Some Random Thoughts
Sorry for the length of this post. I didn't realize that we had so many notes that were not included in the previous posts.
Highlights of the Vacation – Brian
Best Meal: Steak at Hasksmore restaurant in Edinburgh
Most Scenic: Connemara National Park
Favourite Location: Either London or Edinburgh
Favourite Memory: Student guided tour of Balliol college in Oxford
Favourite B & B - Blacklocks in Thursby England
Highlights of the Vacation – Marg
Best Meal: Italian meal at Caraffini Restaurant in London
Most Scenic: Lake District in Northern England
Favourite Location: Either London or Dublin
Favourite Memory: Sunday afternoon in Malzards Pub
Favourite Café – I Love Café in Carlisle
Trip by the numbers
Distance travelled by air – 11,500Km
Distance travelled by bus – 1,900Km
Distance travelled by train – 1,700km
Number of days – 30 days
Countries - 3
Cities and towns visited - 37
Beds Slept in - 11
Airports - 4
Train Stations - 8
Pictures taken - 1295
Date for next vacation - February 2023
It is terrifying to cross the streets in Ireland and the British
Isles. Since the drivers are the “wrong”
side of the road, just to be safe you need to check both directions for cars
before crossing. Not only that but you
also need to check over your shoulder for cars turning onto the street. There
is no way we could have driven a car in this madness.
Everything you’ve heard about narrow country roads in Ireland and England are false. They’re even narrower! I swear a bus and a bike couldn’t pass each other on some roads. Our tour director called bike riders “premature organ donors.”
Great Britain and Ireland have a well-deserved reputation
for bland food. When you go on vacation
you always hope to find some good restaurants that serve delicious meals. Pub
food will fall in the “OK” classification.
They all seem to serve “fish and chips”, “meat pies” and hamburgers. Unfortunately,
there were very few memorable restaurants that we ate in during our 30 days
there. But at least the Irish have stopped serving two types of potatoes at a meal.
We did eat at three outstanding restaurants. Hasksmore in Edinburgh, Caraffini Restaurant in London and Boisdale of Belgravia in London.
We’re not sure if it is an EU regulation, but it appears that
most of the Irish restaurants seemed to have gluten free options. With British
restaurants it was hit and miss, sometimes we would have checked the menus of
several restaurants before we found a suitable establishment. Still, they are
head and shoulders above what we find in Canada.
Free WIFI is widely available through out Ireland and the UK. I bought a 10 megabyte package through the carrier called Vodaphone and only used about 10% of their limit.
It is true what they say about Ireland. It is the greenest place on earth. The drive
thru Connemara National Park was stunning. The hills and the fields were such a
mix of every hue of green imaginable.
The Lake District of England is a must visit location if you are a hiker.
As much as I complain about the food in Irish and English
pubs, the same can’t be said of their beers. I tried local craft beers in just
about each pub we visited and if I had kept a list of the ones I liked, it
would be a long list indeed. Guinness
would top that list. Unfortunately, Marg could not drink beer because it has
gluten. She had a wide variety of
European wines, with the occasional South American wine thrown in. We both developed a taste for Irish coffee, spiked with Irish Whiskey. It is very good for taking the chill off on a
cold morning.
We both love "Ghost Walks" and the walk we took in London did not disappoint. So much history and so much folklore.
Both Britrail and London Transit have apps to help you get
to your destination. Unfortunately, they
are far from perfect. Once on the Britrail app and twice on the London
Underground app we received erroneous information. This was not an enjoyable
way to waste time.
The world-famous London Underground runs on a contactless
payment card called Oyster. You tap your
card on the turnstile when you start your trip and tap your card again when you
leave the subway station. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not clear where the
entrance or exit points are. So, to the Oyster system it appears that you tried
to cheat, and they charge your card the maximum fee. It happened twice to us,
but fortunately we were able to get a refund.
Google Maps is a very frustrating app to use when you are walking.
On several occasions, what should have been a leisurely 15-minute stroll became
a 30-minute hike complete with twists, turns and loops. Quite often, it was
better to just ignore their route suggestion and just your common sense.
The Donloe Hotel outside of Killarney, might just be one of the best hotels we've ever stayed in.
Marg noticed that most exterior door handles in houses are in the middle of the door as opposed to the outside edge, We have no idea what the reason is. I loved how many to the homes have spacious sunrooms.
This is Marg's second and my third visit to London. Each of the visits have been separated by twenty plus years. The skyline has changed dramatically each time. No longer is the horizon dominated by Big Ben and St. Paul's cathedral. Now it is "The Gerkin", "The Shard" and "The Walkie Talkie".
