Escape to Eire - Wednesday

Other parts of this series:
Escape to Eire - the beginning
Escape to Eire - Monday
Escape to Eire - Tuesday
Escape to Eire - Wednesday (this post)
Escape to Eire - Thursday
Escape to Eire - Friday
Escape to Eire - Saturday



For all the rain that Ireland gets, we really only had one half of a day where the rain impacted our activities and that was Wednesday morning.  It was just misting after we left our B&B and headed to our morning activity, Muckross House.  As we walked toward the entrance we were asked if we wanted to go on a jaunting cart ride.  After inquiring we learned that was a two-wheeled cart pulled behind a single horse.  We hopped aboard and the driver gave us a bit of history about the property, which was beautiful and massive, and took us out to see one of the waterfalls.  By the time we were done with the jaunting cart it was raining pretty steadily so it was time to tour the house.

The house was built in the 1840s and has 65 rooms. In 1855 the owners were given 6 years’ notice that Queen Victoria would be visiting. The advance notice was so they could get the estate up to royal standards. The queen visited for two nights. The money spent preparing the estate was so substantial that it virtually bankrupted the owners who eventually had to sell the property. The final owners received the estate as a wedding gift from the bride’s father and when the bride died at a young age, her husband and her parents donated the estate to the country. It became the majority of what is now the 25,000-acre Killarney National Park.

We'd yet to see the west coast of the island so it was time to visit one of the peninsulas.  We'd thought about the more famous Ring of Kerry but were concerned about tour buses and such so we opted for the lesser-known Dingle Peninsula.  The good news was that the closer we got to the coast, the more sun we saw.  So the drive went from gloomy to sunny as we went from National roads to the smaller, narrower Regional roads.  Our small car suddenly seemed much larger.


We arrived in Dingle town and were immediately charmed.  Vibrant colors are everywhere, from the buildings to the boats. It's an artistic haven and the influence is evident. This region of the country is also heavily Gaelic and that's the only language you'll see on signs.

We checked in with the helpful tourist bureau and decided to drive the peninsula, hoping to make the full loop.  They pointed out the Famine Cottage and Beehive Hut as a place we should stop.  These were mortar-less buildings where farm families lived during the Great (Potato) Famine of the 19th century which had such a devastating effect on the country.  I'm glad we stopped here as I learned a good bit but that stop did put us behind schedule a bit as we needed to make it to Tralee in time to check into our next B&B.  We drove just a bit further where there was a nice place for a photo op.  The wind was blowing like crazy but it was beautifully green and sunny.

Driving back along the peninsula road we again marveled at how narrow they were - basically one lane - and how close the stacked stone walls were to the non-existent shoulder.  We had a bit of a scare as we whipped around one corner and found a sheep between the wall and the road.  Fortunately she didn't try to cross or she could have done serious damage to the car.  As much as we loved the coast, we were happy to get back on the wider National roads that now seemed 30% wider than they did before!

Our B&B in Tralee was quite nice but we can't say much for the town. We actually had to go to the next town for dinner though we really enjoyed that meal.  Our vacation was halfway over, sadly!

Escape to Eire - Tuesday

Other parts of this series:
Escape to Eire - the beginning
Escape to Eire - Monday
Escape to Eire - Tuesday (this post)
Escape to Eire - Wednesday
Escape to Eire - Thursday
Escape to Eire - Friday
Escape to Eire - Saturday

It rained heavily overnight but Tuesday morning was wonderfully sunny though much cooler.  We enjoyed chatting with the B&B owner over our pot of tea and then packed up the car and drove back into Kilkenny.


Kilkenny Castle Exterior

Our first stop was Kilkenny Castle.  We'd taken many photos of the exterior the prior evening but now was our chance to catch it in the sunlight.  Though the interior of the castle wasn't open for the day yet, we were now allowed inside the castle walls and were stunned at the massive park inside.  It was a gorgeous green with the sunlight playing on it and looked to be a wonderful place for a morning stroll.


Kilkenny Castle Interior

Once we were able to get our tickets for the castle interior we watched a short film about the history of the castle and were able to view parts of the foundation that dated back to the 12th century.  While we walked through the castle rooms (no photos inside, sadly) we were usually the only people touring so the docents were happy to answer any questions we had.

