Some Post-Vacation Random Thoughts

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.