THTHTHAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

September 25-27,, 2014
Our final morning in Ireland.  What better way to finish than with breakfast, of course, at our Windsor Lodge B&B.  Chuck and I beat the girls down to the nice, bright dining room.

Since our ferry didn’t leave until after noon, we took advantage of the nice morning weather to stroll up the harbor from our B&B (Mary let us stay in her parking pad until we left) to the National Maritime Museum of Ireland, a decidedly low-key (but very neat) enterprise tucked away in a former church, complete with stained glass, that originally had been built (1837) to serve sailors in the then-bustling seaport known as Kingstown, today Dun Laoghaire.  Model ships, brass fittings, accounts of heroic rescues, and the obligatory Fresnel lens (in front of the triple windows) from a light house.  Loni was intrigued by the pantometer, used to copy maps to any size from 1/2 to 2x the original.  This was a great, relaxed way to end our visit.

We finished with the museum, Chuck fortified himself with ice cream for the drive to the ferry, and we were off.  Thank goodness for the GPS;  this time it brought us through a tangle of port roads and dumped us right in line for the ship.  I think we’d have been quite lost without it.  Again, the signage is all dual-language.  I suspect this is what California will look like in twenty years:  primary signage in Spanish, secondary in English.

The crossing (2 hours)was unremarkable save for the lousy viewing weather.  Grey, low skies with lots of mist blocking any vistas.  We landed in Wales and drove to Llandudno and the Alvastrada Guest House, our home for two nights.  We landed in the wrong courtyard due to confusing signage, and Chuck had to squeeze out and resqueeze into the right one.  Alvastrada was quite pleasant, although the stairs were a bear with the luggage.  Host Steve was very helpful, and quite proud of his three-story umbrella plant growing up the stairwell.  It was late afternoon when we got there, so we just unpacked and decided to follow Steve’s suggestion of eating at the nearby (walking distance) Albert Pub.  Great tip!  Perhaps the best “pub” food we’d had.  I had slow-roasted pork belly (carnitas, anyone?) with mash and red cabbage.  Succulent!  Loni had a steak/ale/mushroom pie served with cabbage, veggies, and six rather substantial new potatoes.  God, they love their spuds here.  We both had excellent pints of Will’s Burning Gold Lager.  Black Forest trifle for dessert was the only negative.  Just didn’t have much flavor.  Sorry about the blurry selfie.

One of the few B&B glitches we experienced cropped up here, with the shower temperature virtually impossible to control.  Either freezing or boiling and n’er the twain shall meet.  A nice breakfast with plenty of coffee and we were ready to tackle our corner of Wales (northwest).  Steve was full of info, including that the “Ll” at the beginning of Llandudno is pronounced as if “cl.”  OK, I don’t think we’ll bother.  Our first goal today was the nearby Conwy Castle, today a ruin standing guard over one of the best-preserved medieval walled cities in Britain.  It was all built by Edward I in the 1200’s at enormous expense (and with forced labor) in only 4 years.  Alice and Loni outside the walls.

Interior, with model.

Loni with ???  Looks like Dubya-isms have made it to Wales, more’s the pity.

The town of Conwy, through a break in the ramparts.  Note wall in background.

From the castle, the harbor was beautiful; reminded me of our East Coast.

Scene looking over the walls to the countryside.

Looking over the river.

The town was quite small and easy to walk around.  Like a medieval city, the streets were narrow.  This was the “main drag.”  Ice cream shops were everywhere.

To enter the town, you have to go through one of the original gates.  Not so bad for us, but . . . pull in those mirrors, bud.  As an RVer, I have sympathy (and admiration).

Not only are the roads and gates narrow, Conwy sports the alleged “smallest house in Britain.”  We did not pay the costumed lady to go inside.  We are RVers, after all.  Close quarters are nothing to us.

We found a nice bakery-sandwich shop and bought some bread, cheese, and a lemon cake for dessert.  We carried it back to the car and took off for Llandudno’s Great Orme’s Head, a country park and nature preserve situated atop a mountain that overlooks Llandudno (whose beach is hidden below the hill where the aerial tram towers disappear).  If you look down the slope, there’s a big barn-like structure.  That’s the station house for the Great Orme Tramway, one of only three cable-hauled street tramways in the world (San Francisco and Lisbon).  The tracks leading out of it head . . .

up here! That overexposed patch at upper right is the ocean.

