August 14th. Scenic Route to Belfast

Dan brought us fresh morning pastries and coffee and we got on our way. The first stop was Trim castle. We thought it opened at 9:30 and so to pass the time followed the signs to Kileen castle. Irish signs for places of interest differ from those in the UK. Great Britain probably has so many sites that it starts warning you about a mile from the actual site. Kileen castle signs went up about 15km before the sit and then stopped suddenly. We drove on for 10km, passed the gates for Dunsany castle, and started to look for a suitable driveway to make the u-turn before turning into Kileen castle driveway by accident.

The castle looked locked up and picture perfect. It is not defensive but rather appears like a very large castle-like house. It is located on the golf course and other than some expensive looking cars driving through to the club house there were no signs of life. After walking around and glancing inside walled  garden also in pristine condition we got back on the road and went into the service driveway of Dunsany castle on account of the main gate being accidentally closed. They probably did not know we were coming.

We passed some old stone service buildings that looked like they were still in use and parked by the similar lookjing castle that was equally "indefensible" but much larger. There was a Ford SUV parked next to the castle and another one driving around a herd of sheep on the nearby field. We walked around taking pictures as well and before leaving stopped by at the ruined church in the overgrown meadow next door. There we wandered around the cemetery trying to spot the oldest grave. Then we spotted the newest, with a simple cross and still without a gravestone. It said "Edward C. Plunkett 20th Lord Dunsany 1939-2011. Check out the link above and also Wikipedia. It is pretty amazing to accidentally run into an ancient dynasty. As we were pulling out of the driveway someone else had come in. We are glad we did not have to explain ourselves to the descendants, 21st must be the Lord now.

Trim castle looked more like ruins than what the guide would have us believe. They must have rebuilt it quite a bit for Braveheart. We walked around taking pictures again and as we sighted several people walking up the castle roadway we had joined them as well. However it was the castle staff. And a very mean staff member Brenda had shut the gates in our face stating that the castle does not open until 10am. I've tried to tell her that it was not very nice to do but she said that shut gates means the site is closed and we should have known.

We had another 15 minutes and we walked around town before turning back in. As we were deciding whether to get the tour to get to tower, Brenda appeared again. Dan had tried to explain to her that she was unprofessional but she was interrupting and continuing to be rude. Another woman Susan has joined her and together they refused to give us the book of complaints. We got their names and the name of organization and overall this power trip probably did not end to their satisfaction but we lost interest in staying there longer and got on our way. In their defense I can say that spending their life in a dimly lit cell and communicating with the world namely the tourists through a tiny barred window can bring one down sometimes.

Next we went to the hill of Tara. A place of some Neolithic burials, pagan king crownings, and an entry point to the world of fairies. It looked like a large field filled with mounds, stone protrusion for the crownings, and some crosses for the even measure. We liked it. It was peaceful. Georgia ran around barefoot.
The highlight of today's trip Bru Na Boinne was next. It is a huge Megalithic complex 500 years older than the Stonehedge and 1000 years older than pyramids. They do an amazing job preserving and presenting the place. This alone is worth the trip to Ireland.

There is excellent visitor center that presents very good overview of the place and even recreates one of the passage tombs in its entirety. There are separate bus trips and guided tours to and within Knowth and Newgrange sites. Those places are awe inspiring. For the planning purposes, to explore these sites, given the limited number of busses it would make sense to arrange the trip in advance or get here the first thing in the morning and book suitable tours and then explore the surrounding areas.

Artist drawing beautiful Celtic
 designs @ Bru Na Boinne

After that site we could just barely cover Monasterboice, a site of an old Cisterian monastery but currently a cemetery featuring the most striking examples of Celtic crosses, and the round tower, but also, disturbingly, a large number of child and infant graves some of them fairly recent. Perhaps burying children in such a place gives more comfort to their parents?

The last stop before Belfast was a pleasant town Carlingford. It features several attractive ruins, including one of an old mint. We walked down the boardwalk to John's castle and walked through the pretty and tiny historical center before getting in the car one last time. Oh, and we also checked the pricing and availability of a local hotel - they had triple available for 100€. Made us feel better about the rest of our journey after tonight since we do not have any hotels reserved moving forward.

We noticed that we are in Northern Ireland now only by the change in speed limit units back to miles like in the UK.

Our B&B, Botanic Rest, seems to be close to the university area in Belfast. When we arrived the staff seemed to be in emergency operations mode. It looks like Booking.com did not provide updates to them about bookings and they had double booked the hotel to local inquiries. And there is rock concert in town tonight. Despite the panic mode, they offered kids apple juice, freed up a great spot next to the hotel, and kept making sure that the stack of hotel business cards on the counter is absolutely perfect, a little bit of company-related OCD I found enjoyable. They ultimately gave us a room the second floor. It does not have a bathroom or shower - those are in the hallway downstairs. But the room is very clean, all furniture is new and Internet is working. What else can you ask for for $200 per night. The kids were asleep in 5 minutes after talking to their cousin Sasha on Skype.

Tomorrow we will explore Belfast and then will head out to the Northeast. Isabella said a few funny things:
M - Isabella there is a bathroom here, lets all go
I - I don't want to go
M - We don't know when we will find another one
I - If I have to, I am going first!!

