We took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) train 28 minutes northeast from Tara Street Station to Howth on Sunday. It’s a pretty town on the Irish Sea with a very popular (especially on a sunny Sunday) cliff walk where we heard more French, Spanish, and American voices than Irish. I’m sure it’s even better in…
One of our neighbors started BLARING horrible techno-pop and talking and laughing loudly at 4:30 this morning. This went on for about 40 minutes, and then we didn’t hear another peep. I don’t know what that was about. In the late morning the bells of St. Patrick’s Cathedral pealed for maybe an hour. Then we…
Friday morning we went on another group tour, this time in a large van to Wicklow, south of Dublin. I have a hard time staying awake as a passenger on a road trip and slept through about half of yesterday’s travels. I’m 42 going on 2, I guess. Our 70-year-old driver, John, spoke into a microphone,…
We left our apartment at 6:40 am today and walked to a Starbucks near Trinity College where we and at least a dozen others got on a tour bus at 7 am bound for Belfast. In Belfast our group split up into taxis to tour the city while a few others in the group chose…
We toured the Irish Whiskey Museum Friday, and I got to taste three varieties at the end. It’s smooth! (Unlike scotch which we learned is smoky tasting. I’m not a spirits conneissur, so all the info was new to me.) We learned: 1. The term “wake” for an Irish funeral comes (supposedly) from a time when…
We flew from London City Airport, one of five London airports, to Dublin Sunday night and enjoyed our taxi driver’s lilting brogue and commentary on the ride from the Dublin airport to our apartment. The tiny apartment requires planning and coordination of movements in order to dry the laundry on the drying rack and move the second…
Hard to believe it’s almost time to leave London. I’m glad we came. I have a much better impression of England now than when I was here for a few days on my honeymoon – a couple days before and after Ireland. I was exhausted when I was here in 1998 – I couldn’t seem to…
In our last hours on Hurtigruten’s MS Nordkapp Saturday, we sailed through Hurricane Ole. It was quite a sickening ride, and both kids hurled. We had bought acupressure bracelets that other passengers had told us about to prevent motion sickness, but they didn’t seem to work great for us. Much of the time onboard was rough water,…
Last night after the kids and I had put on our jammies and settled into our bunks on the MS Nordkapp and Laurel and I had attempted to sing all of “American Pie,” an announcement came over the PA: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you can now see the Northern Lights.” We quickly dressed and hurried down…
Here’s our getting-to-London story: On January 22, Laurel carried her guitar, suitcase, and backpack down the six-story winding staircase of our Paris apartment while I carried Charlie’s and my suitcases and my backpack. (I had to make two trips on the suitcases.) We walked 1/2 mile with our luggage to the subway station and arrived…
Travels with Charlie and Laurel 