Llandudno is a seaside resort that, unlike many other British holiday towns, has retained a strong sense of its Victorian roots.  No flashing lights or funfairs.  It has a sweeping beach (mixed stones and sand) that curves between two headlands, Great Orme’s Head and Little Orme’s Head (you can see Little in the hillside view above of the cable car barn).  The Grand Hotel sits at the Great end of the crescent, and it is grand, indeed.

Looking the other way from those blue pavilions by the shore, you can see the almost unbroken wall of the “lesser” establishments renting rooms.

I think some of those pensioners on the benches actually date from Victorian times.  So, not much excitement in Llandudno, but it was very pleasant to walk around.

Back to the Alvastrada to eat once more at the Albert Pub (sea bream for me;  slow roasted lamb shoulder for Loni), then packing for our schlep into England tomorrow.  Note the devil TV on the wall.  It had the irritating habit of losing its channel memory every time it was turned off.  Repopulating the channels took 10-15 minutes each time we wanted to use it.  Nothing on anyway.

Next morning, the breakfast bunch hard at it, chowing down like there’s no tomorrow.  Hey, there isn’t.  We go home tomorrow!  Booooo.

The first of three levels of stairs, with host Steve’s prized umbrella plant off to the right.  It really did go up all three stories.

Our last full day was devoted to the lengthy slog to Heathrow, or rather to the Reading Hilton, our final overnight spot.  On the way we stopped off in Oxford to see the sights, but the traffic was horrendous and parking nonexistent.  We finally found a spot in an industrial area, walked a half-dozen blocks and found a student hangout that appeared to be transplanted from San Francisco:  organic, free range, etc.  But the food was quite good.  This was just a snack, so I had what passed for a British milkshake (thin) and an orange poppyseed cake.  Loni had tea and an apricot-lemon flapjack.  Well, that’s what they called it.  Bellies full, we headed on out of Oxford, and passed by what we all thought was the bridge, river, and pub where Inspector Morse and his deputy, Lewis, used to sit and drink pints.  You’ll just have to believe me.  No time for a photo.
The Hilton was pleasant enough, but it was jumping with activity as there was a big wedding going on and the place was packed.  No seats in the dining room until late night, so we opted for a table in the bar area, which was just fine.  They also were having an Octoberfest celebration, featuring (as in sponsored by) the beer of one of my former clients for twenty years:  Erdinger!

We indulged in the suds, had fairly decent dinners, and crashed early for the flight home.  At 0-dark-thirty, we loaded the car for the last time and Chuck and Alice dropped us off at Heathrow, precisely where they picked us up five weeks ago.  We can’t thank them enough for their generosity in providing the fine ride and excellent chaufferage, to say nothing of the best company for long days in close quarters.  They’ve certainly paid us back for our introducing them four+ decades ago.  This trip was literally twenty years in the “why don’t we go . . .” stage for all of us, and it couldn’t have been realized any better.
Check-in at Heathrow was surprisingly painless, and we had time before the flight to blow our final meager pounds on porridge, danish, and yoghurt.  Cheers, mate!
 

fini

DUBLIN’ DOWN

September 24, 2014
Our second and last day in Dublin, we trained in from our B&B and decided to take a guided walking tour.  There are many to choose from, but we picked the improbably named “Paddy Liddy Walking Tour” as it was the second half of a twofer when we bought our bus tour tickets yesterday.  It’s luck of the draw as to whom you get as your guide, and we got a pip.  An accent second only to that of our B&B star, Gerry, looking like he just stepped out of a pub for a minute, and spouting nonstop blather as only an Irishman can.  Loni’s notes has him named Henry St. Shoppo, but that makes no sense.  Surely he’s Seamus O’Toole?
We didn’t have to do much but turn around and look up the street for our first sight, the needle monument, formally known as the Tower of Light, more familiarly known in these parts as the “Stiletto in the Ghetto.”  Other than “what’s the point?” (ouch), little else need be said.

Our first stop,naturally, was a pub, the Church Pub which is a reuse of a former chapel.  Quite nicely done.  Guinness was married here, and John Wesley preached.  C&A stopped off here for a bite later in the day.

