Woke early on Thursday for our 8:45 AM sailing on the Jonathan Swift, the faster Irish Ferry across the Irish Sea.  The Ulysses, the slower ferry, leaves at 8:05 and arrives at 11:30.  The Swift passes it en route and arrives at 10:45.  Faster.  Bouncier.  The Irish Sea was angry this day, my friends.  We love the high seas.  I am writing this about halfway across the Irish Sea.  Weather, you ask?  Brilliant sun, no clouds.

On landing we had a two hour drive through Wales into England to get to our hotel, the Nadler Liverpool.  The Liverpool docks area, once a wasteland of old docks and warehouses, is now a vibrant area, much of it pedestrianized, full of shops and restaurants, reminiscent of Quincy Market in Boston.  We enjoyed our stay here a couple of years back (it’s down there somewhere in the blog archives) enjoying Beatle Mania and watching the Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey.  We reacquainted ourselves with the Albert Dock area and had a nice lunch (it was only 1:00 PM) at Pret A Manger.  I love Pret.  The concept is simple: fresh sandwiches and salads, all pre-made the same day and all delicious.  They have expanded to parts of the USA and have an outlet in Copley Square.  Were I still working (God forbid!), I would there for lunch everyday.  Albert Dock is filled with museums (The Maritime Museum, the Tate Liverpool, the Liverpool City Museum, the Beatles Story, etc.).  We have done them all previously.  Instead we sat outside at a pub (The Pump House) and enjoyed cider and beer in the sun.

I had some nice daytime photos of Liverpool, but when I went to download them to my computer, the SD card failed.  Horrors!  Fortunately I download my pictures everyday, so the only ones lost were those I took today.  I walked down to the Super Tesco near our hotel and bought a new SD card (£11 – cheap crisis!)  So the pictures below were taken after dinner at 9:30 PM.  It is light here until 11:00 PM and light again at 4:00 AM.

Last time we were here, we dined at a Spanish-themed tapas place called Lunya and liked it.  So as we passed by on our walkabout, we made a reservation.  Dinner was very good.  We indulged in the gourmet tasting menu, and we had good chat with the waiter, a man from Greece, who was our waiter the last time we were here.  Elaine remembered him and he remembered Elaine.  I remember nothing.  Here is the menu from their web site.  We had substitutions for some dishes, but you get the idea.

Tapas Banquets Tasting Banquet

Habas picantes – Giant Gordal olives – Borettane balsamic onions
Ibérico Bellota meat platter – Torta de Cañarejal and breadsticks
Catalan tomato bread
Herby crumbed rabbit – Stuffed courgette flower
Mackeral and white asparagus – Presa Ibérica
Gambas Píl Píl – Patatas bravas

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last breakfast at Marless House in Galway.  Mary makes eggs perfectly.  I’ve acquired a penchant for poached eggs on toast with cheddar cheese.  Sounds awful, tastes grand.  We were gone by 9:15 AM and on the road to Dublin.  Pretty uneventful drive save for one close call at a Galway roundabout – my bad.

Left Galway in sunshine.  Arrived Dublin in sunshine.  Wicked weather.  The drive is almost all Motorway.  Vic likes motorways.  The most interesting highlight was the crossing of the River Suck, a tributary of the Shannon.  That was better than the boring stop for gas.  Well, diesel actually.  There have been no accidental purchases of unleaded gasoline for our diesel Volvo.

Bailey, our SatNav/GPS navigator, got us perfectly to Epic Ireland, our one and only destination in Dublin save for our hotel.  Epic Ireland just opened three weeks ago; I pre-bought tickets way back in March.  Epic Ireland is all about the migrations out of Ireland and of the accomplishments of Irish émigrés and their prodigy.  It is all high tech and very well done.  We had time for a quick walkabout across the Liffey and for a pint in a nearby bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was off to our hotel, a place we have stayed several times on short Dublin stays, the Croke Park Hotel.  Croke Park is Ireland’s major sporting venue, the home to the All Ireland Irish Football and Irish Hurling championships as well as many other events and lots of concerts.  Last Friday and Sunday 150,000 fans watched Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band perform.  The hotel is very nice but not a place to be when there is a major event at Croke Park which is literally across the street.

Tomorrow: Ferry from Dublin to Holyhead (Wales) and a drive to Liverpool.  We should be in our hotel by 3:00 PM.  Stay tuned.