St. Canice's Cathedral

Just outside the castle were sightseeing trams made up to look like trains.  They drove through the streets of town with a recorded narration of what we were seeing.  It was a great overview and once it was done, we basically retraced its path to stop and take pictures of the things that had interested us.  St. Mary's church, the Black Abbey and St. Canice's church all were interesting.  We didn't really have the time (or want to spend the few extra dollars) to climb St. Canice's tower but it would probably have provided a great view of the town.

We ended up eating lunch at the Kytler Inn, named after one of the town's most famous residents in the late 13th & early 14th centuries.  She was a businesswoman who ran a roadside inn & pub as well as doing some money lending.  As he lay dying, her fourth husband mentioned his suspicion that he was being poisoned. Once he died, his children and those of her three previous husbands accused her of using poison and sorcery against their fathers. She was also accused of various other heresies such as denying the faith, sacrificing animals to demons and blasphemy.  The local bishop tried to have her arrested but her first brother-in-law was the Chancellor of Ireland and it is believed he helped her escape.  Her servant Petronella was not so fortunate and she was tortured and burned at the stake.  The bishop was eventually buried in St. Canice’s Cathedral.  Alice was never heard from again but her inn remains in the center of town. Much of the original structure is still visible, with low ceilings, fireplaces and charred beams verifying an intriguing history.  As the menu notes: many of the exposed brick arches and wooden beams were old when Columbus discovered America.

Then it was time to get on the road again and for our next driving lesson we took on National Roads.  These are typically narrow 2-lane highways with seem to be 6-inch shoulders.  Past the 6-inch shoulder is either a stacked stone wall or a hedgerow, many of which seem to lean toward the road such that it could almost form half of an arch.  As I was in the passenger seat I felt like half the time I was leaning way over the center console trying to keep the hedgerow from smacking me!  Silly, but C said that she always felt like she was practically driving on the center stripe to keep from running off on to the shoulder.  The giant trucks would fly by on the opposite side and it always felt like we narrowly escaped.  Even though C likes to drive fast both of us thought that driving the posted speed limit at times was way too dangerous..

We made it into Killarney in time to drop our luggage at the B&B before heading into town for dinner.  The town seemed quaint but by the time we'd finished eating it seemed most all the shops were closed.  As the drive had rather sucked the energy from us we drove back to the B&B in the gently falling rain.



Escape to Eire - Monday

Other parts of this series:

Escape to Eire - the beginning

Escape to Eire - Monday (this post)

Escape to Eire - Tuesday

Escape to Eire - Wednesday

Escape to Eire - Thursday

Escape to Eire - Friday

Escape to Eire - Saturday

After walking back to our hotel from our traditional Chinese-Irish dinner it didn't take long for us to fall asleep.  Though we only had twin beds, they were an upgrade from the angle-flat seats on the airplane the night before and we slept well.

The next morning we ate at the hotel restaurant which had a nice buffet.  We enjoyed listening to the mix of languages around us as we ate.

While the weather was cooler, the sun was out on this Monday so we left our umbrellas with our luggage and headed out to see what we'd missed the day before.  We found that street signs are not necessarily one of Ireland's strengths and ended up getting lost on our way there.  Fortunately a passing local was able to set us straight.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

We finally arrived at the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland, St. Patrick's.  It's a beautiful building next to a pretty park and parts of it date back to 1220 AD though a church has stood on this site since the 5th Century.  Just hard for me to comprehend things that old!

Once inside we had to step carefully as, like a lot of European churches, there are many graves/tombs on the floor.  The stained glass windows were beautiful and there were so many old relics on display, like a chair used by King William III when he visited the church to give thanks to God for his victory over King James (of Scotland/England) at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Dublin Castle Exterior

Our last stop in the city was Dublin Castle. While waiting for our tour to begin we stopped for a snack in the café and had a great view overlooking the castle gardens. There was a Viking fortress here in the 930s and the Normans upgraded it to a stone & wood structure in the 1170s.  King John I of England ordered changes made in the early 1200s that give us the basic layout we see today.  We were even able to go below ground at the base of one of the corner towers to see the remains of these earlier structures and how they'd diverted a river around the property.  I really have a hard time imagining how old these buildings are!

