Monday Anita, Darla and I set off for Galway. Well, really we set off for the Cliffs of Moher – which are pretty much directly west of Dublin on the other side of the country.
We stopped at Conghlan Castle on the way – really just to take pictures.
Next we stopped by Yeats’ Tower in Gort. WB Yeats was a Nobel Prize winning poet, whose works include The Tower.
We stopped to take a picture of the “natural borders” that Darla loves. Today the natural borders were stone fences between properties.
What’s nice is that the Cliffs are about 5 miles away from Lehinch, where we’ll be staying with my family in May. I think it was about 3.5 hour trip. We stopped in Ennis for lunch – but I’m factoring that in. (I know at least 2 readers want that much info on getting to Lehinch.)
The Cliffs of Moher really are amazing. Picture a coastline and now picture it up 214 meters. You can see the Aran Islands and the Twelve Pins (rolling mountains) of Connemara. The weather was perfect although we could see a bad storm blowing in, which of course we ignored until it hit us. Thankfully we were ready to leave when the hail hit. (Proving that God loves us best.)
After the Cliffs we drove through the Burren to get to Galway. It “is a karst landscape, which is “a landscape shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite.” So in other words, the Burren rocks.
We stopped on the way to Galway on Galway Bay. Maybe the town was Oranmore; maybe not. The waves were washing water unto the bridge and we saw our favorite sign of the trip, pictures below.
After doing so well with driving and directions we had a horrible time finding the hotel when we got into Galway. Luckily we had my friend Kevin to help us – twice. Then we were happy to have Kevin show us the nightlife of Galway. We had a wonderful Indian meal and visited a couple of pubs. They were all pretty lively. One had a band playing and one had a session going on.
The pubs were actually much nicer than many of the pubs I’ve visited in Dublin – in that they were cozy and had fireplaces, which I love.
Finally we took a picture of Lynch Castle for our cousins in Chicago.
I really enjoyed Galway. I recognized almost nothing from when I visited 15 years ago – but the nightlife still seemed good and there’s an artistic feel to the city.
Filed under: Dublin
Sunday we took advantage of the car and climbed up Killiney Hill in Dalkey. Killiney Hill is not very big but it overlooks the sea and Wicklow, which are both beautiful. The Dalkey area is also beautiful. We stopped for lunch at a place called Nosh.
After lunch we headed to Bray and climbed a little bit up Bray Head. It was beautiful but super windy.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The Anita, Darla, the girls and I headed into Dublin for the day on Sunday. The weather was great. We had a fun time. We visited Grafton Street and saw the buskers, which for some reason had a very religious bent this weekend. We took some picture at the Molly Malone statue at the bottom of Grafton Street.
We did a quickie tour of Trinity, had dinner at Bewley’s and did the world’s quickest tour of the city center before heading back home.
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- Molly Malone
Filed under: Dublin
Last night we met up with two old friends Mary and Paul. Patrick went to school with Paul. They live in North Leitrim with their 3 kids who are round about the same ages as ours. It was fun to meet up with them. Unfortunately it was a late night. We met up at 10:30 and left the bar at 12:30. So it wasn’t too wild – but as I said, late.
It felt even later when we got up this morning at 6:00 to meet Anita and Darla at the airport. The arrived safe and sound. Anita did an excellent job driving from the airport to the house.
Filed under: Dun Laoghaire
We went to 2 interesting lectures this week. And I’m using the royal we here. On Monday night, Kate and Patrick went to school/church to see John the gangster from London talk about how he found God.
Apparently the place was hopping. Patrick thought it was a good night. Kate thought it was strange. I thought it was a little strange too.
On Thursday Patrick and I went to hear Ruth Padel, the keynote speaker for the International Poetry Festival in Dun Laoghaire. (OK, yes I mostly went to have dinner beforehand.)
She talked about reading a poem for sound and about how the vowels move the poem from one line to another. She had a few interesting stories about, for example, the great vowel shift in English that apparently happened between the 12th and 18th centuries. It was the shift that moved us from Middle to Modern English, when English speakers stopped pronouncing vowels like the rest of Europe and started pronouncing them as we do now – closer towards the teeth.
