Cardiff, Wales - October 2, 2018

Flag of Wales

Cardiff Castle mid-18th century

Glastonbury & Bath - October 1, 2018

Glastonbury Abbey founded in the 7th century

Legend has it that the abbey is the burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere

 Glastonbury Abbey flourished until it was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539

Abbey kitchen

Glastonbury is a quaint town with many magic shops

City center Glastonbury

Cathedral in Bath

All buildings and homes in the city must use the golden colored Bath stone

Very impressive display of the history of the Roman Baths inside the museum

Mosaics found in the Roman Baths

Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland Tour - Oct. 2-9, 2018

Tuesday evening, October 2, we arrived in the Emerald Isles at the town of Rosslare.  We will be using Euros this week.  The Irish flag is green (Catholic), white (peace) and orange (Protestant), meaning the two are together with peace.  The Gaelic language has 18 letters, with no J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y or Z.  Farming and dairy farming, in particular,  are big business here.  They export a lot of dairy products.

En route to Waterford, we pass through the town of New Ross which has a statue of JFK, an eternally flamed memorial to the approximate 1.5 Million Irish men, women and children who died in the mid-1800's potato famine, and the so-called famine or coffin ship Dunbrody which sailed many passengers to the USA or Canada but also neglected many sick, starving, dying passengers.  We note the repeated cruelty of the British government towards its conquered people.

We spend the night in Waterford.  Glass making has been here since the time of the Vikings; then the Normans continued the tradition.  With the downfall of the economy, the craft also declined until 1947 when a Czech man along with a couple partners rekindled the business.  We visit the Waterford Crystal shop the next day.  We watch the glass blowers and all the craftsmen create sparkling gorgeous pieces.  Since we weren't buying any crystal, we took a short walk in the market area.  I said Good Morning to a woman and she called out in a wonderful Irish lilt 'Top of the Morning to you!'  So sweet.

Have we mentioned we talk with many hospitality workers in the hotels and restaurants who come from Central and Eastern Europe? They are everywhere.  We have cooler temperatures now; cool, not cold.  Trees leaves are coloring and falling.

We visit Blarney Castle but don't climb up the slippery stone stairs to kiss the Blarney stone.  If we had, we'd be granted the gift of persuasion and eloquence, (which neither of us need 😂).  We continue through the Lee Valley along the Lee River, crossing the Kerry mountains.  We spend two nights in Kenmare, a town along the Ring of Kerry.  On Thursday we have a 20% chance of sunshine.  We drive counter-clockwise along the Ring, seeing lakes, loughs and mountains.  Killarney is made of streets full of shops.  The rain starts around noon, and our guide Peter is disappointed he can't show us the beauty.  Peter does tell us about the Irish gypsies.  

Friday is overcast when we board the bus.  An hour later the sun came out and gave us a big rainbow.  We visit Adare, a Norman-founded town.  We see the washing stones at the riverside, and we look inside a 14th century dovecote.  We drive by the River Shannon, and we see an IRA memorial in Limerick.  Peter cautions us to not mention IRA or other buzzwords when/if we talk to locals.  It's only talked about as The Troubles.  We see the Cliffs of Moher on this pleasant afternoon.  Anne and I are disappointed in them since we've seen grander sheer cliffs.  In the town of Lisdoovarna, a Matchmaker festival is held every year.  We see unusual hills at Galway, made of limestone which means they were once the bottom of the sea.

On Saturday we leave the university town of Galway.   In 1879 fifteen Knock citizens saw a religious apparition along the outer wall of their church, where there is now the Knock Shrine.  Pope Francis visited here a month ago. Pope John Paul II also visited and celebrated mass on Sept. 30, 1978.   Our next stop was the Hedgerow Church, Tobernalt Holy Well.  When Catholics were terribly oppressed and prohibited from worshipping in churches and priests were hunted,  priests and believers would meet secretly in this open- air church to worship in the middle of the woods.  We travel on to Sligo, a lovely townm on this beautiful day, and we spend the night in Donegal.  Our room was on the street side, so we heard bar music and partymakers until the early hours.  