Dublin Castle entrance from courtyard

The parts of the castle above ground are in excellent condition though they maintain much of their ancient look.  The castle is often used as a location for films.  This was one of the few castles that allowed us to take photos inside.  St. Patrick's Hall is still used for public functions, including the inauguration of the Irish President.  We also liked the throne that was built for King George IV, a man said to be six feet tall and six feet around.  His granddaughter Queen Victoria was so petite that a matching stool had to be made for her so that she'd be able to not only step up to sit in the chair, but to keep her feet from dangling too!

We'd thoroughly enjoyed our time in Dublin and hope to return someday but for now we had to get on the road.  Of course that meant driving again and even our GPS didn't help a whole lot when you have trouble locating street signs and streets keep changing names.  But we were finally able to wind our way out to the motorway.

As the motorway is quite like our interstate, we had no problems with the driving there.  It was only when we wanted to stop for lunch that we started noticing the differences.  We'd seen indications that there was food available at the exit but we got to the top of the ramp and didn't see any buildings.  (In fact, we rarely, if ever, saw business right at the top of exit ramps.)  We followed the coffee cup sign one direction but never found where this coffee was supposedly available.  We turned back, crossed to the other side of the motorway and there we found the town of Kilcullen.  After finding that the local pub didn't serve lunch, we were directed across the street to a small café run by a delightful lady named Carolyn with whom we had a nice chat.

Matt the Millers, Kilkenny

Mid-afternoon we reached our next stop, Kilkenny. We faced the typical Irish Mist which could leave us damp but it was only full-out raining off & on.  We scouted out Kilkenny Castle with plans to return the next day.  We stopped for dinner at Matt the Millers, a traditional pub in what appeared to be a former mill house.  The traditional Irish music was a nice side bonus.  Then it was back to our B&B for a good night's sleep.

Escape to Eire - the beginning

Other posts in this series:

Escape to Eire - the beginning (this post)

Escape to Eire - Monday

Escape to Eire - Tuesday

Escape to Eire - Wednesday

Escape to Eire - Thursday

Escape to Eire - Friday

Escape to Eire - Saturday

For our fall vacation we mulled over a trip to Central America but couldn't seem to get the flight times & lodging to work for us.  And then it turned out that one of my usual travel companions, D,  would need some outpatient surgery so that left my friend C and me available for the fall getaway.

The whole reason C, D and I ever met is that we all enjoyed the TV show Remington Steele back in the 1980s.  Mr. Steele's Irish accent was music to our young ears and while D had visited the Emerald Isle, C and I never had.  We thought it was well past time to remedy this situation.

With help from a trusted travel agent we were able to select a package that provided us with airfare, first & last night's lodging at hotels in/near Dublin and then vouchers for 4 nights' lodging at any of the B&Bs in their network, anywhere in Ireland.  Sounded like a perfect adventure for us!

We left October 13, 2012 from Chicago on Aer Lingus bound for Dublin.  The flight crew was quite friendly and we appreciated the recliner seats in business class.  Even if they weren't lie-flat, it was still better than economy!

While we hadn't really thought about it while planning the trip, arriving in Dublin on a Sunday morning was perfect.  Our hotel was downtown and, since it was Sunday, it was very quiet traffic-wise.  This was terrific since we were groggy and driving from the opposite side of the car on the opposite side of the street.

We successfully made it to our hotel.  We unloaded the luggage and put it in storage since our room wasn't ready yet - no shock since it was about 10 AM.  The front desk staff pointed us to a garage that was caddy-corner from the hotel and told us we could park there.  Great!  Except that due to one-way streets and missing a turn we ended up having to turn the GPS on just to navigate our way back.  Not an auspicious beginning!

We stopped in a cafeteria for the first Irish Breakfast of the week and to recharge our batteries and our drooping eyelids.  Thus refreshed we headed to the first attraction of the day - Kilmainham Gaol.  We started walking but soon realized that taking the streetcar would be a much better choice, especially as it had started to drizzle.  Wow, imagine that. Rain. In Ireland.

After alighting from the streetcar, we were surprised at the lack of signs pointing the way.  We kept consulting our map, checking where others were going and we figured that a massive late-18th century structure couldn't be that hard to hide.  And, with detective skills that would make Remington Steele proud, we found our way to it.

