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Busy Saturday

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Weather forecast: cloudy, chance of showers. Actual weather: spectacularly sunny.

Long Post. Not proofread. Excuse any errors.

Breakfast was great again. I forgot to take pictures of the buffet area, but I did get pictures of our plates from the buffet.

Then we went for a walk, seeing the Opera House and the Munch Museum.

Neither the Munch or the Opera House opened until 10 AM, so we continued to walk and tram down to the harbor where we watched people sauna/swimming (brrrr! – it wasn’t warm at 10 AM), and we watched the 2,900 passenger Celebrity Cruise Lines Silhouette dock.

At 11 AM the Ashtrop Fearnley Museum of Modern Art opened, and we visited. One building had a exhibition of the recently deceased Leonard Rickhard and the other building had their permanent collection. If you see anything you like, please send compliments to the museum. I found the whole pretty much a bore.

First, the Rickhard collection. The best I saw was the nice view from the second floor balcony.

Second, the permanent collection. The Michael Jackson item is made from porcelain, which is interesting. Otherwise, the horse in the blue room was the highlight.

Then we had a great lunch harborside. Salmon sandwich for Elaine; peel-your-own shrimp for me. I ordered sangria for Elaine while I got a beer. Elaine’s sangria wasn’t a glass, but a pitcher. So we sat around in the beautiful weather and shared it.

The we walked around some more in the harbor area. Note the Beer Pong competition where you paid to play. It was packed.

Then we took a 2-hour plus river cruise on an electric boat that was great fun.

A panorama:

A few final pictures on the way home to sandwiches for dinner and bed. (Vigeland is everywhere.)

Artful Friday

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I should mention that the weather has been very good. Close to 70º in London. A bit cooler in Oslo, but mostly sunny. We haven’t seen the dreaded rain yet. eventually we will.

Friday started out with the fantastic breakfast buffet at the Thon Hotel Opera. It had everything you could want, and it was all delicious. I’ll have to try and remember to snap some photos of the buffet tomorrow or the next day.

After breakfast we headed to the Oslo Tourist Information Office in the Railroad Station (which is right next to our hotel. There we bought two senior Oslo Passes good for three days. Free admission to most museums and free use of all Oslo’s busses, trams, and metro systems. Outside the train station there is a statue of a tiger. Oslo is known the Tiger City. Why? It’s all explained here.

So, there is an exhibit in Oslo right now of Banksy’s art work. We took the T-Bann (Metro) to see it. It was high on Elaine’s “want-to-do” list, and she loved it. He is, of course, the world’s best known and most successful graffiti artist or tagger. If you haven’t heard of him, read here. This exhibit is not included in the Oslo Pass, but I had pre-purchased tickets months ago on-line. Seems like pre-purchase wasn’t really necessary as we had the huge exhibit almost to ourselves. Photographs were encouraged (“Copyright is for losers”). Anyway, Banksy could be described as pro-Palestinian, pro-depressed people, anti-police, anti-establishment, and anti-capitalist. “You can win the rat race, but you’ll still be a rat.” So if you’re interested in seeing Banksy’s art, all of it quite interesting, here is a whole bunch:

We took the T-Bann (Metro) back to the center of town. Then we switched over to the tram system (light rail) for a ride around Oslo. We decided to get off at Vigeland Sculpture Park which Elaine adored the last time we were here. We had a light lunch (sandwiches and coke/water) and walked the park. Clearly this park has the most exposed penis statues in the world. All the sculptures depict naked people. It was crowded, but not overwhelming so.

Then we trammed back to the center of town, bought some wine (available only at a state run monopoly) and some cheese and crackers for dinner. We enjoyed wine on the balcony and then the cheese and crackers indoors as it cooled off.

Long day. Tired. Back to the tourist grind in the morning. See you tomorrow.

Boring Travel Thursday

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Thursday Morning

Not much to report today, so I’ll just blather on about a few things. Not much to report because today is all about getting from London to Oslo. We are flying on British Air. Whenever we fly British Air, (BA) something annoyingly unexpected happens. Bad seats, lost luggage, etc. Hopefully today’s annoyance has already happened and been dealt with. We had a nice 1 PM flight for the 2-hour flight. And then a few weeks ago BA cancelled that flight and we had to reschedule to a 4:45 PM flight that doesn’t get to Oslo to about 7:45 (there is an hour time difference). So we have to kill the morning and afternoon at the hotel and the airport. At least we get access to BA’s lounge at Heathrow since we are flying business class. Alas, business class on intra-European flights on BA is really just economy class with the middle seat blocked (unoccupied). No extra leg room.