Sunday is a rainy day, and we cross the River Foyle into Northern Ireland (using the English pound again) at Derry/Londonderry.  Our local guide is Ronan McNamara, the son of a Chinese Buddhist mother and a British father and who is married to a Catholic woman from Donegal and the father of three.  He gives us insight to The Troubles.  As a Buddhist with both Catholic and Protestant friends, he only hopes for a better future.  We continue on to the cold and blustery winds at the Giant's Causeway, where you can see across the 13 miles to Scotland's shores.  There's a tale involved in the causeway's construction, but you'll have to look it up if interested.  In the late afternoon, we meet Belfast's 'black cabbies'.  Cab driver friends, both C and P, drive us in their black cabs to several locations around Belfast to tell us their past experiences growing up in the time of The Troubles and the future they see.  Seeing the walls separating neighborhoods and murals and memorials for each side has left me very unsettled.  I hated seeing the walls.  I hate that still today remembrances are held which really do support the division of the groups; I hate the veiled threats.  I wish them all the best, but I don't know how it will happen.   Sad, really.   Makes me angry.  The Northern Ireland police are armed 24 hours a day, and they must carry guns for 10 years after they retire. 

On Monday we tour Belfast.  We see the location of their dissolved parliament, Stormont.  We go to the Titanic museum, but we don't have time for a visit.  The building is interesting, built in the shape of a 5-pointed star for the White Star Line, the owner of the Titanic.  Built here in Belfast in 1911 at the Harland & Wolff shipyard, the Irish built the Titanic, but the British sunk it...   We drive back to the Republic of Ireland.  In Dublin we meet our local guide Adele.  Of course, the Vikings were here long ago.  In 1916 on Easter Monday an uprising started at the post office building.  The rebels were defeated, but the seed for independence had been planted.    You can read about how The Republic of Ireland was finally created.  Dublin is very international now with many foreign students and tourists.  Most of our group goes to Taylor's Bar for dinner and very entertaining show with music, dance and comedy. 

On Tuesday morning we tour the Guiness tourist center.  We learn about the beer making  and enjoy a little glass by 9:30.  The family does much good in the community, and the Book of Records did start here.  We travel into the Wicklow Mountains to Glendalough, an ecclesiastical settlement from the 6th century.  It's a beautiful area, birds were singing, deer were wandering.  We see many old Celtic crosses, which are a combination of the round pagan sun and the Christian cross.  Adele tells us that Irish Christians were the only builders of round towers.  We visit Trinity College to see the Book of Kells   The exhibit is interesting and informative even if you only get to see 4 pages.  Tomorrow we leave very early to catch the ferry aboard the Ulysses the largest car ferry in Europe, if not the world.

Plymouth, St. Ives & St. Michael’s Mount - Sept. 30, 2018

Area from which the Mayflower sailed in Plymouth

View of St. Ives

Notice the rock art?

I put my feet in the COLD water

A lovely town!

St. Michael's Mount (a small version of Mont-Saint-Michel in France)

Stonehenge & Salisbury - Sept. 29, 2018

Stonehenge

Salisbury Cathedral

Impressive Gothic cathedral

London - Sept. 27-28, 2018

View of the Thames River, Parliament and Big Ben in scaffolding - It will be under construction until 2021 to stabilize the structure.

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Buckingham Palace

Queen Victoria Memorial

Clever mime we saw from our tour bus

London Eye

Queen Victoria's memorial to her husband Prince Albert

Prince Albert Opera House across the street from his Memorial

Gates to Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace

Greetings - Cruising on St. George’s Channel/Celtic Sea - Oct. 2, 2018

As I write this post, Anne and I are in the middle of St. George's Channel/the Celtic Sea aboard the Irish Ferries' MS Isle of Inishmore.  We watched dock workers load tractor trailers onboard for 35 minutes, then our bus and a couple campers and autos boarded and departed from Pembroke Dock Yards.  The crossing should take about 4 hours.  Let me tell you about the past week.

We boarded the Hovercraft last Wednesday from Isle of Wight, heading to Southsea Portsmouth.  Along the sides of the craft, huge balloon-like bumpers inflate, lifting us up.  And we zoom across the water, hovering above The Solent, powered by big-bladed fans at the back.  Smooth, quiet ride.  We spent one night along The Solent in the delightful port area.  The next morning we took a train to Victoria Station in London to join our tour.  Here we find people, traffic and noise in this big city.

