow, however I chose to follow the signs instead. I'm sure the GPS would have gotten me there eventually, but the route didn't seem the most efficient.

However, the GPS operation was incredible on the day I drove from Stow to Bristol airport. I ended up in the wrong lane at one point and headed away from the airport. There didn't seem to be any exits, or any way to get back on track. The GPS chose a new route, which I wasn't too sure about but I had time to spare so decided to see where it led me. It directed me to turn into a narrow alley and drive behind a Pub in a small town, and then onto a very narrow country road almost completely surrounded by trees. After about 10-15 minutes the trees ended abruptly, and the airport car park was directly in front of me. That was impressive!

After two weeks of touring England, I flew from Bristol to Dublin, using RyanAir. I have mixed feelings about RyanAir. The prices were reasonable, but the check-in procedure was cumbersome and of course I was nicked with an "overweight charge" of £5.50 for my Backpack. I had to go to a different counter to pay the charge, and then come back and queue at the original line to finally check my pack. In addition, I gather Backpacks are considered "non standard luggage", so I had to use a different line for that. It wasn't the most efficient check-in procedure I've seen! The final insult was having my TSA-approved Padlock cut-off my Backpack without any explanation.

It's late and I have to get up for work, so I'll provide a description of the Ireland portion of my trip and the Rick Steves tour in the next day or so. I decided to register on a photo sharing site, and now have the Ireland gallery completed (for the most part, I'm sure some fine-tuning will be needed). If anyone is interested, you can have a look at this at eagle07.smugmug.com - I hope to finish the England portion soon.

Cheers!

[madamtrashheap]

I always enjoy reading your "Just Back" reports Eagle, so it great you got a chance to post a section of your trip. Really glad you enjoyed Bath, and yes it does have a slightly seductive quality in that you always want to go back! Great photos too - I see you paid proper homage to Guinness! Nice one! And good to see you got to Kilmainham Gaol too - it's an interesting and important part of Irish history. (and yes the statue with the tour busses is the O'Connor Monument!). And I sighed looking at your photos of Dingle and Killarney - beautiful!

Looking forward to the next installment!

[WillTravel]

I'm looking forward to the full reports. I am looking at your Ireland pictures right now, and I'm very impressed. The colorful night-time pictures are beautiful.

[Eagle]

In addition to visiting England, I also decided on a 14-day Rick Steves tour of Ireland (check his web site for the details). As mentioned in my first post, I flew from Bristol to Dublin. Aside from the problems with check-in, the RyanAir flight was uneventful, but the plane was packed! I wasn't aware so many people could fit into a 737!

One impression that I had with using budget airlines was that although it was the quickest way from England to Ireland, it still took a considerable amount of time for check-in, going through security, waiting, etc. (it was about a six hour+ travel day in total). That's exactly why I normally prefer to use rail travel for most trips in Europe rather than budget airlines.

Arriving in Dublin, I was surprised to see that a major construction project was underway at Dublin Airport. The arrival terminal seemed "temporary", and it was a LONG walk to Passport control. There were a lot of people waiting for Taxis, but the airport had this well organized (there must be a LOT of Taxis in Dublin?), and the queue was only 10-15 minutes. During the trip to my Hotel, I had an interesting history lesson from the Driver (actually, a non-stop history lesson!).

I arrived in the late afternoon and until about noon the next day, I felt frustrated and disoriented in Dublin. The girl at the Front Desk has given me fairly good directions to find ATM machines and a laundry, but after walking around for about two hours I couldn't find either one. On my second and somewhat annoyed attempt, I located both although the laundry turned out to be a "service wash" facility which I didn't want. After talking with the staff again, I learned that I could use the self-serve laundromat in the Hostel next door after 17:00 (the Hotel staff uses it during the day). This worked out well, and while waiting for my laundry I had a nice visit with some of the guests from the Hostel.

I planned my arrival in Dublin a few days before the tour started, so that I'd have chance to see a couple of sights that weren't covered by the tour (Kilmainham Gaol, Guinness Storehouse, Red Bus tour, etc.). Also, since this was my first visit to Ireland I wanted a few days just to look around. I particularly wanted to pay a visit to Gogarty's Pub, as it looked really interesting (thanks for the tip MTH - there was a soccer game on that night between Scotland and Italy and the place was wild!) I arranged to stay the extra two nights in the same Hotel as that used by the Tour, so didn't even have to change rooms once the tour officially started.

The hotel was not luxurious, but was very comfortable and located in a great area right across from Christ Church Cathedral and within easy walking distance to the Temple Bar area, etc. The only annoyance was the noise from Darkey Kelley's bar at night (which at times was considerable) and since there was no air conditioning meant the windows had to be left open. Emergency vehicles seemed to pass by at all hours of the day and night, always with sirens blaring!