I’m writing this after a nice breakfast in the Marriott Executive Lounge. Very good scrambled eggs to which I added Tobasco sauce and (to elaine’s utter disgust) some anchovies. Yum. And delicious American-style bacon on the side along with toast and good orange juice.

The Upcoming Trip in Review

We arrive in Oslo tonight and will stay five nights at the Thon Hotel Opera. There is lots to do and see in Oslo. We have been there before, but only for a day at a time on previous cruise stops. This time will see more of the many things we missed on previous trips.

Next Tuesday we leave Oslo and take the 8-hour train ride from Oslo to Bergen. It’s the highest train journey that you can take in Europe. It’s supposedly very scenic. We’re looking forward to the ride.

In Bergen, where we have also been before for one-day cruise stops, we’ll spend just one night at the Thon Hotel Orion. On Wednesday we will board the Saturn, a Viking Ocean cruise ship. The ship will spend another night in Bergen before sailing up the west coast of Norway to the North Cape above the Artic Circle (where at this time of year, the sun never sets). There are four port stops and one day at sea. Then the ship will turn left and head across the Bering Sea where after two days at sea we will visits ports on the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, Edinburgh, and finally sail right up the Thames River to dock at our final stop at Greenwich just outside London.

After disembarking in Greenwich, it will back to the Heathrow Marriott for one night before flying home non-stop on American Airlines.

Here’s a map of the cruise.

Thursday Evening

So, we made it to Oslo. We hung around all morning in the Marriott at Heathrow. Then we hung around all afternoon in the British Airways Club Europe Lounge. The flight from Heathrow to Oslo was uneventful. Business class within Europe sucks. It’s just economy class with the middle seat blocked, No leg room. You do get food and drinks. Bottom line: we made it to Oslo on time. Our reserved limo driver to the hotel was waiting for the 30 or so mile drive into town from the airport. We are staying in a way-too-big suite at the Thon Hotel Opera in downtown Oslo. Anyway, here are some photos from the plane approaching Oslo followed by pictures of our hotel suite. That balcony is all ours. And there is a separate smaller balcony off the bedroom.

Tomorrow we’ll hit the town and see the best Oslo has to offer. Stay tuned to this station for further developments.

And We’re Off . . .

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. . . to a new year of adventures. No boring repeats of Dingle and Depoe Bay coming this year. Yesterday we flew (non-stop) from Phoenix to London Heathrow on American Airlines #194. Business class was very nice. Good seats convertible to lay-flat sleepers. We both got some sleep. Dinner was mediocre at best (we both had chicken). Breakfast kind of sucked, but, oh, well. We left on time and arrived just moments late. Immigration at Heathrow used to be a disaster with long lines and waits up to two hours. Today it was a breeze – scan your passport and you’re done. No line. It took two minutes tops. After a short wait for the luggage, we were off to the Heathrow Marriott.

So, hotels are not allowed to offer pick up services at Heathrow. Heathrow runs a series of “Hotel Hoppa” bus routes that run on schedule to take people to the hotels around the airport. It costs about £7 per person. The hotel also pays Heathrow for the service. Well, Marriott has opted out, so we planned on taking the Hotel Hoppa to the Sheraton Skyline next door to the Marriott. We just missed a scheduled departure on that route and there wasn’t another one for an hour. A driver on a different route told us they now no longer stop at the Sheraton Skyline. Sheraton is owned by Marriott. It seems Marriott is instead offering a different (more expensive to guests) private car service (a la Uber). Boo to Marriott. Anyway, the driver on this other route said “Hop aboard and I’ll drop you outside the Marriott”). Kudos to him. He earned a nice tip. And voila, we were at the Marriott at 1:00. And the room was ready that early.

Photos on Board the Aircraft

We have Marriott Club access. Yay! Happy hour at 5:30. Free food and drinks. Nice layout. You could just pig out here and skip dinner. We didn’t.

So then it was dinner at Carluccio’s, the restaurant at the Marriott. It’s a chain that is quite popular in the UK. We didn’t eat much. Elaine had some arancini while I had a prosciutto pizza.

Then it was off to bed. Long travel day. Jet lag. And more travel tomorrow (Thursday) with a flight to Oslo.

Later!

Nollaig na mBan (continued)

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At 5 PM on Nollaig na mBan, we headed to O’Flaherty’s. Fergus is the leader of the Dingle Drum and Fife Band, so events involving the band start there. This article describes yesterday’s events. It has inaccuracies. This is not the first year, but the second that the band moved the march from New Year’s Eve until Nollaig na mBan. And it started at 5 PM, not 6 PM. We marched with the band and it’s police escort for the first part of their march. It was a nice quiet event, not the fiasco usually encountered when the march was on New Year’s Eve. It’s a nice tradition.

