Sunday.  It’s the last day of school break week in the UK.  We started the day with low clouds but the weather evolved into a beautiful afternoon.  Elaine took her usual walk in the morning up to Dunstanburgh Castle, a National Trust property in Craster.  Our house is actually on National Trust land.  We have to open a gate to get onto NT land to park at the house.  The gate is also the pedestrian trail entrance to Dunstanburgh Castle which is about a 1.25 mile walk from the gate.  I’ll have to walk up later in the week.

Today’s activity was a short drive to Bamburgh to visit Bamburgh Castle.  Remember Lord Armstrong from Cragside which we visited yesterday?  He acquired Bamburgh Castle late in the 19th century and completed a restoration.  His family still owns it.  It is quite a magnificent structure.  We arrived when they opened at 10:00 AM and beat the hoards that arrived later.  The State Apartments didn’t open until 11:00, so after a walk around the grounds, we had hot chocolate and scones in the cafe.  When we left the castle after viewing the State Apartments, the parking lots were jammed.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE IN NEW TAB OR WINDOW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had lunch at the Castle Hotel Pub in Bamburgh, and we enjoyed it outside in their beer garden.  I had two grilled kippers and some chips (fries).  Kippers are big in the area, and Craster, our home town, is also the home of Robson and Sons which is most famous of the few kipper smokers still operating.  Their store is open every day, and they have a restaurant that we will try later in the week.  The kippers were delicious.

 

Bamburgh is the home of one Grace Darling who is quite a darling in British history.  Grace was 22 years old when she risked her life in an open boat to help the survivors of the wrecked SS Forfarshire on 7 September 1838. With her father, she rowed for over a mile through raging seas to reach them. The courage that Grace and her family showed on that day is now legendary.  Grace was the media celebrity of her day. She was celebrated internationally and was showered with honors, including the RNLI‘s Silver Medal for Gallantry. A museum was established in 1938 to commemorate her life.

We visited the RNLI Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh.  RNLI stands for Royal National Lifeboat Association, the charity that saves lives at sea in the UK and Ireland. It was founded in 1824 and it’s saved 139,000 lives since then.  Grace was the first woman to win an RNLI medal.  The museum is small but interesting.  While in town we also came across the cottage in which she was born and the one in which she died.  Sadly, she died at 27 of tuberculosis just four years after her daring rescue effort.

 

 

We also stopped in at Bamburgh’s St. Aidan’s Church (Church of England, Anglican).  In 635 AD St Aidan was called to Bamburgh from Iona (in the Scottish Hebrides) by King Oswald to establish Christianity in his newly united kingdom of Northumbria.  He established his headquarters here in Bamburgh.  Grace Darling is buried in the church graveyard.

 

 

 

 

Then we drove home for a quiet afternoon under glorious sunshine.  I went to the Jolly Fisherman, the town’s local pub as well as the fine restaurant that we frequented last night.  I had a pint (two, actually) with locals who retired here from Liverpool.  I also took a few shots of Craster in the sunshine.

 

 

 

Elaine cooked dinner at home, and we had a quiet night at Craster Rocks.  After dinner we had a walkabout town before bed.

 

 

 

 

Saturday.  Cloudy start.  Cloudy end.  Sun and clouds in between.  No rain.  After arising, I walked around town for a bit and took a few snaps of little Craster.  Elaine was on her power walk around the coast.

Click Pics to Enlarge

OUT AND ABOUT IN CRASTER

 

At 9:30 we hopped in the car for what I expected would be a boring day overall and early return to Craster Rocks for naps and cocktails.  It wasn’t to be.  Our first stop was Alnwick Castle and Garden.  Just another castle, yes?  No.  Alnwick is the home of the 12th Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.  It is closed from October to April as they are in residence.  From May through September it is open to the public.  The castle has some notoriety as a venue for film.  It was the location for the first two Harry Potter films.  It was the setting for parts of Cate Blanchett’s movie, Elizabeth.  It was the setting for Brancaster Castle, the location for the last two Downton Abbey Christmas episodes.  The beautiful formal dining room is still set as it was for the Downton Christmas dinner, and the have the actual outfits worn by the cast on display.