During those first few days, I had an opportunity to speak with some of the members of the previous RS tour that was just finishing and it was interesting to hear their impressions. Unfortunately, one lady that I spoke with had an unfortunate fall at the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, and she had fractured her wrist.

On the Sunday afternoon at about 17:00, the group met for introductions, and to meet our Guide. It turned out that I was the only Canadian in the group. After the tour started, we stayed in Dublin a few more days to cover some of the sights with a local Guide including the Book of Kells, Trinity College, etc. Our Guide, Declan, also arranged an extra treat for us - a one-man live play at a small local theatre, which included a somewhat basic lunch (a bowl of soup, a piece of bread and water). It was great! I got a bit of a surprise though after the performance. I had just left the theatre / restaurant and walked a few steps onto the street when I heard someone calling my name. It turned out to be someone I knew from my local area, and who I had worked with in 1975! What a small world!

On the appointed day our Bus appeared in front of the Hotel, a full-sized Coach, and with only 28 of us in the group everyone had a chance to "stretch out". We were introduced to our Driver, Peter, and left Dublin after breakfast. The ride was somewhat uneventful for the first part, except for a knuckleheaded young lady on the motorway that abruptly cut diagonally in front of the Bus, only missing it by inches!

For the sake of brevity, I'll just provide a short list of the highlights of the places we visited on the tour:

> Powerscourt Gardens - we were given admission vouchers, and had an hour or two just to wander around on our own. What a beautiful spot! I'm sure it would have been much more scenic in the sunshine, but it even on a cloudy day the gardens were beautiful.

> Rock of Cashel - we had a group lunch at a small tourist centre at the base of the rock. Our Guide then provided a tour of the Monastery / Rock of Cashel and I was amazed at the history! I kind of chuckled at the story of the scoundrel that robbed someone else's ornate tombstone and used it for his own.

> Kinsale - we had a short time at the Hotel / B&B to check-in and get organized and then headed to The Tap Pub for our "buddy introductions". To explain that a bit, on the RS tours everyone is assigned a "buddy". Anytime the Bus departs the group is required to make sure their "buddy" is on the Bus. That way no one gets left behind by accident. As we found out later, it's a system that works well (further details later). It was also a good opportunity for everyone in the group to learn a bit more about each other. In addition to a tour with a local guide covering the history of the area and the battles that were fought there, we had a fantastic tour of Charles Fort with another local guide. Part of the group walked back to town after the tour, rather than taking the Bus (it was about a 45 minute, very pleasant wallk - I got some good photos!).

> Muckross House & Killarney National Park - we had the opportunity for a short hike in the park, which was a nice break. At Muckross House we took the official guided tour, and it was incredible to hear about what conditions were like for both the rich and their servants at that time of history.

> Dingle (officially called An Daingean) - this was one of my favourite spots! A fantastic small town with lots of character, great food, lots of very talented local musicians (went to a concert with Tommy O'Sullivan in one of the local Pubs - his new CD is called Song Ablaze, and I found that it's available on I-Tunes). Of course lots of Pubs too, and I visited several, including Dickie Mack's, the Yellow Bridge Pub, and others! The trips to the Blasket Islands Centre, the Gallarus Oratory and other historic sights (with local guide Tim Collins) were awesome! One of our group was 20-minutes late returning to the Bus after our tour of the Blasket Islands Centre, but fortunately she wasn't left behind as a result of the "buddy system". While in Dingle our guide found out about a traditional Irish music concert that was taking place at St. James Church, and arranged tickets for those in the group that wanted to go. The concert featured two girls (accordian and Bohdran) and two guys (guitar and Uilleann pipes). The concert was incredible, and there was lots of foot-tapping happening by the end! Some of the people I met and spoke with in Dingle were the most interesting of my entire trip.

> Cliffs of Moher and The Burren - short stops in both these areas. The Cliffs of Moher visit was quite memorable, as our guide called the group together and provided us with a small glass of Bailey's to "enhance" the visit. I also met Al Bundy's brother there (from the TV show), which made that particular part of the trip memorable. At the Burren we were told about the formation of the area, and the "grikes" and the micro-climate these contain.

> Galway - we were only here for a day or so, but it's another beautiful town. Our group dinner at the Galway Bakery Co. was fantastic, and many of the group had dinner at Al Muretto Italian restaurant the following night (I was at a table with a large group, and it was a monumental challenge to figure out how much each person owed on the bill - thank goodness for my HP Calculator!).