It’s Tuesday in Galway.  Bright sunny day.  Warm.  Couldn’t be nicer.  So, on our visit Sunday to Clifden, I managed to hit a rock on the narrow road.  No harm done?  Well, stay tuned.  On Monday we hung around Galway and never used the car.  So on Tuesday we headed out on a road trip for the day.  We got about thirty miles and the “low tyre pressure” indicator came on.  Luckily we were near a town, and I went to a gas station to get some air. The tyre (tire to you Americans who read this) was really low, almost flat.  So, while I filled it with air, Elaine inquired inside about a tyre store.  There was just two miles down the road.  We pulled in and the nice man inspected the tire.  Just as I expected, there was a crack in the sidewall.  No fixing that!  We had a new tyre (95 Euros) on the car and were off in 45 minutes.

 

First stop of the day (save for tyre emergencies) was Cong in County Mayo, an unbelievably picturesque little town where The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara was filmed backin the early 1950’s.  We took 100 or so pictures before moving on.  Cong Abbey, now a ruin, was the last home of the last King of Ireland, Rory O’Connor (Oh, OK, he was Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair back then).

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the SatNav (GPS to you Americans) trying to get us to take one-lane sheep paths, we eventually found our way on real roads to Leenaun (Leenane), another picturesque spot at the end of the Killary Fjord, the only fjord in Ireland.  More pictures.  And an ice cream for lunch.  (With the huge breakfasts at the B&B, lunch is usually totally optional.

 

 

 

 

 

From Leenane we proceeded down the road a bit to Kylemore Abbey.  In the mid 1800’s, Mitchell Henry built Kylemore as the family home for him, his wife Maureen, and his nine children.  Tragically, in 1874 the family was vacationing in Egypt where Maureen came down with dysentery and died in Cairo nineteen days later.  (What a way to go!)  Mitchell and the children were broken-hearted.  Mitchell built a Gothic Church on the estate in her memory and buried her in a Mausoleum close by.  Both of them are buried there now.  In 1903 the Duke of Manchester purchased the estate from Henry, financed by his wife, an American oil heiress.  They sold it 1914 and it remain uninhabited until 1920 when it purchased by the Benedictine community to replace their abbey at Ypres in Flanders.  Kylemore has been the home of a Benedictine Order of nuns ever since.  They have restored the Abbey and made it a major tourist attraction.  It was packed, a gold mine for the Benedictines.  They also run a school on the site.  Oh, we had another ice cream for lunch as we left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was back to Galway for our last night.  Dinner was back at the Fisherman where we ate on Saturday night when we arrived.  We had fish.  Tomorrow morning it is off to Dublin, a 2.5 hour drive and we will report from there although it just an overnight stop..

 

Weather: like perfect!  Sunny and warm.  I could have (but did not) wear the one pair of shorts I brought on the trip.

If you ever go across the sea to Ireland
Then maybe at the closing of your day
You will sit and watch the moon rise over Claddagh
And see the sun go down on Galway Bay.

Today we did a walkabout of Galway.  Lots of walking!  We walked into downtown Galway (about two miles), walked all about town, and walked back.  Probably eight or so miles in all.  Good exercise.  I will let pictures tell the story.  One incident to report:  I tried to stealthily take a picture of a colorful apparently homeless lady.  I got the picture, but she saw me, yelled at me, and chased us down the street.  We got away, but nervously expected here to reappear at any moment to harangue us with invectives.  She did not.  We also met three nice gentlemen from Scotland in a pub while having a lunch break.  We had a nice chat – about one’s 30-day road trip across America, about their love of the TV show Golden Girls, and about the Trump travesty in America.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Irish writer Oscar Wilde statue is to the left and the Estonian writer Eduard Wilde statue is to the right. They appear to be conversing, but two men are not related and never met. The Eduard Wilde statue was presented to Galway when Estonia joined the EU in 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner was back at the Black Cat.  Wine, of course.  Pork and chorizo meat balls, chicken livers on toast, local mussels, fried calamari (a repeat from last night), and bread.  Dessert was scrumptious crème brûlée for me and Elaine’s new favorite, white chocolate with a berry compote.

 

 

 

We awoke Sunday to another cloudless morning.  Does it ever rain in Ireland anymore?  We did actually get a shower in mid-afternoon, but it was sunny again by dinner time.