This is the second trip to the UK for Leslie our pet Titmouse. It has also been to Vegas, Ireland twice, New Zealand and Australia, I think it also snuck on board a French river cruise.
We didn’t really experience the local pub culture. The popular local pubs were usually crowded and very noisy and we decided that the quiet pubs were quiet because no one went there for a good reason. The exception was the Sunday afternoon in Malzards Pub, outside of Kilkenny.
On of these trips I'm going to figure out how to text back to Canada, I tried everything that was suggested and nothing seemed to work. Luckily I was having too much fun to fixate on it.
I still believe that the Irish are the friendliest people you could ever meet. This is my third trip to the Emerald Isle and Marg’s second. This trip only solidifies our opinion. Now if they could just get over some of their historical differences and put the sectarian violence to rest.
Despite the Irish saying that peace has been declared in Northern Ireland, I’m not convinced. I saw little things that disturbed me, for example their obsession with “The Troubles” and the fact the wall still separates Catholics from Protestants in Belfast. It would not surprise me to see violence erupt again.
On the plane trip home, we got to watch a beautiful film
entitled Belfast. It is Kenneth Branagh’s masterpiece about his childhood in
Belfast during the Troubles. It tells better than any tour guide ever could,
how the lives of ordinary people in Northern Ireland were uprooted for no
reason other than pure stupidity and bigotry.
Nineteen sculptures of the Queen's corgis have been placed in various gardens, stations, or hotels around London. We only found two, one being in Victoria station, the other along the route to Westminster Abbey..
Mark Twain was quoted as saying “The coldest winter I ever
spent was a summer in San Francisco." I would argue that any village along
the English Channel could easily beat San Francisco. Our trips to Brighton and
Dover reminded me of late April weather in Ottawa. Of course, a week after we left, they were
expecting temperatures into the 30s.
I know that Marg and my granddaughter, Mckenna, would tell me that I have no fashion sense and that I shouldn’t comment about what people are wearing. So, I won’t say that the outfits that many young ladies were wearing in the British Isles were trashy!
The Scottish / Northern England dialect must be the hardest English
accent for a North American to understand. I should have tried the Google
Translator to see if that would have helped in Edinburgh. If you don't believe me, watch this sketch and have a good laugh. (sorry about the ads)
Eleventh Floor
The full Irish / English breakfast is responsible for me
putting on too much weigh because I’m certain that beer had nothing to do with
my weight gain. A normal breakfast might
include, juice, cereals, yogurts, pastries, eggs, ham, two types of sausages,
beans, tomatoes, toast, jams, coffee, and tea. That is not to mention an Irish
coffee for breakfast, which could quickly become addictive. Unfortunately, there
was no peanut butter to be found.
The road from the Dover train station to St. Margaret’s Bay
is a thrill a second. It has so many blind
twists and turns that you feel that you’re riding a rollercoaster. It didn’t help that the taxi driver thought
he was a F1 driver. It took hours to unclench my teeth.
Digital photography is great. I took about 1300 photos of which about half
were edited to make them more presentable. All of the photos will be used for
the desktop screen saver and a much smaller number will be upload to Google
Photos as part of this blog.
I must admin that despite all the fun and interesting
excursions we had on the bus tour of Ireland, this type of tour is not our cup
of tea. We have two main complaints
about bus tours in general. First your
schedule is not your own. You need to
adjust your schedule to the tour’s schedule, so if the bus is leaving at 9am,
you better be on the bus at 9am no matter how tired you might be. Secondly the
continual packing and unpacking is tiresome. Living out of a suitcase is not my
idea of a great holiday. So, from now on all our vacations will either be
cruises or resorts.
Strange how the life evolves. In 2019 we took a cruise
around South America, and it was on this cruise that we met Coleen, Ron, Janet,
and Keith. It was just the luck of the
draw that we ended up sitting at the same table for dinner. In 2020 we took a
vacation to New Zealand and Australia with them, where we first met Trudy, Jay,
along with Olive, Becky, and David. This Irish / UK vacation was our third time
traveling with this group. Next year
we’ll be going on another cruise to the South Pacific with this band of
voyagers, along some travelers from the New Zealand cruise who did not join us
for the Irish tour. As you can tell we thoroughly enjoy their company. Keith and Janet proved to be the most amazing
hosts one could imagine when we stayed at their place near Carlisle.
A special thank you to all those who helped make this memorable trip
enjoyable.