> Aran Islands (Inishmore / Kilronan) - most of the group took a day trip to Inishmore, about a 45 minute boat trip. We were given the option of three ways to tour the island - Bicycle, Pony Cart or MiniBus with a guide. It was raining slightly, so most of the group chose the Minibus tour and Tommy, our driver provided an entertaining tour of his island. He especially enjoyed showing us the Lephrechaun houses, and describing the family that lived in each one. He also mentioned that there's a "10,000 year old Fort on the Island" and said "we have lots of rocks here, so next week we're going to build another 10,000 year old Fort". The Fort he was referring to was probably Dun Aengus, and as time was short I made the hike to the Fort in 11-minutes, although I just about wore myself out! At the end of the tour we were dropped in Kilronan to have a look around and of course for the ladies to shop (their favourite activity for the whole trip!). Kilronan is apparently the site of the largest sweater shop in Europe. I would have bought one of the distinctive Aran Island Sweaters, however I very rarely ever wear sweaters (even in winter, it's T-shirts!)

> Westport - another beautiful small town. We were only here one night, but I managed to get a few photos.

> Connemara - during our trip through the area, we were provided with more information about the potato famine, and about the 600 people that walked 12 miles in the middle of winter to try and obtain food from the rich landowner. They were refused and about 200 died on the return walk. We also saw the National Famine Memorial and the "Coffin Ship", with Croagh Patrick in the background.

> London/Derry - I've added a "slash" to the name, due to the controversy on the "official" name of the city. Our first stop was one of the local malls, so the group could obtain some UK pounds. We were then provided with a moving and memorable tour of the history of London/Derry and "the troubles" with local guide Martin McRossan. Apparently, the main British Army force had only left the area about seven weeks previously, and their barracks were now deserted.

> Portrush - we were lodged in the Ramada Inn, and it was wonderful to have an ocean view. While in Portrush we toured the Giant's Causeway, the Bushmill's Distillery (first licensed in 1608 - of course I had to try a few samples of the 12-year & 16-year single malt!) and Dunluce Castle (with a local guide).

> Belfast - our tour was now almost over, and we only stopped for the afternoon in Belfast. Our Guide provided a good history of "the troubles", and we visited both the Falls Road and Shankhill Road areas. My impression was that although things are somewhat peaceful now, there's still some degree of tension just "under the surface" so the wounds are not completely healed. It will probably take a few generations for that to happen. It was interesting to see the Harlan & Wolff shipyards where the Titanic was built, and the two enormous Cranes, "Samson & Goliath". A huge Titanic memorial centre is being constructed in the vicinity of the shipyard (not sure when this will be completed?)

> Dublin - after Belfast we travelled through Armagh and then back to Dublin. We had our group "farewell dinner" at a fantastic restaurant in the Temple Bar area called the Eden Restaurant. The food was incredible! Once again, our Guide found out about a local event, an Irish Tap Dancing concert at the Arlington Bar across the river. Several in the group decided to go, and although the place was crowded we managed to get seats. The concert was on the lower floor, and I was amazed at the size of the place! There were only three Tap Dancers but they put on a great show (check my photo site to see them).

On the morning after the tour, most of the group had breakfast in the Hotel dining room, but I sensed that the atmosphere was slightly different, perhaps a bit melancholy. We had been together as a group for the past two weeks, but now were all going our separate ways. A few members of the group had already left to catch early flights. After breakfast I got packed and got a Cab to Connolly station for the return trip to Belfast, and was fortunate to find out that the train was leaving in three minutes, so I had no wait at all! In a few hours I was back in Belfast, feeling a bit different without the group that had been with me there just a day or so before.

I took a Taxi to the Belfast International Youth Hostel (HI affiliated) and found it to be well equipped and well run. I only had a short time in Belfast, as my flight left the following afternoon, but I had a chance to take the Red Bus tour and do a bit of exploring on my own. It would be nice to come back some day and look around a bit more. I had planned to have dinner and a pint at the Crown Liquor Bar, but the place was packed and with the small booths there wasn't much room. I decided instead to go to Benedict's Pub, which was just around the corner from the Hostel, and had a fantastic meal (and of course a pint!).

One final observation of my trip, regarding Zoom Air. I deliberately chose economy seating on the way to the U.K. and premium seating on the return, so that I'd have a chance to see what the differences were. It was difficult to discern much difference in the comfort of leg room, as I had an aisle seat for the first flight so was able to stretch out to some extent. The premium seats did seem better in a subtle way, although perhaps that's just a matter of perception? As it turned out, the girl sitting beside me wanted to "stretch out" as there were some empty seats in the back, so I had both seats right at the front to myself (I was right up at the front bulkhead, conveniently close to the WC). I gather the young lady wasn't too comfortable with flying, as she was saying "Hail Mary's" as the plane lifted off. The food and of course the "free" booze on the premium flight were great. Whether it was worth the extra cost is a matter of personal opinion. I felt the higher cost was worth it (at least for one leg of my trip), but for someone on a tighter budget I'm sure regular economy seating would be fine. On my next trip perhaps I'll do a comparison of Zoom Air vs. Air Transat.

Cheers all!!!