Then a final pint at Curran’s and home to finish parking and go to bed.

Sunday morning broke bright and clear and COLD. Frost on the lawn and on the car.

I had to warm the car up for 15 minutes to clear the frost off the windows. First frost I remember in Dingle. The drive to Dublin was weird. Clear when we left but soon we were in heavy fog. Then just before we stopped for lunch at the Barrack Obama Plaza in Moneygall, it cleared up again and there was more bright sunshine. Back on the road – more fog until we approached Dublin when it cleared again. I stopped for the obligatory picture of the Dingle Peninsula coast near the town of Camp. (Damn telephone pole. I could photoshop it out if I had time.)

At the Crowne Plaza there were horses and carts for rides in the huge park across the street. We demurred. Wine in the room. A nice dinner in the hotel dining room. A nice sleep. And off to the airport late morning for 3 PM flight to LA. We’ll overnight in LA and be home Tuesday at noon.

That’s it for the blog. See you in Norway in May.

Saturday – Nollaig na mBan

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Nollaig na mBan is Irish for Woman’s Christmas. When Sue and I were growing up, I remember January 6th being called “Little Christmas” and we took down the tree and decorations. (Do you remember, Sue?) That is sort of synonymous with Woman’s Christmas. In any case, Nollaig na mBan in Ireland is officially the last day of Christmas, and it is believed that taking down your Christmas tree or decorations before January 6th would bring bad luck. This tradition is still widely accepted today in Ireland.

A good article about Nollaig na mBan is here.

In religious circles January 6th is often referred to as Epiphany. That seems to be unrelated to the Irish tradition.

In Dingle the local fife and drum band (led by Fergus O’Flaherty) used to march through the town on New Year’s Eve. As Dingle became a destination for New Year’s Eve, the crowds often became unruly as young people from all over Ireland came here to be drunk and to celebrate. All the pubs needed security to keep the drunks out. Then Covid hit and it was all cancelled for two years. Post covid, Dingle has become a NYE destination once again, noted for a great fireworks show and lots of partying. But the local government and the fife and drum bands decided the tradition of the march through town was too dangerous to continue. Now that march of the fife and drum band has been rescheduled to Nollaig na mBan. 

So what did we do on Nollaig na mBan? The weather was uncharacteristically bright and sunny when we woke up. Could it be our third straight sunny day? I made my own breakfast. Then we have packing and cleaning to do, but . . . 

So we hopped in Le Grand Bleu and took the short drive up the top of Conor Pass above the town. The views are wonderful. Anyway, controversy is brewing. Most of the land directly at the top of Conor Pass is owned by an American. All the land is undeveloped and used for nothing except sheep grazing. But the American has decided to sell his land for $10.5 million. The people want the Irish government to buy it and create a national park. The government seems amenable to the plan but at nowhere near $10 million. Right now the situation is at an impasse. I was thinking of buying it to 1) build a house for us, 2) put up a multi structure pay parking lot for visitors,, 3) add a gas station and convenience store, 4) put in a motel and restaurant, and 5) charge admission. Here are pictures from the small (12 cars) parking lot at the summit.

Looking Toward Castlegregory and Brandon

Looking Toward Dingle Town

We had lunch at John Benny’s Pub, It’s always good. It’s quite near Out of the Blue (where Elaine looks longingly in the window) which is currently closed for the season. At Benny’s Elaine had sausages and leeks. I had steak and Guinness pie, We both drank West Kerry Brewery red ale.

More Nollaig Na mBan pictures and video in next post (which will be from the hotel in Dublin).

Quiet Friday

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Great fire in the firebox last night.

Well, time to start winding down. Today is our penultimate (I love that word!) in Dingle. And the weather was darn good. Lots of sun with just the occasional brief spots of rain. We had two different rainbows. We didn’t do much. Returned library books. Lit candles in the church. Had a pint at Curran’s. Had another at O’Flaherty’s. We haven’t seen much of Fergus O’Flaherty this trip. His sons pretty much run the bar these days. But he was there today behind the bar, and we had a nice long conversation with him as we were his sole customers at that moment.

