October 4th – Limerick

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Arrived in Limerick at 11:10, and checked into the George’s Boutique Hotel.

The weather is fine, but Limerick is not a pretty city. Although they have a couple of rivers and some old buildings, they don’t make the best of them.

We headed down to the Shannon River and walked up to the Tourist Center. They suggested the castle and a couple museums.

We got ice cream and walked up to St. Mary’s Cathedral (built in the 12th century). It has the largest solid limestone altar in the British Isles. We noticed some features we hadn’t seen before. They had ornately carved stalls with hidden benches for the priests to rest on while they were supposedly standing, There was also leper slot. (Lepers couldn’t go in the church, but they could peak inside the slot and receive Communion through the slot.)

Then, we decided that we had just been through a castle the previous day so we would go to the Georgian House instead to view their 16 decorated rooms. It is on the opposite side of town from St. Mary’s, but no rain so the walk was nice.

However, the Georgian House is no longer open! They still display their pamphlets at the tourist office and train station???

By this time, it was too late to go back to the castle. We walked around a park for a while, then down to the docks. They weren’t loading anything on the ships so we just went back to the hotel.

What a waste of a day… We could have taken a later train from Dublin, but thought there’d be things to do in a city with a name such as Limerick.

We were having a beer in the hotel bar, when a man came up to us, having heard our American accents. He’d lived in NYC for a few years in the mid 80’s and wondered if we found the Irish difficult to understand. We told him we hadn’t had any problem at all understanding folks. He made reference to the Irish dropping the “h” from the “th” so that they say “nort”, instead of “‘north” and “sout”‘ instead of “south”, but we’ve become so accustomed to it that it’s starting to sound normal!

We’ll be back in the USA tomorrow, so this is “pinchontheroad” signing off from the British Isles. It was a great trip, and great fun to update this travel blog with our adventures!

October 3rd – Glendalough

Monday, October 3, 2011

Caught the tour to the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough first thing this morning.  We were quite relieved as the weather looked promising. There were 23 people on the tour, and they were from all over: Italy, Germany, Holland, Korea, England, and US.  Half spoke little or no English.

Our driver/guide, Joe, was very Irish and very funny.  He told jokes (groaners) and sang songs throughout.  He pointed out locations where several movies were filmed (Braveheart, Excalibur, Michael Collins), and we stopped at one of the settings for P.S I Love You.

Although we didn’t get to see his house, we did see the pub where Daniel Day Lewis comes down for a pint.

We stopped at the Guinness Valley for pictures.  One of the Guinness daughters was given this two mile valley as a wedding gift.  It has two lakes on it.  One of the sons now lives in the estate.

Then, on to Glendalough, the monastic ruins where St. Kevin had his church. Many stone buildings and a 30 meter tower are still standing, as well as lots of graves and Celtic Crosses.  It is a lovely area; we spent an hour there looking around and walking from the lower to the upper lake.

We went to Avoca for lunch at the Fitzgerald’s Pub.  Evidently, a popular TV show, Ballykissangels was filmed there.  We ate lunch in the pub where some of it took place.

Next, on to the first weaving mill in Ireland.  It was actually rather interesting, and we only had to spend a half hour there.

Our driver said the tourist bureau had done studies and found that by the time people get done with a tour, they only remember 38% of what the guide has told them, then after a day, it goes down to 3%.  So, he quizzed us going back into Dublin.  That was quite fun.

When we got back to Dublin, we walked through St. Stephen’s Green, which is a large park.  Then, we went to Temple Bar for a last ice cream at Botticelli’s.  The waitress remarked that we were becoming regulars – and she was right about that!  We were there every day.

And… today is the first day in a month that we haven’t been rained on!!!

October 2nd – Dublin

Sunday, October 2, 2011

After breakfast Barb went to church, but Jackie had gotten very little sleep, due to Barb’s coughing, so she went back to bed.  This time, the priest was Father “Patrick” (don’t actually know his name but he was Irish, anyway!). There were protestors outside the church – angry about the Catholic Church and the priests/pedophile scandals in Ireland.

We took our luggage to the Arlington Hotel (by the O’Connell Bridge) for them to hold until we could check in.

Next, we headed over to Trinity College to tour the college and see the Book of Kells, the four gospels. Our tour guide was great – he’s a third year political science major and gave great commentary.  The Book of Kells exhibit is amazing. We were surprised that the pagans helped illustrate it.  We were also surprised that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert signed this 1200 year old manuscript.

