All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
Our general travel route for this week (excluding our flights from Comox-Vancouver-Dublin)...
We flew out of Comox Tuesday morning. We were the first passengers on board. No sooner did we get seated than the stewardess announced that the, already delayed, flight was delayed another 20 minutes. We decided to just sit there and wait rather than go back into the terminal. Soon we were on our way to Vancouver. Our friend, Marian, met us at the airport, we picked up our luggage and headed into Richmond to the Tin Tin Restaurant for an excellent dim sum meal. We stayed the night at Marian's place in Vancouver.
Our flight to Dublin was scheduled to depart at 15:20 so shortly before noon we headed off thinking we would be at the airport about 3 hours early, giving us time to get checked in and have some lunch. On Granville street, as we approached the bridge to the airport, traffic ground to an absolute halt. Things were starting to look not so good. Not knowing where the problem was we decided to have Marian take us back to the train station at 41st & Cambie, drop us there and we'd take the train to the airport. Good choice. As we crossed the Fraser River, on the train, we could see the traffic on the bridge was very slow. Anyway we made it to the airport 2 hours before our departure so lots of time.
On the train, standing beside us were 3 young Irish women who looked somewhat distraught. Turns out they were on the same flight to Dublin and were returning home after being in Vancouver for a good part of the summer. They were sad to leave.
Our seats were in Premium Economy. Nice and roomy with partial lay down beds. Not bad but it turns out this is an older plane and not everything worked perfectly. As usual, Kris' seat entertainment system did not work (she is somewhat unlucky in that regard). There were a couple of empty seats so we moved there. Alas, the seat tray for Kris' new seat did not pop up to lay flat. It sat at about a 20 degree angle which would make eating a tad difficult to say the least. So it was back to the old seats for a meal then to the new ones to watch movies afterwards. Good grief! The partial lay down beds were not really very comfortable and we didn't get much sleep but probably a bit better than regular economy (it was a packed flight).
Finally we were in Dublin. First time in Ireland for us. Fairly easy to get through customs, pick up our luggage and get a cab to the Avoca B&B in the Drumondra area, our home for the next three nights. Since we arrived early, the B&B owners, Jack and Audrey, invited us to have breakfast even though we had not stayed that previous evening. Nice hosts!
Thursday was a bit of a "jet lag loss". Since we had arrived early, our designated room was still occupied and would not be ready until at least noon, a couple of hours away. We left our luggage and went for a walk. A very, drag your ass around being very tired kind of walk. Back at Avoca our room was ready and we fell asleep for a few hours. Late afternoon we took a commuter train into the city centre, got off at the Pearse Station, wandered around a bit, stopped in at Bruxelles Restaurant/Pub for a nice meal of Shepards Pie, wandered around some more on our way back to the Pearse station to head back towards home. Walking back towards Avoca, we stopped in at Fagan's Pub for a pint of Guiness and a glass of wine to finish off this first day.
Friday, after another nice breakfast, we walked the two long blocks down to Drumcondra Road and caught a bus into the centre. First stop was Caffe Nero for a morning latte. Afterwards, we walked down O'Connell Street, across the Liffey River over to Trinity College where we got in line to see the Book of Kells. We had seen it many years ago when it was on tour in San Francisco, but definitely worth going and seeing again. We have a few page images in week 1 of our photo album for this trip. Here's the first page of the chronology...
Upstairs from the galleries hosting the Book of Kells is the library Long Room with its dark oak-panelled walls, beautiful vaulted ceiling and two levels of floor to ceiling bookcases containing several hundred thousands of the oldest books one might ever see. In 1801 the library was given the right to a free copy of every book published in Ireland and Britain, so you can imagine that the full collection of the library runs into the millions of copies. Kris can attest that this is the kind of place most librarians would dream of...
Leaving the library, we wandered a bit around the beautiful Trinity College campus as we made our way to the outside world. Right outside the exit we were able to catch a bus over to the Guiness Storehouse where we thought we might do one of their tours. However, when we got there the place was packed with a wait for a tour that costs 24 euro each (the "seniors rate"). That's pretty well worth 10 pints of Guiness in any local pub. Hmmm... priorities! We've seen beer made before so, with the large crowds and wait time here, we decided to give it a miss today.
We jumped a bus back into the centre where we walked past the famous Molly Malone statue...