“New Square” was created by demolishing an old graveyard.  Apparently this is a casual act in Ireland.  What to do with all those pesky tombstones lying all over?  Why, you stack them up on the borders and make a low wall out of them!

A bit of Irish humor relief was provided by this placard on a residential wall.  A lot of buildings in Dublin are homes where windows looking right into the rooms are smack on the sidewalk.

One of the more bizarre murals we’ve seen anywhere is John Byrne’s 2004 controversial ‘Dublin’s Last Supper’ in the Italian Quarter off Lower Ormond Quay. It is a re-enactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece, but with an ethic mix of disciples, modern dress, women and contemporary food, and featuring a real-life Sikh as Jesus.  To assemble the apostles, Byrne walked through Dublin and approached people asking them if they would like to take part in the Last Supper.  They were then photographed and assembled into this work. 

The thirteen, from left to right, are:
Bartholomew: Jude O Dochartaigh, a tattoo artist;
James the Less: Vernoica, a librarian;
Andrew: Eddie Salim, from east Africa;
Judas: Frank Conlon, an actor and drama facilitator;
Peter: Henry;
John: Julie Kerrigan, an employee at Pavee Point Travellers’ Centre;
Jesus: Kulpreet Singh, a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin;
Thomas: Willie Crowley, an ecologist;
James the Great: Leighton, a student at Cornell University;
Philip: Diana Sabogal, a student at the American College, Dublin;
Matthew: Alan Kavanagh, an architecture student at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT);
Thaddeus: Aloysius McKenna, a building worker;
Simon: Michael Foley, a network analyst.
Is this the blog that gives it all, or what?  Moving on, we wandered through various streets and alleyways, and crossed the River Liffey with another gray day view of Ha’penny Bridge.

Thank goodness Dublin has avoided the purist’s reliance on old Irish in their streetsigns.  They have the good sense to include English for us tourists.


By the way, Temple Bar has nothing to do with Irish law or courts.  It’s a section of town named for Sir William Temple.  A rather nondescript square (right) was another pause in our walk.  For you “Twilight” fans (and I do NOT count myself as one), the progenitor of the genre, Bram Stoker, worked in rooms above that blue door.

One excellent stop we made was Chapel Royal, which has a stone head of Jonathan Swift above the entry.

The core of the church was built in the 13th century.  After the Reformation, it became an Anglican church.  A century later, troops of those delightful Calvinists under Oliver Cromwell, who viewed Anglicans as mere Catholics without a pope, stabled their horses inside as a sign of disrespect.  Swift was dean of the Cathedral for 32 years, and his grave is located near the front door.  Inside, there is a true delight in the beautiful, multi-colored-pipes organ.






Inside the chapel, an “installation” was underway, consisting of all these fine strings strung throughout the place.  Meaning?

Dublin is a mashup of old and new architectural styles, best exemplified by this view of Dublin Castle, the seat of English rule in Ireland for 700 years.

Our tour ended, we split up for the afternoon.  C&A wanted to see the Writer’s Museum, but we wanted to go to the Chester Beatty Library.  This turned out to be virtually the highlight of the trip for Loni.  She loved it, and I must say I was truly impressed as well.  If you are in Dublin, do not miss it.  All I can show is the exterior, as no photos were allowed within.

So, what lies within?  Priceless, beautifully displayed collections of rare ancient religious manuscripts and illustrated books from all around the world.  Unearthed in Egypt in the 1930’s, there are 1,800 year-old fragments of Old Testament books and the Letters of Paul.  They were written in Greek on papyrus more than a century before any previously known such documents.  They had not been rolled up like most, but were in book form, called a codex.  These are about as close in time to the “source”’ as you can get, and it was fascinating to see.  Beautiful works from Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism are also present.  It is all gorgeous and remarkable.  I was especially drawn to a form of Indian art where an animal is rendered by forming its body from a composite of many other animals in smaller form.  Loni liked the calligraphy, which is Islam’s most revered art form.  Here’s a link to the Library’s image gallery where you can peruse selected items.
After all this beauty, we hopped on the bus to go out to a brutal site, the infamous Kilmainham Gaol, opened in 1796 as a county jail and debtor’s prison.  Mostly, though, it was used by the British as a political prison, holding a who’s who list of those who fought for Irish independence in the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867, and 1916.  The last such prisoner held here was Eamon de Valera, who later became president of Ireland.  The tour covers the cells, cellblocks, and execution sites.  Our guide, Michael, was so impassioned, you’d think he’d attack anyone admitting to be from London.  He hissssed the word “English.”  The gaol was actually considered quite humane and advanced for its time.  Only 96, single cells, and open areas within, etc.  One feature was its two sets of staircases:  winding ones (background, right photo) for the prisoners, to slow them down; and straight ones for the guards for quick access.

