Thursday – No Problems
We flew to Boston on American Airlines. No problems. Got our Dodge SUV from Alamo. No problems. Then we drove to Chelsea to our hotel, the new Hilton Homewood Suites. Our GPS got us there just fine. No problems. Oddly it routed us directly past my Aunt Grace’s old House on Blossom Street. The hotel is just five blocks from where she lived. The hotel is very ice. Big rooms, full kitchen, great king-size bed which turned out to be very comfortable.
We passed up eating across at Floramo’s an old favorite Italian eatery that specializes in ribs (where the meat falls off the bone). Instead we drove three miles to Demaino’s in Revere, a family run place that was one of our favorites when we lived in Melrose. No problems. The decor has been updated, but the food is exactly as we remembered. The pasta e fagiole is delicious. For mains, Elaine had scrumptious looking stuffed calamari and I has beef bracciole. Yummy. No room for deserts. Back to the hotel to sleep.
Friday – Problems!
When we left the restaurant Thursday night, I noticed an apparent leak under the hood, but I paid it no attention. Well, Saturday we headed out to lunch and the transmission was not doing good. It wouldn’t shift in Automatic without great clunking sounds. I drove it in manual shift mode and made it back to Alamo at the Airport and switched it out for another car. We met my friend Howie for lunch at Kelly’s Roast Beef in Saugus. After lunch we stopped in Medford to say hello to my friend Bob at his barber shop. Then it was back to airport to await our flight.
The Aer Lingus flight to Shannon was a mess. Crammed stuff overhead racks. Crying babies People behind us constantly banging our seats. We made it into Shannon forty minutes early. We were the first ones off the plane and the first ones through Immigration. We got our luggage and proceeded to Dan Dooley Car Rentals and picked up our white Skoda. So began car rental adventure number two.
It was raining off and on as we proceeded toward Limerick on the road to Dingle. We made it about 20 miles and the driver side windshield wiper blade flew off onto the highway. Bah! I turned around and we headed back to Shannon for our second car exchange in about 24 hours. The new Skoda was blue and the wiper blades stayed on.
Dingle is about a three hour drive. That’s not bad normally, but it is trying after an all night flight with almost no sleep.
We stopped about halfway in Glin (County Clare) to see a pub I had discovered on the internet – Geoghegan’s Magpie Public House. I knew it didn’t open until late afternoon, but I wanted to get a picture standing in front. I was taking pictures when a gentleman walked up to inquire what I was doing. Turns out it was Gerald Geoghegan, the bar owner. He regaled us with the history and took us inside for a tour. And we met Joey, the bar mascot who posed for a picture with Elaine.
Click on the galleries to bring up a scroll-able window with complete pictures – (the gallery preview shows just thumbnails of the pictures)
Next stop was a brief one in Tralee’s Tesco Superstore to buy a new Irish sim card. The store was packed, but I got it quickly and we got back on the road. The rain had stopped shortly after Limerick and the sun had been out until we reached the foggy and overcast Dingle Peninsula. In Dingle we parked and had a nice lunch in John Benny’s pub, stopped at Supervalue to get essentials (wine and vodka!), and then walked up to the Dingle Pub to reconnect with Tom Geaney, the publican who is our good friend. At 2:30 we went to the Coach House Shop where our landlord, Grainne, was waiting with our key. Then in was quickly off down the road to our apartment in Water’s Edge House. Stunning! Our first stay here. It won’t be the last. We unloaded the car, unpacked, and settled in. Showers were the first order of business. I took a short nap.
Since it wasn’t raining, we decided to walk into town (about 20 minutes). Dinner was at 7:00 PM at Doyle’s, a restaurant we have eaten at through three ownership changes. I had seafood chowder and Indian style monkfish. Elaine had wild mushroom soup and salmon. All delicious! After dinner we walked down to O’Flaherty’s for a drink – Guinness for me, Jameson’s neat for Elaine. The pub was hopping with young ladies all participating in a Dingle tradition on December 23rd: the Twelve Pubs of Christmas – where everyone has to have at least one drink in each pub. The girls were about at number eight and all having a good time. From there we went up to the Dingle Pub where it was empty when we arrived. The 12 Pubs of Christmas celebrators arrived shortly after us, all young boys this time and none were even close to sober. It reminded me of our old Christmas drinking traditions. A good time was hard by all!
Finally it was back to Water’s Edge House for bed!
We shall be right over, I see you have room for us!!😉😉🍻
Happy you are safe and sound. There are always adventures along the way, but you got where you needed to go safely. Glad to see they have Christmas lights on for the holiday. Your place looks amazing. I am sure you will enjoy it most especially the wood burning fireplace. Looks like a great room to relax in after your walks, etc. Take care you two, we got more snow, few more inches, so it is Chrismtas after all in CO. Merry Christmas, Love Cindy