The old library was interesting, too.  It is a very LONG room with books going way up toward their high ceiling. Tall ladders would help one get a book, but they aren’t numerically ordered, rather they are ordered by size. There are many lovely sculptures and artifacts on display,

Then, we went back to Botticelli’s for ice cream. They know us there, now!

Our next stop was Dublin Castle.  It’s not a very old castle because the original burned down in the 1600’s.  However, the tour was interesting.  We were able to go down into the undercroft and see part of the original medieval wall and moat.

It rained or drizzled throughout our tour of Trinity and the castle, then gradually the weather continued to improve, and by 4:30 pm, the sun came out!  We strolled across the bridge of the River Liffey, enjoying the sunshine.

In the evening, we went to the bar area in our hotel.  They have a dinner/theater deal, but you can still watch if you didn’t spring for the €29.95 dinner.  A four piece band sang and played traditional Irish music, followed by some “Riverdance” type dancing.

A musing…..in Ireland they are serious about their road construction.  We’ve noticed all the while that they only block off the area they are, in fact, working on and they actually appear to work steadily all day, including today, a Sunday!

October 1st – Dublin

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Rain came down in torrents this morning.  We bought passes for the Hop on-Hop off tour bus and proceeded to ride it for over four hours which included two full tours.  We were on the top level, under cover, of course, and lucky for us we got one of the few seats that avoided the leaks from the roof.  We sure learned a lot about Dublin.

By the time we got off the bus, the torrential rains had subsided.  Although it rained all day and evening, we were able to get around okay.  We fast tracked it to Temple Bar – not for a pint, rather for another ice cream at Botticelli’s.

Then we toured Christ Church Cathedral.  It is amazing. The Dublin YMCA Mens’ Choir was rehearsing for their concert.  (They were not singing Galway Girl – one of our pub fave’s!). We went downstairs to the crypts which were very interesting.

Our next stop was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) was dean there for 30 years.  The building we see today was built in the 13th century.  We noticed the seating at St. Patrick’s looks none too comfortable.  Upon reflection, this appears to be the case at most of the cathedrals. Maybe this is part of the penance.

We walked around the Grafton Street area, with its wide pedestrian walkways.  Then, we went in search of better accommodations.  We were going to check out the Westbury, but noticed Rolls-Royces coming out from their overhang so decided they might not like our price point.  We continued searching and found a Westin, but they charge £239 per night.  We ended up booking the Arlington for €89 B&B.

We walked around a bit more and went to Bewley’s for dinner This is where Jean and Andy got engaged.  They are known for great coffee and fabulous desserts, but our dinner was good, as well.  There are three stories, and lots of atmosphere.  We don’t know where Jean and Andy sat.  We chose the mezzanine which looked out onto Grafton Street.  We got to see the street cleaning machine in action twice during dinner as it was drying up, as best it could, the puddles left on the walkway.

Then…back to hotel…in for the rest of the night.

September 30th – Dublin

Friday, September 30, 2011

Jackie woke up even more sick this morning. She tried to eat some breakfast, but that didn’t work so she went back to bed.

Barb got the check-out extended to 1:00 pm, then went to check out St. Canice Cathedral.   The main part of the cathedral was built in the 1200’s; the tower was added in the 800’s.

It was drizzling when she left, however, by the time she was coming back, the rain came down in torrents. Jackie slept the whole time she was gone and was feeling better. There was no sign of the rain subsiding so we decided to take an earlier train to Dublin.

We found our lodging, The Town House, however, we don’t like it. The whole street is filled with Youth Hostels; one is attached to The Town House.  Although it is well located, we will likely stay here two nights and find something better.

We set off in the rain to get our bearings in Dublin. Temple Bar is a neat area, full of pubs and restaurants. We got an ice cream at Boticelli’s. Later we stopped in for some traditional music at the Quay.

Both of us are very weary of the gloomy, rainy weather. Since this past Sunday, we have seen a total of two hours of sun. The forecast is awful: heavy rain all day tomorrow, rain all day Sunday, and light rain on Monday. We have no idea what we will do for three days in the rain. One can only hope that the weathermen who forecast that this area would be having Indian Summer this week are the same ones forecasting the rain.  Perhaps they’ll be wrong again, but this time in our favor. We’d like to catch a plane to sunshine!