Through many of the rebellions, much of the populace was rather wishy-washy, and only tepid support was given to the firebrands.  However, the British went a little too far in executing the 1916 rebels.  The cross in the yard below – the “stonebreakers yard” – marks the site of those executions, including that of James Connolly.  Connolly had been grievously wounded in the fighting, and got scant care from the Brits.  He was so injured, that he fell out of the chair they had placed him in for the firing squad.  The Brits picked him up, tied him into the chair, and let loose the volley. 

This so outraged the Irish that it changed the complexion of the fight overnight.  Independence now became a widespread sentiment and a united populace eventually did the British in.  I have to confess, I was ready to do our guide in if he used the phrase “now we go ba-a-a-ck in history” one more time.  Enough already!
The prison was heavy stuff, thus, on our way back to the train station, I was very happy to spot this, my favorite shop name in all of Ireland.

DOIN’ DUBLIN: day one

September 23, 2014
The Big City!  Enough of these picturesque idylls, it’s time for wall-to-wall crowds and diesel exhaust.  We’re off to Dublin, our final stop in Ireland.  Made-to-order omelets (ham-cheese-mushroom/salmon-tomato) and homemade scones were just the right complement to the “soft” morning generated by the light rains last night.  We had found in our research for the trip that it was very expensive to stay in Dublin, and parking would have been a nightmare.  We also figured that we would be catching the ferry to Wales that left from Dun Laoghaire, a seaport just south of the City, which had excellent public transportation (train) into Dublin.  So we booked a B&B in an adjacent town called Sandy Cove.  It wasn’t until later that we found out that the DL ferry stops running for the season in mid-September, and we had just missed the cutoff.  Oh, well, the Windsor Lodge in Sandy Cove was just fine, and we found some excellent restaurants in walking distance that wouldn’t break the bank for dinner.  The owner, Mary O’Farrell, kindly allowed us to show up early and to park in her courtyard during the day while we trained off to Dublin.  We are 1/2 block from the water and 1/2 block from the train station.  It was only 20 minutes from here to Pearse Station by Trinity College, our principal destination.  But first, a bus tour to get the lay of the land.  We took the Green Line hop-on hop-off tour, but stayed on for the full circuit so as to end up back at Trinity.  The driver told some funny stories, but wasn’t much for pointing out particular sights as we drove along.  These guys ARE, however, masters at fitting an oversized bus into an undersized street.  I couldn’t believe some of the maneuvers.

One of the sights we did identify was this elliptical arch bridge, opened in 1816, to offer foot passage across the River Liffey to any Dubliner willing to pay a ha’penny, the exact price of the then redundant ferry and payable to William Walsh, ferry owner and alderman of the city. He retired his leaking ferries and was compensated with £3,000 and the bridge lease for one hundred years.  It became known as the Ha’penny Bridge, and he and his descendants must have made a fortune over the years.  It’s good to be an alderman! It retained its position as the only pedestrian bridge to span the river until the opening of the Millennium Bridge in 1999.  (Pic taken behind glass on bus.)

Lots of photos taken but, on review, very few held any interest.  Dublin has both wide boulevards and narrow, tortured streets.  This is an example of the former.

Our great circle tour completed, we beetled off to Trinity and latched onto a tour being given by a recent graduate, awaiting his graduation papers, called a “finished” student, who apparently had no particular job to go to.  He clearly was hustling for tips, as he gave a spirited and funny tour, but I think he was playing fast and loose with the facts.  He got his beer money and then some.  Trinity is a mixture of old, classic structures like this entry courtyard (you come in through the arched opening at left-center),

. . . and the butt-ugly modern like this library.  What the hell is that shed-like protrusion behind the lamp pole?  Not that eliminating it would do much for the aesthetics of this place.