Interior of Kilmainham Gaol

Massive stone walls on every side and even in the interior, coupled with with the gray skies overhead gave one a feel of how helpless the residents of the gaol must have felt.  At time men, women and children - some as young as 5 years old - were all held here together.  A single 300 sq. ft. cell could house as many as five prisoners.  Hangings occurred up until the early 1820s.  There are still marks on the wall outside the main entrance where the gallows attached to the building.  These hangings were public events where a crowd could gather outside the gates to watch.

This is also the gaol where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were held and later executed by firing squad.  One leader could not stand as his ankle had been shattered, so he was tied to a chair and shot!

It turned out to be a great first stop as the tour guide gave us a bit of Irish history along with our tour of the building.  What we learned here proved useful in putting historical items we saw later into proper context.

We returned to the hotel and were able to check in and get settled in our (very small) room.  It did have the requisite twin beds but really no place except the floor to open up our suitcases.  We constantly had to step around them.  But for one night it was a great location.

Bell Tower at Trinity College

Our next stop was Trinity College where we took a tour from a recent graduate.  He had finished his coursework in May but in keeping with tradition, wouldn't receive his diploma until November.  It was interesting to hear how campus life was different from the US.  The on-campus housing is highly sought after and is reserved for seniors.  Even then there's not enough housing for all of them!

The college's library was the main attraction for us.  It's a legal deposit library for the UK, meaning it gets a copy of each book published in Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Wales or Scotland.  There are over 4.5 million volumes!  The main gallery is called the Long Room and has shelves that are over 20 feet high.  Finding books can be a challenge as they're shelved by physical size, not by the Dewey Decimal system!

In a special room of the library, the Book of Kells is displayed.  These are the four gospels from the Bible copied by monks around 800 AD. They're called illuminated texts, meaning they are highly decorated with illustrations of the text.  Sadly, photos were not allowed anywhere in the library.
At that point we were getting tired again and started our way back to the hotel.  We decided that we must have dinner in a traditional Irish pub, so we found one along the way.  As you may expect, it was run by a Chinese family.  Why not!

Though it was early, we fell into bed as soon as we got back to the room and got a great night's sleep.

Weekend in Philadelphia

By the end of the summer I'm almost always itching to go somewhere.  I usually take two ski trips a year and a long weekend in the spring.  During the summer - when everyone on a school schedule is traveling - I try to stay home, albeit in the sweltering heat.  By the time school starts I'm ready to go somewhere, anywhere, just away from here.

I noticed US Airways had some pretty good fares to Philadelphia and I'd never been there.  I checked with my usual travel pals C and D to see if they wanted to join me.  C was in as she'd never been to Philly either but D had been there before and wasn't sure a weekend of history was her cup of tea - not to mention she'd need to take a full day off just to travel across the country.

So we booked a room at the Holiday Inn Historic District and it suited our needs perfectly.  It lives up to its name it that it's only a short walk to the center of all things historical in our nation's one-time capital.

We arrived on Thursday night, which gave us a full 2.5 days to walk our feet off.  And walk we did.  At the top of our list were the two most obvious sites: Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.  Beyond that we saw Declaration House (where Jefferson rented rooms while writing the document), Christ Church Cemetery (where Ben Franklin and 3 other signers of the Declaration are buried), Betsy Ross's house, Congress Hall, the Todd House (where Dolley Madison lived with her first husband, John Todd, and the place where she was formally introduced to James Madison), the portrait gallery in the Second Bank of the US building and more.  Most of these sites are part of the National Park Service and there's no charge to see them, though some require tickets or reservations which can be made at the Independence Visitor's Center.

Two-and-a-half days is the perfect amount of time needed for this historic roundup, in my opinion.  With neither of us being used to walking all day long we were able to pop back to the room for relaxing for a little while before dinner each night.

We had dinner at City Tavern on Friday night and it was wonderful.  All the staff is in colonial period costume and addresses guests as Master/Mistress, etc.  It's more than I'd normally pay for dinner but the food was excellent and the restaurant is part of the dining program so I earned miles for it too!

There's a lot more of Philadelphia that we didn't get to see but we soaked up a lot of history in a short amount of time. Next time we'll have a car and venture beyond walking distance.