Our last dinner out in Dingle. It was at the Half Door and it just grand. Conor O’Connor is the son of the former owners, and he now runs the place. He’s the chef while his wife Eileen runs the front of the house. The wine was a German pinot noir. Elaine had terrine of duck confit for her starter followed by cod served in a sauce of lobster bisque. I had delicious Glenbeigh oysters from nearby Cromane followed by a whole black sole served on the bone. I don’t usually order fish on the bone because it can a mess to eat successfully. Glenbeigh oysters are in running for best oysters in the world (although the ones from Île de Ré in France are tough to beat). Pictures below including black sole on the bone and the bones when I finished. I deboned it like a professional! There was no room for dessert.

Finally Scenic Photos!

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Wednesday

Well, Wednesday was rainy. Of course. We ventured out for lunch only. We had the usual great fish and chips at the Fish Box. The Fish Box usually stays open throughout the year, but it too is closing next week for two to three months as they double the size of the seating area and greatly expand the kitchen.

Other than that, we stayed home. We had a roaring fire in the fire box and cocktails by the fire. Nothing else to report.

Thursday

We awoke this morning to sunshine. Could it last?  There hasn’t been a day yet when it would have been worthwhile to venture west onto Slea Head Drive for the views. Oh well, we’ll give it a shot. The sun lasted! Here are the Slea Head Drive views on the most beautiful drive in the world. (You’ve seen them all before, but they always look great!)

First, some pictures of Water’s Edge House. There are four almost identical condos, two on the top and two on the bottom. We previously stayed in the one top right as you face the building. This time we are below that in Unit #2. The sea views are taken from in front of the building looking left and right.

First stop on our ride was at Ventry Beach with it’s holiday trailers. That’s Elaine walking down the beach in the first photo.

Along the drive

At Louis Mulcahy Pottery. Elaine’s sister Ann spent about $1 million here back when she visited.

At Clogher Strand, my favorite beach. The cows are looking at me strangely. Don’t they remember me?

Finally a couple of pictures as we took the back road over the hill back to Dingle.

A very nice day! Glad we got a good weather day in. After that, I had one at Curran’s and we had dinner at home in front of another fire.

Yikes! Sun!

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As I said yesterday, we finally saw some prolonged sunshine. Elaine got to take a walk and I drove in to meet her at SuperValu. Just to prove there actually was sunshine looking out our windows:

Click all photos to enlarge

Dinner at Solas was grand as usual. Ann and Nicky, who run the place, have become good friends, The food was delicious. I look old and tired. Hopefully that’s partly because of the bad cold I continue to battle as opposed to impending death. (Little joke, sort of) Solas closes Thursday night until March. The Half Door where we eat Friday closes this weekend until the end of March. And the Chart House closed last night until March when we were the last ones to leave the building. Restaurant-wise, Dingle will be pretty desolate for the rest of January and February.

We shared, amongst a couple of other things:

Solas Confit Tomatoes with Grilled Bacus Sour Dough Bread (YUM)

Pino Doncel Wine from Spain

Queen Scallop Ceviche with Apple, Ginger, & Soy

Moorish Spiced Chorizo Sausages

Annascual Belly of Pork with Carrot and Anise and Sesame and Grilled Baby Gem

There was no room for dessert! As we left it was still rain free, so we walked up Green Street past St Mary’s Church and had a drink at Curran’s and watched some of the British World Dart’s Championship from London. It was the semifinals. The eventual winner will get £500,000. For throwing darts! One of the semifinalists is 16 years old. Women compete in the same competition but all (two, I think) were eliminated early on.

Then it was home to bed.

Return to Society

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A new year. January 1st marked my return to the living. We went out to dinner. The weather remains miserable – wind and rain, heavy at times. But it dried out Monday night and we headed out for our dinner at the Chart House. Usually one of the busiest (because it’s best) in town, it was oddly quiet on New Year’s Day. It’s their last night before closing for a 2½ month break, reopening in March. The restaurant is owned by Jim McCarthy who is by now a good friend. His hostess who also serves is named Susan McCarthy. She and Elaine have always hit it off. With the restaurant so quiet, they had a lot of time to chit chat. We were the last ones to leave the restaurant and sad goodbyes were exchanged until next time (undetermined).

We had parked across the street in front of O’Flaherty’s Pub, so we popped in for a pint. We both had Smithwick’s. Oddly since being sick I have lost my taste for Guinness.

Then home to bed.

It was cloudy when we got up but, miracle of miracles, the skies cleared and we had sun in the morning. Elaine went for a walk. I’m still recovering. I leave in five minutes to drive in to meet her. We will pick up some groceries for our last few days and return some library books.

Dinner will be out again tonight (at Solas). Our last meal out will be Friday at the Half Door.

Back at you tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of pictures. The weather has not been conducive (to say the least).