Today we drove north to Clifden for the day.  Along the way Elaine yelled at me to stop, turn around, and go back to take a picture.  Obedient as always, I did.  I must say the view she had seen was certainly picture worthy and may turn out to be the best picture(s) of the trip.

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE

At Clifden we first drove the Sky Road high above the town before returning to the town center.

On the Sky Road

 

 

All along the picturesque High Street (Main Street), stores had set up offertories to Jesus.  Good religious people like we are, we had no idea why.  Elaine chatted an older gentleman setting up one of the more eleaborate displays to find out what was up.  It was to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart and/or the Feast of Corpus Christi or something to do with that (as those days are usually Thursday or Friday.

“The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated on the Friday after the octave (eighth day) of the Feast of Corpus Christi. The traditional date of Corpus Christi is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which falls one week after Pentecost Sunday. Thus, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus falls 19 days after Pentecost, which is seven weeks after Easter.”  Huh?  How obtuse is that

Anyway, there is a procession from the church through town and a blessing at one of the displays before a return to the church for the benediction.  We watched the procession.  (Interestingly, the similar procession in Galway itself, we found out later, was held several hours earlier than usual so as not to interfere with a scheduled celebration for Galway’s successful Rugby team victory.  (Rugby first, God second, I guess.)

 

 

 

 

After stopping at a couple of beaches, we headed home through Roundstone, a picturesque town, where we ran into a shower.  We parked and had a beer in a pub and checked out the little Sunday market, but it was diminished by the rain.  Then it back to Galway.

After a rest (and nap, for me) we walked down the Salthill Promenade for dinner at the Black Cat, a tapas restaurants that had good reviews.  It was excellent!  We shared four dishes: gambas (tiger prawns and chorizo in a delicious broth), fried calamari rings, beef cheeks (a first for us), and pork belly.  We also got delicious grilled bread and a nice bottle of Cotes du Rhone.  We both had (no sharing here!) a warm brownie with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream for dessert.  It was good enough that we booked for tomorrow night as well as there were other tapas choices that we want to try.

Friday was our last full day in Dingle.  We drove out via a back road to the far end of Slea Head with the idea of having lunch at Tigh T P, a pub right on little Ballydavid Harbor, which was supposed to open at noon.  We stopped at picturesque Brandon Creek for a look see at a favorite spot.  It is from here that St. Brendan and other monks supposedly began their voyages in little one-man sailboats, sailing to America, Hawaii, Australia, and other places back in 535 A.D.  Remember, the Irish drink a lot.  Listen to Christy Moore sing of Brendan’s Voyage here.

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was on before noon to Ballydavid to be first in line for lunch.  We met two women from Alberta who also came for lunch.  Noon came and went.  12:15 . . . 12:30.  The pub door was open but the bar stools were on the bar.  We left at 12:35 with no sign of anyone opening for lunch.  We went to Ventry to eat at a little seafood restaurant, but it was packed to the gills.  So we went to the pub of Paddy O’Shea (Páidí Ó Sé in Irish), the late, great Irish footballer.  It had four tour buses in the lot.  Not going in there!  So it was back to Dingle where we had a nice lunch on the end of the new pier.

Dinner was at home and very simple – salad and toasted cheese sandwiches.  We then planned a quick stop at the Dingle Pub for a touch of music and sad goodbyes to Tom and Susie.  We stayed longer than expected, and then we ventured down to O’Flaherty’s where we met the same two women we had met at Ballydavid.  We got talking and drinking with them while listening to Fergus O”Flaherty sing and play his instruments – various fiddles, a flute, an accordion, and the bogdan.  Next thing it was midnight and we were still there, happily chatting and pleasantly over-served.  So much for a quiet night!

On Saturday morning we were packed and out the door by 9:00 despite our transgressions of the night before.  It is about a 3.5 hour ride to Galway, just bypassing Limerick via the new tunnel under the Shannon River.  We had time to kill before we could check into our B&B in Galway, so we stopped in Kinvarra, a pleasant little town on Galway Bay, for a look in Dungaire Castle and a nice lunch in the Pier’s End Pub – Elaine had excellent mussels and I had a delicious cold seafood platter.  It was especially fun because lots of locals were in the pub with their kids all dressed up after celebrating their first communion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Galway we checked in at Marless House, our B&B just a few yards away from Galway Bay in the Salthill section of Galway.  Salthill has a long seaside promenade and is filled with restaurants, amusement arcades, a Ferris wheel, and rides like the Twister.  It is very reminiscent of Revere Beach in the 1960’s but without a roller coaster.  We were lucky on a Saturday night to get a table at the Fisherman, a seafood restaurant that was good enough for us to make reservations again for Tuesday night.  Elaine had monkfish and shrimp; I had a very good halibut.  I started with delicious Gigas oysters from Galway Bay while Elaine’s starter was squash soup.  We split a nice chocolate ganache with ice cream for desert.  Then  it was time for bed as we were badly in need of sleep after our late night on Friday.