Kona and the Volcano Park

We really liked the town of Kailua Kona (aka Kona). It's quirky, walkable, touristy and just fun. We had an early dinner one night at a pub just across the street from the ocean. Kinda weird to watch Monday Night Football at 4 pm but who's complaining? We had good food and some really good desserts too.

We spent one day at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which is at the southernmost tip of the Big Island. It would seem not to be too far from Kona but the major highway around the island is mostly a two-lane road, so it takes much longer than on an interstate (or the H1). We stopped to stretch our legs at one point and I got this photo of the lava fields. Out in the distance is the Pacific Ocean. You can tell how the lava just flowed all the way out to the sea. It's fascinating just because it's so different from any landscape I've ever seen. (Click any of the photos for a larger version.)

In the park the first major thing we saw was the Kilauea Caldera. It's huge, several miles across, and has this giant steaming vent, the Halema'uma'u Crater. It's only about half as deep today (500 ft) as it was when the first Western explorer found it in 1823.That's due to lava flows overflowing and building up the floor of the caldera, though at least four times the result has been the caldera floor breaks due to all the extra heat and weight. Since 1905 seven new flows have been added to the caldera floor.

We drove down towards the sea, keeping an eye on the weather. It had been overcast much of the day with sun peeking through every now and then. We stopped to hike out to the petroglyphs, which were .7 miles away. We hadn't gone very far when it started sprinkling. By the time we reached the petroglyphs we were soaked to the skin. It was relatively warm but it was just so odd how it wasn't raining on the road, but less than half a mile away we coudn't escape it! We hiked back to the car and found it still hadn't rained there. Fortunately we'd brought changes of clothes and were able get dry at our next stop.

That next stop was at the end of the Chain of Craters road, which is the main north-south connector in the park. The road stops abruptly as it turns eastward at the coast due to lava flowing over it. But it's a beautiful stop, very dramatic lava cliffs and the Holei Sea Arch is there. I love these two photos I took.

A Really Big Island

I've recently returned from Hawaii with my friends C and D, where we celebrated C's milestone birthday.

What struck me about the Big Island of Hawaii is just how diverse it is and how different from the other two islands I'd visited, Oahu and Maui. We landed at the Kona airport and since I had an aisle seat, I didn't notice the landscape until after we'd grabbed the rental car and were driving to our condo.

That's when I realized it was DARK outside and not just because there were no streetlights on the main highway. We could see that as we looked up to our right (going up the side of the volcano/mountain) there were lots of houses but there was nothing along the side of the road. The next morning we realized why: it's all lava. Tons of broken up lava chunks, some ground up, but mostly in very large slabs, are all along the side of the highway up & down the western coast of the Big Island.

We were amused at the graffitti that decorated the lava. Unlike permanent spray paint, here the stark brown-black of the lava is adorned with white rocks. That's great because if someone writes something offensive, it can easily be dismantled and changed to something entirely different. None of the graffitti permanent that way. Very clever, we thought.

We stayed at some condos in Waikola, which is north of the Kona airport and the town of Kailua Kona itself. It was very quiet there, lots of hotel resorts & condos, not really much to do but that was fine. Kailua Kona was only about 15-20 minutes away. We were very close to Anaehoomalu Bay (aka A-Bay, for obvious reasons) and it suited us perfectly. It had some shade, some sun and down in front of the Marriott it had lounge chairs. One advantage of going in late October is there are no crowds and we had our pick of places to sit. There was a reef that made getting in & out of the bay a little tricky since I'd forgotten my water shoes, but I managed not to scrape up my feet.

One day while we were there a seal had beached herself. The speculation was that she would soon give birth, but of course she didn't do that while we were around. We also saw several sea turtles on shore that day. We kept our distance but I would have loved to have gotten up closer to them.

Our condo backed onto a golf course so it was all lovely and green on our property with the stark contrast of the lava fields on either side of the main highway. We drove up the NW side of the island one day and the further north we drove, the more the lava fields disappeared and the more we saw traditional yards & houses. We'd gone north in search of a different beach, just for variety's sake, but it seemed to be more cliffs where the lava had run down to the sea, so we ended up back at A-Bay.

Next, the town of Kailua Kona and Volcanoes National Park.