Old dormitories abound, like the one below.  The statue at the right has to be one of the ugliest portrayals in marble.  He looks like he just rolled out of bed after a drunk.  But it probably was accurate, as he was a nasty sort. 

Mr. Salmon was the Provost here from 1888-1904.  During his reign, as before, Trinity was a male-only institution.  When a proposal was made late in his tenure to admit women, he fulminated that women would be admitted only over his dead body.  He died a week later, and was buried in the inner courtyard near a little-used entryway.  They raised this statue to him because he left a lot of money to the school, but stipulated in his will that an effigy be erected.  It wasn’t long after his death that the first women were admitted.  However, they were required to avoid use of the main entrance and instead come in through the smaller, above-referenced passage.  Yup.  Upon entering they walk right across old Salmon’s grave.  Poetry.
All is not old statuary.  This “Sphere Within A Sphere” sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro is a puzzler, but I since learned that there are a dozen more iterations of it scattered around the world, including one at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.  This one was donated by the artist, which probably eased the decision to install it here.  The thing rotates, exposing different aspects as it turns.

One of the interesting sidebars we learned from our guide was that the school has a “Trinity Scholars” program whereby those students who elect it can get 5 years’ free room, board, and tuition if they pass a difficult exam after their 2nd year.  He allowed as he didn’t try, but his younger brother made it!  Talk about pressure.  Last year, only 70 out of the 3,000 students here made the grade (not everyone opted to take it).  OK, on to the architectural gem of the place, the old library, longer than that of Oxford, and home to a unique filing system.  Here’s a shot of the barrel ceiling and looking down about half the length.

I really liked the artwork they had hanging, although I don’t know what it was representing.  The displays change periodically, so I was happy to see this bizarre and colorful stuff.  Looks like it escaped from Comic-Con.

You can see the stacks arrayed to the sides of this main hall, as well as above in the galleries.  All the books in the library are arranged by size, in no specific topical or author order, biggest on the bottom, and smallest on the top.  To find anything, you have to use an index that tells you where it’s located.  This was done, we are told, to make it look orderly.  I think its to prevent big volumes from falling on your head from a great height. Only in Ireland.

The true gem of the place is, of course, the fabulously illustrated Book of Kells, the collection of the four Gospels that was created and copied by painstaking monks, ca 800 AD.  The intricate detail is something to see, and it is stunning that the colors have survived so well for all these years.  Unfortunately, only two pages are on display at any one time.  Fortunately, the entirety is now available online at this link. 

One other interesting item on display was the Brian Boru harp, the model for the harp that appears on Irish coinage (and Harp beer as well!).  Brian Boru was the Irish Warrior King (1002-1014) that united all the Irish tribes against the onslaught of the Vikings in Ireland in the 10th century. When praying and giving thanks on his great victory after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, he was assassinated by a rogue Viking.  The harp is a magnificently decorated and bejeweled medieval harp of cedar wood that was made for a person of great significance. However, it was not in fact made for Brian Boru himself as research has shown it to have been crafted about 300 years after his death





All the foregoing notwithstanding, the most important structure in Trinity was this student union, home to the only available public loo in the area (see sign in foreground).  We would return here often!

After a quick snack, Chuck & Alice decided to head back to the B&B, but we decided to walk around town a bit.  We poked around the Grafton shopping area, marveled at the prices,

and hightailed it back to the train station.  We caught one almost immediately, and made it back only 15 minutes after C&A, who had to wait quite a while.  For dinner, we strolled a few blocks from the B&B and found Le Petit Cochon, rated 4.5 on the TripAdvisor scale.  It was worth every star, and more.  I rated it the 4th best meal of the trip.  Mussels to start, then pan-fried Hake over leeks and boiled potatoes in a fabulous prawn-mussel cream sauce.  YUM.  Loni scored with a lamb ratatouille and garlic potatoes in a wine sauce. 3 kinds of homemade ice cream for dessert.  My three cohorts all were stunned at how powerful the pistachio tasted.  Sadly, I couldn’t taste it at all.  Seems that savory and salty are all I can get these days.  A great end to day 1 in Dublin.