By the way, the weather continues to astound us, and today was the warmest day yet.  The forecast looks promising for the days ahead although with showers predicted for today, Sunday.

Day 15 was our last day in Dingle.  Info and pictures will be posted in a combined Day 15 & 16 post tomorrow from Galway.

So, it’s Thursday, and the forecast called for rain.  It was certainly cloudy, but the day went by without a drop and we even had some afternoon sun.  We lazed about this morning.  The fresh strawberries I bought yesterday were delicious with my yogurt and granola.  Elaine had her usual morning walkabout and stopped by the Post Office to mail our token post cards to family.

We packed a picnic lunch, and, hoping for the best with the weather, headed out on Slea Head Drive for a picnic.  There are not a lot of spots with picnic tables, but there are two stone ones on the bluff overlooking Coumeenoole Strand (beach).  Scenes in Ryan’s Daughter, David Lean’s 1970 film were shot on this beach in 1968-69.  On a hillside nearby the fictional village of Kirrary was created as the main set of the film.  Nothing remains of the village today.  Oddly, the nearby Tig Slea Head, a combination gift shop, café, and museum of Ryan’s Daughter pictures, seems permanently closed.  We had our chilly picnic on one of the stone picnic tables.  It wasn’t that cold, but the wind made it seem so.

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE

 

 

 

Next we drove back to Ballyferriter, the filming base for the next Star Wars movie.  You cannot get near the site, but we went for a walk on the long and mostly deserted Smerwick Strand.  The wind wasn’t bad here, and we spent some time looking for interesting rocks and sea glass, without much luck, I’m afraid.  This is the site for the annual Béal Bán horse races on the sand which we attended on our last visit.

 

 

Then a pint with Tom and Susie and back to the house for a nap.  Dinner tonight was a return visit to the Chart House, my personal favorite.  All the seafood except salmon is locally caught.

Elaine: Crabmeat and Shrimp starter; monkfish main; a decadent chocolate ganache dessert.
Joe: Cromane Mussels starter; delicious Hake main; Passion Fruit Crème Brûlée dessert.

 

 

 

After dinner we stopped briefly for music at the Dingle Pub and at O”Flaherty’s before heading home to bed.  Due to threat of rain (it didn’t happen), we drove into town for the first time.

Here’s a video I shot in the Dingle Pub featuring Richie O’Brien singing “Sean South”.  Excuse the bad ending.  The password to access is “dingle”.

 

The weather continues to be very cooperative.  Nice sunny skies with lots of big fluffy white clouds.  No sign of rain.  We planned a quiet day in town with a nice lunch somewhere and dinner at home.

First order was the ten minute drive up to the top of Connor Pass (An Chonair in Gaelic) to snap some pictures.  Then we returned to town to get postcards, stamps, and makings for dinner at home tonight.  And we also picked up our pants that we had dropped yesterday with the washing ladies.  Dinner will be lamb sausages with potatoes and a veg.  Sounds simple, but it is actually a meal I am much looking forward to.  We buy the lamb with rosemary sausages from Kennedy’s Butcher Shop.  Mr. Kennedy was there and I told him I had come back all the way from Arizona to have his sausages again.  He said that since we come so far, the sausages were on him.  Only in Ireland!  We also bought Maharees potatoes from O’Connor’s Fruit and Veg Stand next door.  Maharees potatoes are so creamy and delicious.  I also picked up some local strawberries that were just out.

 

 

 

 

Then we grabbed a good spot on the street to watch the An Post Ras bicyclers leave town at 11 AM on the next stage of the big race.  We actually followed them out of town by a few minutes (in the car, not on bikes!) as we had decided to go to Annascual for lunch.  The first An Post Ras was won 50 odd years ago by a Dingle man who lives on the route out of town.  He was out to watch the racers go by complete with flags and a small band, and he was still there when we went by.