... on our way to the busy pedestrian shopping area Grafton Street where numerous street performers entertained the people out on this beautiful afternoon...
Late afternoon it was time to head back to Avoca for a brief rest before heading back down to Fagan's for the evening. Pretty good dinner of seafood salad for Kris and the daily special roast beef with veggies for Brian (pics in our photo album) in their restaurant then into the pub for a pint and glass of wine. Nice pub.
Saturday, we decided to see if we could satisfy Brian's desire to set his foot in the Irish Sea. The number 1 bus from the bottom of our street took us all the way south of the city to just past Dublin Bay (part of the Irish Sea). Unfortunately when we got there, we discovered it was a very very low tide and we'd have to walk a long long way through muck before being able to put a foot in the actual water (as opposed to a murky little tidal pool)... not happening; but it was a pretty view out across the mud flats (way off in the distance if you squint real hard you will see the masts of sailing boats of the folks enjoying this nice day out on the water)...
It was a bit of a snark hunt getting the bus back into Dublin. The stop where we were, on the bay, indicated the next bus would be about half an hour. Where we were standing we couldn't see around the corner to see if a bus was appoaching so we asked a passerby how far it was into the wee shopping village we had passed through on the bus down to the bay. She said it was maybe 15-20 minutes walk so we decided to walk over and catch a bus there. We had not walked more than about 10 yards when the bus, that was "supposed to be about 30 minutes" came around the corner and went zooming past us. WTF??? As we made our way over towards the shopping village, yet another bus went zipping past us. WTF??? The schedule for this bus indicated it ran only once an hour on Saturdays!!!
Anyway, nice little shopping area. We sat and had a latte at a cute little coffee place and picked up a much needed extension cord at an equally cute little hardware store. This time we were at a bus stop that showed, electronically, when the next bus was scheduled to arrive and it did arrive within a minute of so of when it was due. Back to Avoca for a rest.
That evening we walked down to Drumcondra Road to try out Kennedy's pub (a few doors away from Fagan's). This is a bigger pub and it was busy. Brian finally got his pint in an actual Guiness glass (in Fagan's they were either clear of some other brand)...
We watched two sporting events.... Liverpool bested Arsenal 3-1 in English Premier League soccer in one event. The other event was Hurling, a game we had never seen before. Not for the faint of heart!
For dinner we had a couple of appetizers (the meals here are very large)... an order of crab cakes and an order of chicken strips. Very tasty. Yum!
Sunday morning it was up a bit early to pack and get ready to leave. Jack, our host, said we could leave our luggage until later this afternoon. So after yet another excellent breakfast and completion of packing, and the move of our luggage to the designated storage spot, we walked down to Drumcondra Road to catch a bus into the centre. We bought a weekend paper and went into a Caffe Nero for a couple of lattes and to catch up on some local news. Just after 1:00pm we headed over to SixT Car Rentals to pick up our vehicle for the rest of our travels in Ireland and Northern Ireland. They gave us an upgrade to a Toyota Corolla "hybrid" car. That will take a bit of getting used to as the electric part is totally silent. We are used to the engine making at least a bit of noise when starting up. Not so this car. At first, it took a bit to figure out that the car was actually running.
Anyway, after picking up our luggage and saying good-bye to Jack and Audrey, we were finally off across Ireland headed for Doolin and the Atlantic View House, our home for the next 3 nights. It took about 3.5 hours to drive across the country, most of it on divided motorways but the last hour or so was on a very narrow (albeit 2 lane), winding and hilly road with a speed limit of 100 kph most of the time. Definitely too fast for that road. Neither us nor anyone we caught up with got much over about 50-60 kph over the whole stretch of that road (and, we never held up anyone behind us). Oh well we made it safe and sound.
Our room overlooks the north end of the Cliffs of Moher and the Atlantic Ocean...
After checking in and making reservations for a tour, tomorrow, to the Aran Ialands and around the bottom of the Cliffs of Moher, it was time for some dinner. We went to Gus O'Connors Pub in Doolin. The place was packed and for good reason. O'Connors is reputed to be the home of some of the best of Irish music. There were 4 people performing pretty well the entire time we were there. Great music to go along with the excellent fish and chips and huge bucket of mussels. Great way to finish off the week.
| On to Week 2 |
