Rachel and Alex took full advantage of their Thanksgiving break and headed over to Ireland for five days of fun!  They arrived very early Sunday morning (flight landed at 4:45AM!!) and we picked them up at the Dublin airport.  The first day we explored Malahide (our town), which included walking through the downtown, walking on the beach, taking a tour of Malahide castle, followed up with dinner at Duffy’s, a local pub.  Malahide Castle has a very large park, butterfly garden, an old church from the 1500’s, tennis courts, golf course, restaurants and of course the castle (owned by the Talbot family).

Next stop – DUBLIN!

Getting into city proved a slight bit challenging when the always prompt DART train line went down.  Luckily, the bus stop was right across the street.  And we enjoyed the view into Dublin from the upper level of the double decker bus.

They first stopped at “EPIC” which we talked about in an earlier blog.  They walked through St. Stevens Green and several other places that day.  Still working through the jet lag, it was a comfortable day with light walking.

The second day Rachel and Alex did the tour that is usually at the top of most tourists when they visit Dublin which is….Guinness beer of course.  The tour explains the history of Guinness and the process of making beer.  At the end, visitors are served a fresh pint of their creamy beer at thefamous Gravity Bar which has a 360 degree view of Dublin and the countryside.

Next up – Kilmainham Gaol (Jail).  This too is a must if you visit Dublin as it describes the hardships the Irish went through during the difficult times such as the 1850 Potato Famine.  The jail also played a big part in the story of Irish independence from The United Kingdom.  After the 1916 Uprising, many Irish leaders were captured by the British and held in Kilmainham Gaol.  A week later, the British sentenced them to death and they were shot in the jail’s outside area.  The Irish leaders who were shot are considered martyrs.  This led to Ireland gaining their independence from Britain several years later.

 

From the ferry it was a three hour drive to Edinburgh.

We went out to dinner that night to a Mexican restaurant.  I know what your thinking…In general the British/Scottish aren’t know for their food, but I can tell you this was by far the best Mexican restaurant I’ve been to hands down.  Not even close.

Our first full day we went on a guided tour which lasted about 2 hours.  Our guide kept alluding to one underlying theme which is – even though the Scottish are part of the United Kingdom, they feel as though they were forced to be in the union.  Still lots of underlying issues.  They almost voted to leave the United Kingdom 4 years ago, but Scotland decided to say as is with a 55 to 45% vote.  Pretty darn close.  Also, they aren’t happy with Brexit which means the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union next year.  Not sure where this is going but it makes for fascinating talks where we want to talk about Brexit and they ask us about Trump.  Topic for another blog.

Next, we ate in the Elephant House Café where JK Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter books, visited some shops, churches and then finally Edinburgh Castle.  Really cool stuff and a great day!!  We stayed in Edinburgh one more night, visited a few more sights including the HMS Britannica which was the “Royals” family yacht.  That was a sight to be seen.  Quite a nice boat!!!

After the boat tour, it was time to drive into the Scottish highlands.  Along the way, we stopped at Blaire Castle.

The first town we landed in was Aviemore which is a relatively small town a two hours north of Edinburgh.  We arrived somewhat late so we headed off determined to eat traditional Scottish food.  We landed in a joint called Happy Haggis which was about a five minute walk from our hotel.  Determined to get Scottish food Michelle was daring and ordered Haggis balls.  For those of you that don’t know what haggis balls are imagine all the lamb by-products left over from the butcher….heart, liver, lungs mixed with spices and oatmeal.  These were then deep fried and given to us for consumption.  Would we order it again…no way!  Did we eat all of them…yep.  Chuck ordered white pudding which isn’t what we would consider pudding at all.  It’s basically deep fried oatmeal balls.  Nothing dangerous, quite bland. The main course of local fish n chips, in typical fashion, was  accompanied by mushy peas. Michelle wins the prize for the most adventuresome.  One last thing about food here in Scotland…they are obsessed with deep frying anything and everything.  Pizza, Mars bars, bread…you name it they deep fry it!

We needed an early morning hike to work off last night’s dreaded fried dinner.

We then departed Aviemore heading further into the Scottish highlands.  We stopped for the day in Inverness which is unofficially the capital of the Scottish Highlands.  It’s a pretty town with about 50,000 people.  The River Ness flows through the town into the Loch Ness (Loch means lake).  Chuck bought a nice tweed jacket while he was in Inverness.