I actually did find this interesting – but the connection between it and reading a poem was a little lost on me
Last Saturday we met up with friends David, Andrea and Alex for lunch in Cabinteely and then to play in the park. It was a beautiful spring day. You can see the pictures below.
On Sunday we headed towards Dun Laoghaire. They are working on the pier but we had a nice walk near the see and through the People’s Park market. We got some outdoor stuff, like a kite and a basketball.
We really missed our neighbors back home as the day and the new stuff would have been even better if we had someone to share it with.
Filed under: Dublin
Aine stuck gum in my hair today. She didn’t stick it in ends of my hair – no way. She chunked it right on my part.
Thankfully Kate, who spends more time on hair than any other 8 year old I know was able to get it out with peanut butter.
The good news is that we don’t have to buy Aine a prom dress as she is now grounded for the next 20 years! (Unless I can get her married off by age 16.)
Filed under: London
Wednesday was our last day in London. It was a fun but hard vacation. We were all a little sick, which made things hard. Our room was tiny – a double bed and a single for 5 of us. The hotel was farther away from the Tube station and the action than we wanted.
On the flip side we saw a ton! And I know it won’t be 15 years until the next time I’m in London.
Wednesday morning we went to the Natural History Museum. It rocks! Again I was amazed by the numbers of people going through the door. There was a steady stream of going through the door the whole time we were there. But the place is huge so, it didn’t seem too claustrophobic.
We took some video and pictures so I won’t say much more about it. We want our cousin Molly to know that we thought of you the whole time.
After the museum we had a final lunch with Patrick’s brother John.
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Filed under: London
On Tuesday we went to the Tower of London. It was a huge reminder to me of just how many tourists visit London. It was packed – and while it was during the Easter Break, it was hardly the height of tourist season. In fact the number of people was kind of overwhelming for me.
Patrick took the guided tour of the Tower. The girls and I walked around on our own a little more. We saw the crown jewels. The girls really enjoyed that part. We also toured the torture tower. We were surprised to learn that Jane Grey was beheaded on Kate’s birthday – February 12, which is also Lincoln’s birthday. Jane Grey was married to Henry VIII for nine days. She was 16 years old.
We also learned that there is a superstition that says that the Tower will collapse if the ravens leave the Tower – so they clip the wings to keep them local. I included a video of a raven because I was surprised to hear that they sound like pigs!
Tuesday night Patrick’s mom kindly watched the girl and we headed out. We went to the Absolut Ice House off Regent Street – pretty touristy but fun. It’s entirely made of ice. It’s like getting a drink at the ice castle. After that trekked all over the city and landed at the Old Vic, a theater where Guthrie was involved.
Filed under: London
All day on Monday we took the Hop On Hop Off Bus tour in London. If you are ever in London for a short visit and want to get a good lay of the land I strongly recommend the on-off bus tour. You can see a ton – plus you can stay pretty warm and dry is the weather is less than perfect.
We did see everything. I will post the pictures and videos below and spare you the laundry list. Here are a few of the things we got of the bus to see:
- An abridged view of the changing of the guard – abridged because it was too crowded to see too much and it was rainy so they didn’t wear the big beefeater hats.
- Speaker’s corner in Hyde Park. A fun area on a Sunday where self-selected speakers literally stand on their soap box waxing eloquently on whatever strikes them.
- We walked from Trafalgar Square to Picadilly Circus, down Oxford Street to the Disney shop – a big highlight for the kids
- We had an almost OK lunch in a pub called Sherlock Holmes. Kate loved the custard dessert.
- The National Gallery – we saw Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Virgin on the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci.
One funny story about the picture of the girls in the phone booth, which I insisted on getting… I pushed them into the phone booth completely forgetting who advertises in the phone booth – let’s just say it’s the kind of girl you could call for a visit day or night. That ought to cinch my mother of the year award!
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