The castle exterior is stunning.  No photography allowed inside the castle unfortunately.  They have a Dragon Quest where you hunt dragons.  They have the Northumberland Fusiliers Museum.  The Alnwick Garden is brilliant.  Good thing it was entertaining because it cost £21 per person (after senior discount) to see it all.  What we expected to be a 30 minute glance at another castle took up the better part of three hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there we moved on Cragside House, a National Trust property, so our membership saved the admission charges.  Cragside was home of Lord William Armstrong who was quite the water related inventor.  It is a country house and was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. It is built into a rocky hillside above a forest garden of just under 1,000 acres.  Cragside was built in 1863 as a modest two-storey country lodge, but was subsequently extended into an elaborate mansion in the Free Tudor style. At one point, the building included an astronomical observatory and a scientific laboratory.  It is surrounded by one of Europe’s largest rock gardens, a large number of rhododendrons and a large collection of mostly coniferous trees. One variety of rhododendron is named after Lady Armstrong.

In 1868, a hydraulic engine was installed, with water being used to power labor-saving machines such as laundry equipment, a rotisserie and a hydraulic lift. In 1870, water from one of the estate’s lakes was used to drive a Siemens dynamo in what was the world’s first hydroelectric power station. The resultant electricity was used to power an arc lamp installed in the Gallery in 1878. The arc lamp was replaced in 1880 by Joseph Swan’s incandescent lamps in what Swan considered ‘the first proper installation’ of electric lighting.  (Thomas Alva Who?)  The use of electricity in many of the houses gadgets and systems has also led it to be described by some as a smart home as it was the first private residence to use incandescent lighting, a dish washer, a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine.  One of Armstrong’s stated aims of both using and funding these new automation technologies was to “emancipate the world from household drudgery”, as shown on a plaque at Bamburgh Castle, his other residence.  (We may visit there later in the week.)

CRAGSIDE HOUSE PHOTOS

 

We drove home after that, stopping only to fill Vic up with diesel.  It was cocktail hour by the time we got home, so we indulged.  Tonight we had reservations at the Jolly Fisherman in Craster, just a short walk from the house.  The restaurant is very popular and rightly so.  I had their famous Crab Soup (Craster is a crabbing mecca) for a starter and a wonderful Cold Fish Platter for my main.  Elaine started with Crab Thermidor and had a delicious Game Pie for her main.  We shared a trio of ice creams for dessert.  No pictures as we forgot the camera.  We go back there again on Thursday.

Friday broke clear and sunny in Liverpool.  We went back to Pret A Manger for breakfast.  I had a great ham, cheese, and tomato croissant, and we split a blueberry muffin, the best one I have had since the ones at Jordan Marsh in Boston.  We had a nice chat with a woman from Sky News who wanted our opinion about Britain leaving the EU.  I am against; she was in favor of leaving.  We also talked about Donald Trump.  She is quite amazed that he gets so many votes; so are we.  We walked around a bit and took some sunny Liverpool pictures to replace the ones lost to the faulty SD card.  After that, suitably sustained with food, we loaded up Vic the Volvo and set out for Craster in the Northumberland area of England.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drive to Craster was divided into two distinctly different parts.  Part one was a boring drive north up the M6 Motorway from Liverpool to Penrith.  Busy motorway, boring ride.  Part two saw us swing east on minor roads to cross the Pennine Mountains to get to the eastern shore of England.  No traffic, one lane in each direction.  The ride included a section that has been deemed by the AA (Automobile Association of Britain) as one of the ten best drives in the world, one beloved by motorcyclists for its challenges and views.  Vic handled the switchbacks and the climbing and descending with aplomb.  The views from the top at Hartside Summit were wonderful.  We stopped later on in a pretty town called Morpeth for lunch in a pub.

 

 

 

Craster is a very small town with no supermarket or even fully stocked grocery store.  So we stopped in Alnwick at a Sainsbury supermarket and picked up supplies: wine, water, lunch meats for picnics, and the makings for a home cooked meal tonight.  We arrived at Craster Rocks, our home for the next seven days, under thick cloudy skies.  The site is stupendous, the views wonderful, and the house very nice.  We settled in with cocktails, and then Elaine prepared a delicious chicken dinner before we retired for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is now Saturday morning as I post this. Cloudy but the forecast is good.   I awoke this morning to take these pictures out our front window:

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.