That evening, we drove along the Loch Ness, a very long and narrow lake.  The depth of the Loch is crazy deep as it runs along a fault line.  We stopped at a castle which was on the Loch Ness and then we headed to our next big adventure….Island of Skye.  We drove during the night along the Loch Ness which was a winding, narrow and very dark road.

Skye is large island which is accessible by a bridge completed only in 1995. Prior to that a ferry was the only way to get there. The landscape is beautiful with snow capped mountains and lush streams.

We stayed in Portree, a small fishing town.  Even though it was autumn and out of the typical tourist season, our hotel and most others were fully booked.  Many of the roads were one lane (with two way traffic).  While we had no problems with negotiating these roads with oncoming traffic, I could only imagine how crowded and congested the summer must be. The one downside with fall travel is the shorter days and longer nights and we managed this with good planning.  The big plus to fall travel is there are really not that many tourists and we are able to hike, tour, explore in relative solitude.

After a two days in Skye, we headed south to Oban on the western coast.  Oban is home to Oban Whiskey and we took advantage of this with a tour of their factory which has been making Scotch Whisky since the late 1700’s.  The next morning was bright and sunny so we took a boat tour of the harbor and explored the town.

 

After Oban, it was time for the long journey back to Ireland which consisted of a good bit of driving (4 hours), taking the ferry across the rocky sea back to Belfast (2 hours), and then driving to Malahide (another 2 hours).  A long journey!

One last stop – The Glasgow Museum of Art.

 

Our first thought was to go see the Eagles play Jacksonville at Wembley Stadium in London on Sunday.  But then we found out that Monday October 29 is a bank holiday in Ireland.  That means businesses are closed and schools are also closed for the week for fall holiday. Therefore, many people in Ireland take a holiday (aka vacation) that week. So we decided to set our sights on a longer adventure and set sail for Scotland.

Turns out you can board a ferry from just north of Belfast and also bring your car for the two-hour journey east across the Irish Sea to Scotland.  From there it’s a three-hour ride to Edinburgh.  Our launching point for our 7 day adventure exploring Scotland.  Our overnights will be in Edinburgh (2 nights), Aviemore (1 night), Isle of Skye (2 nights) and Oban (2 nights).  I am told Oban whiskey is the popular drink there.  So I guess we will be leaving our Guinness beer behind!

What foods do we miss from home?  Pasta, pizza and potato chips.

I am told that Mario (the owner of Mario’s pizza in Malahide is from Italy).  I am not so sure because his Pasta Bolognese included carrots and the pizza was mediocre (we really could go for an Imperial or Cocco’s Pizza right now).  And the default for potato chips is salt and vinegar flavor – really hard to find plain.

And speaking of food though – tons of amazing Thai, Indian and other options.  Chuck is a convert to Fish N Chips.  I am still working on it – not yet brave enough to order.  But Emily, you will be proud of me, I ordered and absolutely loved the salmon at Temple Bar.  Wings at the Scotch Bonnet were awesome too!

For Karen’s last day, we decide to stop at O’Donoghue’s Pub for lunch in Dublin, a little souvenir shopping and a return to Ryan’s Half-Penny Pub for T-shirts. (All for you, Ryan!).  We finished off the evening at Gibney’s Pub.

Monday morning, Walt heads off to Clonmel for work and after a beach walk in the morning, Karen and I set off via train to Kilarney, in the southwest corner of Ireland.  Karen booked us an overnight trip which includes train from Dublin to Kilarney.  The town was filled with quaint shops and restaurants.  After trying on many sweaters (the area is known for Aran sweaters) we both decided to sleep on the decision and return in the morning.  Thankful for technology, I sent a picture to Rachel and she suggested I focus on the trendier cowl neck sweaters instead of sweaters with buttons.

Rachel – I hope you approve of my final decision!

Early Tuesday morning we hired Michael to be our jarvey driver and take us for a horse-drawn carriage ride to the Castle in the Kilarney National Park. Then the highlight of the adventure began – a 6 hour tour around the beautiful Ring of Kerry.   Our stops included a recreated historical village, photo stops and excellent Irish stew overlooking the coast and fresh ice cream in Sneem (which means “a knot” in Irish). Here painted houses and shops surround the beautiful landscaped greens.

When they say that Guinness beer tastes differently in Ireland compared to the USA they aren’t kidding.  Most say it’s due to the “freshness” of the beer because the beer is brewed right in Dublin.  All I can say is whenever I’m visiting Ireland, Guinness is my beer of choice.