On Friday we meet and join half of our group and tour around the city with author Warren Grynberg.  We saw so much:  Buckingham Palace with horses, a marching band, and changing of the guard; Kensington Palace where the young royals live; the Eye of London; Parliament; Big Ben's tower and lots of scaffolding; much more.  Later Anne and I hopped on the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus and listened to the tour guide Tabea, a German-born woman who speaks 8 languages and is thinking of attending Harvard for her Master's.  Geez, have we met impressive young women on this trip!  As usual, it was a great view from atop the bus, and we learn more about the City and its' surrounds.

On Saturday we met our travel guide, Peter Lewis.  Peter is a Welsh man and has a good sense of humor.  He retired from the business 3 years ago, but they keep asking him to return for another trip.  So he did.  Our group consists of 48 tourists from Canada, Australia,  New Zealand and the USA (8 from Michigan).  Big group.  Our bus driver is Craig.

We drive to Stonehenge.  So, just how did they move those stones from 20 miles or more away?  Who told them to set the stones to allow for the alignment at the solstice?  These are some old rocks.  We drove on to New Sarum, which you know as Salisbury.  The city may sound familiar if you've seen the news about a father and daughter poisoned by suspected Russian agents months ago.  Peter promises us this won't be another ABC (Another Bloody Castle/Church/Cathedral) tour.   Construction of the cathedral began around 1386.  It houses one of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta here.  Very small writing written with a small feather on animal skin.  Outside the cathedral, Anne met an 80-year old female cleric who said it it was just awful in the village following the poisoning with constant police and military presence.  Everyone was questioned.  Funerals had to be postponed.  The hospital was quarantined.  Media everywhere.  Lovely town.

Sunday morning we are at the Plymouth/Mayflower steps.  Ships left here for America and Australia (filled with convicts).  A bombed-out church stands as a memorial to those killed in WWII Luftwaffe attacks.  Somehow a kiss is mentioned which leads Peter to the question of how is a kiss and a spider web similar?  Well, they both lead to the undoing of the fly...   We move on to Cornwall, pronounced 'kernel'.   We see hedgerows everywhere in our travels.  We visit the port town of St. Ives (about an hour from Port Isaac, which portrays Port Wen where the Doc Martin series is filmed).  We lunch on fish and chips and a pasty and enjoy the scenery.  We make a photo stop at St. Michael's Mount, a smaller, less attractive version of the site in France.

On Monday we are in the delightful, quirky town of Glastonbury where Christianity, magic, hippies and all types of alternatives exist.  We even see several kolam  on the sidewalks similar to those we saw in India.  Here we visit the remains of the St. John's church, the Abbey of King Arthur and Lady Guinevere, continue on to the town of Bath, with all its buildings made of yellow Bath stone.  The town is lovely and busy.  We spent 2 hours touring the old Roman bath buildings along the River Avon, which must've been just incredible 2000 years ago.  Peter tells us that Italian prisoners of war were held here during WWII.  They were allowed to plant gardens, and the food was distributed to the city.  The prisoners were grateful at the end of the war for their decent treatment by the townspeople, and they wanted to donate something to the town.  I can think of better things to give, but they donated a tall statue of Romulus and Remis suckling at the teats of the shewolf.  Look it up.  They thought it appropriate because Romans had developed the area.  Oh well.  We cross the Severn River into Wales.  Peter tells us the Welsh language is one of Europe's oldest.  The alphabet has 29 characters with no J, K, Q, X or Z.  Coal mining was huge here, but all deep mining has ended, I believe.  We spend the night in the 3-university city of Cardiff.  Anne and I walked along old attractive buildings and enjoyed seeing so many students on the streets.

Earlier today we toured Cardiff Castle, which was first established by the Romans, then abandoned, then improved and enlarged by the Normans. We climb, much to my dismay, up and down 3 flights of spiral staircases during our tour.   Everywhere we travel there are opportunities for trips and falls. My photographer got some great pictures even though it was cloudy.  We learn that there are an average 141 rain days each year.  And now we have sun on the seas, welcoming us to the land of many greens, 4-leaf clovers, Guiness beer, Ireland.  We'll report on our adventures in a couple days.

Photos from these visits appear in the next few posts.

Anne and Maddy

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tablet