 

 

 

 

Lunch in Annascaul was simple: soup and sandwiches at the South Pole Inn, a pub created and owned for many years by Tom Cream, an Antarctic explorer who traveled on expeditions with famed explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott.  Crean’s story is compelling.  I switched from my usual Guinness to have Crean lager, a beer named after Tom Crean and brewed in Dingle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch Elaine did a little shopping in Dingle while I had a pint with Tom and Suzie at the Dingle Pub before my afternoon nap.  Cocktails and dinner at home, as described above, was delicious.  After dinner we walked back into town to listen to Richie O’Brien sing again at the Dingle Pub.

 

 

 

All in all, a great day!

Another sunny and bright day.  Go figure.  We did a couple of quick loads of wash in the morning and actually hung it outside to dry.  European washers are notoriously small so we also dropped off jeans and pants in town to be washed.  Elaine cooked me fried eggs for breakfast.  Yum.

Late in the morning I walked into Dingle town to snap some pics.  Elaine met me a bit later by the harbor for a picnic lunch that she had prepared.  Then we walked up to Main Street – me to have a pint at the Dingle Pub, she to do a bit of shopping.  She met me there at 1:45 so we could watch the finish of the An Post Bicycle Race.  The finish line for the cyclists was just 150 meters up the road after a 133 kilometer ride from Charleville in County Cork.  We watched most of the 150 odd riders finish.  Elaine took the pictures of the racers.

Click to enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elaine switched her drink to Cronin’s Premium Cider.  Elaine chatted up Jerry, a colorful local, in the pub.  And we met two women cousins traveling together in Ireland for the first time.  They were not staying in Dingle for the night, but we convinced them they had to do the Slea Head drive before they left.  Jerry ended up going with them as a guide.  We shall check the newspaper in the morning for possible news about an ax murder.

Then it was back to house for a nap after a trying day.  We have four British TV shows we like to watch during down time:

• “Four in a Bed” about four B&B owners who rate each other’s B&B’s
• “Dinner Date” about a man or woman who has three blind dates cook dinner for them before he chooses one to take out to dinner
• “Come Dine with Me” about four amateur chefs hosting dinner parties for each other and rating themselves
• “The Chase“, a quiz show in which four people try to build up a stake and beat the chaser, an expert who usually dispatches them all with no money won.

Dinner tonight was at James G. Ashe’s Bar & Restaurant which we quite like.  On our first visit to Dingle many years ago, I sat in the bar, and Kate, the owner/bartender, told me of the history of the place and the connection with Gregory Peck. The history of the bar in very interesting.  From their web site:

The first alcoholic beverage was served in Ashes bar in 1849. Like many traditional pubs in Ireland it began as a drapery and general store, which was licensed to sell alcohol, this being secondary to the other business interests.

In 1926 when the bar was passed on to John Kennedy’s eldest daughter, Hannah & her husband James Gregory Ashe, the bar’s name changed to ‘James G. Ashe’, as it remains to this day.

Along with the bar James manufactured soft drinks, and in 1932 became an agent for Guinness. His grandson Thomas continues as the main Guinness agent for the area today.

Thomas & Sinead inherited the bar in 2000, from Thomas’ father who ran the business along with his wife Kate for 40 years.

Over the years Ashes has seen many famous faces pass through its doors. Indeed, Gregory Peck, a cousin whose grandmother was an Ashe from Dingle, visited a number of times, and his family continue to drop in when in Ireland. During the filming of David Leans’ “Ryan’s Daughter” in the early 70s’, Ashes became a hot-spot for both cast and crew, many of whom became quite partial to Kates’ Irish stew. More recently the cast and crew of “Far and Away”, including Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, based themselves here.

Dinner was excellent!  Elaine had Glenbeigh mussels from County Kerry as a starter and roasted local scallops and pork belly as her main.  I had a scrumptious Ballydavid (a small nearby town we often visit) crab trio as my starter and roasted turbot for my main.  We split a lo-cal (heh!) ‘chocolate four ways’ as a dessert.  The wine was a Pinot Noir from Chile.

Then it was on to the Dingle Pub to listen to Richie (from the Irish band Dreams of Freedom).  The pub was a madhouse of fun, filled with officials (but no riders) from the bicycle race who were all having a jolly good time. We sat and chatted with two of them and watched the others party.

And finally bed which felt good.