We visited the factory on a Saturday and the placed was “hop”ping.  The tour of the factory was a blend of Guinness history and how they brew the beer.  Interesting Guinness facts:

• Guinness’ color is ruby red…not black
• 10 million pints of Guinness are enjoyed all over the world each day.
• Sir Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease for St. James Gate Brewery in 1759
• Guinness is made of four natural ingredients… water from the nearby Wicklow mountains (not the River Liffey), barley, hops and yeast…that’s it!
• A “perfect pour” of Guinness takes almost two minutes.  Well worth the wait😊

The factory tour finished with a perfect pour of a pint of Guinness stout in their Gravity Bar.  The Gravity Bar overlooks Dublin and the surrounding countryside.

The Smith’s and Schmid’s hopped on a short DART train from Malahide to downtown Dublin to go the “EPIC” museum.  The EPIC museum is relatively new to Dublin and is themed around Irish immigration worldwide.  We had little knowledge of this museum but decided to give it a try.  Turned out this was one of the best museums we have been to.  Since it is new, it uses modern technology to tell of the Irish immigrants to far off places like Africa, England, Australia, America and Canada.  The stories we heard of loved ones leaving for America in the 1850’s because of the potato famine were heartbreaking.  Many of these Irish men, women and children left Ireland knowing they would never step back into Ireland again, not saying “See you later”, but “Goodbye” to their loved ones.

The second part of the museum explains the impact these Irish immigrants had on the lands they now called home.  Whether it was working in mines, farms, factories, doctors, scientists, musicians or even John Kennedy being President of the United States.

Bottom line…..this is a must see museum!!!

One thing that impacted me was the restrictions on women’s rights.

After the EPIC museum we made our way to Ireland’s National Museum – similar to USA’s Smithsonian.  We spent most of our time in the Archaeology Museum where artifacts were displayed from 400,000 BC to recent times.  Showed artifacts from the original settlers, Vikings, and mainland Europeans.  Highlight of the museum was the “Bog” people.  These are people who died thousands of years ago and their bodies ended up in bogs which preserved them.  Fingernails, hairstyles, and skin were clearly distinguishable.

To round out the day, we went on an Irish Music Pub crawl.  We started the crawl at a bar in Temple Bar where our two musicians met us…a guitar player and fiddler.  Want to know the difference between a fiddle and a violin?  It’s call a fiddle except when go to sell it on eBay where it is called a violin😊.

We stopped at three different bars where the smooth Guinness beer flowed and the music never stopped.  The musicians explained how the music was played in a pub and the importance of the music in Irish culture.  The music was fantastic and stories were interesting/funny.  This was the highlight of the day.  Hopped on a late night train back to Malahide to end the day.

When my sat/nav (short for satellite/navigation aka GPS) says “Take the third exit off the roundabout”, my blood pressure SPIKES!!   A simple statement in how to make a right, but oh so difficult!  More on that later.

Driving in Ireland is a lot different in many ways from the USA, so you may know about the obvious.  The biggest is the Irish drive on the “wrong” side of the road…aka on the left.  When you get in the car to drive, everything is flipped.  You actually drive on other side of the car compared to the USA.  It takes about two weeks before you actually get in the car where the steering wheel is located because you are so used to getting in the other side.

When starting to drive in Ireland, the best thing is to plunge right into it and stay focused.  Just remember as a driver you should be towards the center of the road.  Easiest thing to do is to follow the person in front of you.  Hardest thing, beside roundabouts, is making a right hand turn.  Goes against all logic.  My only advice is to stay focused especially when pulling out of an intersection.  When you are ready to go, think again making sure you are doing the right thing.

Another thing about driving in Ireland is the small parking spots, small areas to reverse, small lanes, – small, small, small!  Getting into and out of a parking spot is challenging and don’t worry about dinging other cars when opening doors…there is no getting around it.

Now to roundabouts in Ireland.  They are small, fast and double laned.  You need a steady hand and aggressive nature to get through. Once you think you get the hand of roundabouts, then you get beeped.

Some cars have a large L or N sticker on the back windshield.  That is to identify those that are LEARNING or NEW drivers.  I think Americans should be allowed to hang the USA flag on the car so everyone gives you clear space to get around the roundabout.

The last thing about Ireland is driving with your wife which is a touchy subject.  The one thing I’ve learn that when driving with your wife in Ireland, there is no such things as a back seat driver.  A second set of eyes has gotten help us drive on the left side of the road instead of right, with directions and overall safety.  That being said, I now know what is more terrify than learning to drive in Ireland….sitting in the passenger seat while Michelle learns to drive in Ireland!!

Luckily Michelle let’s me do the driving!