And another one:

M - I found 7 cents, I gave them to Georgia but if I find another 7 I will give them to you
I - That's not enough for me. I want 5. 

August 13th. The Southern Circuit

First off a disclaimer. Pictures take time to upload, process, and add to the we may not do it every day. But I promise to do it when we are back. Secondly, I am realizing the challenge of writing the blog after a day of traveling followed by the last final pint of the day. But as far as that is concerned, you really cannot compromise on research. So Dan and I conclude in that regard that O'Hara is really the best beer in the last three data. Finally late Steve must have been on the exploration trip of his kind because iPad, when it feels any hesitation just takes over and then you cannot recognize paragraphs of text at a time. So if anything does not make sense, direct all the questions to him.

For our day trips we are using absolutely amazing Ireland's Best Trips from Lonely Planet. We have to get one for the UK. It has excellent and interesting routes planned out - just get in and drive. Today we did the combination of 3 and 8 - Wicklow mountains and Dublin surroundings.

The first stop was Sandycove - pleasant retreat by the sea. We undershot it a bit and did a walk to the lighthouse at Dun Laoghaire instead first. It was very pleasant. We enjoyed watching smiling jiggers and dog walkers. Next we covered Sandycove in about 10 minutes.

Gorgeous Enniskerry and Powercourt estate were next. I'll have to look up their online references later but they were great. We felt bad not to be able to share it with anyone. We went to see the nearby 130m waterfall and that was great as well.

Then we headed to Glencree to see the beautiful view of the mountains. The area was completely secluded and lovely. We got out and walked up one of the mountains picking wild blueberries. I tried to go up to see more views and so kept going until my ears popped but still did not get to the top. The feeling is amazing - richness of colors of the surrounding mountains, purple wild flowers (heather?) mixed in with bushes that looked like hedgehogs with bright green needles ending in yellow tips. Don't know the names of the bushes.

On the way we passed a beautiful lake down in the valley and pulled over and walked crossing a few streams on the way downhill to get to it. It was one of those places you could probably spot a fairy if you slow down enough and wait patiently. But we are a different type of crowd.

Next we went to see another waterfall at Glenmacnass Valley. The guide describes this area as somber and desolate. Well I guess too many people were reading this guide because while it was somber on account of a person dying by slipping in that waterfall a while a go, but desolate it definitely was not. Waterfall was OK, not as impressive as the first one. 

Glendalough was next. It is one of the top sites in Ireland - not to miss, top 10, etc, etc.. Its key sites feature the ruins of a monastery complete with a pretty round top tower set amidst the giant cemetery. All that set in the valley with the lakes surrounded by the picturesque mountains. Not a bad concept, but way too many people come to the place. As opposed to everything we visited earlier, here we were walking among huge crowds looking at the sites not that much better than what we saw earlier today. So it was a bit of a letdown. We drove off and stopped on the way at another site with some ruins from the same time period. This time there was hardly anyone around and the view of the alley below was awesome. Kids have had it and attached themselves to the iPad while we snapped a few pictures of the ruins. 

Rural Georgia, anyone?

At Glencree

Next we drove past Blessington (the gallery was closed) and into Celbridge to see fantastically ugly mansion with the longest driveway in the world. I bet you could do a 5k run in the driveway alone.

It was time to return to Dublin. We went to Hophouse Kimchi for dinner. Highly highly recommend this place. The food was awesome. Kids were barely awake to even watch cartoons. 

One more pic of Powercourt

Tomorrow we are doing a few Neolithic sites on the way to Belfast.

August 12th. More Dublin

We did a lot of walking around the city today. Don’t want to get into too much detail. In sum, Dublin is a place to go to. Perhaps we can get to stay here one of the summers. It has so much to be discovered. It is a bit far from everything though.

Some of the highlights from today are St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Christ’s Church crypt, views along the canal and its many bridges, Temple Bar again, and the street of Antiques with its lovely Zozimus Gallery. For a city this size a lot of government infrastructures are somewhat exposed and we got to walk around the backyard of Irish FDA. They got themselves a very interesting looking property. Department of Education and Skills has a sculpture in its courtyard chosen with a good sense of humor – opened up hand. We went inside a few smaller churches. Liked St. Nicolas Church.

We wanted to see the Riverdance but they did not have any performances today and tomorrow’s does not have any good seats left. There are a few other dancing venues but they all require dinner to be bought and run somewhat later. So we had skipped on the cultural life from that standpoint.

On the eating side of things. As we walked around we saw four Polish deli shops. Apparently the area is very popular. The entire staff on the ferry that we interacted with was Polish. Bad Ass bar we went to for dinner is run by the Polish owner as well.

For lunch we went to the Mongolian BBQ. Conceptually it was pretty interesting. A large metal cooking surface where a chef stir-fries your selection of tired and anti-sanitary looking veggies and meat. One has to spice it themselves when they bring it for the grill, which is a bit of an iffy idea. You really have to know what you are doing to pick the right spice combinations and not to overdo on the spice side. Dan was a bit put off by that and the first thing. Just like yesterday, Isabella surprised us by eating a few new things. 

A major highlight was Murphy’s ice-cream made from milk that comes from Kerry cows, supposedly even rarer than great pandas. It was awesome. I had caramelized brown bread flavor. Kids had raspberry and black currant and those flavores tasted like the real thing.

The people seem warmer and more approachable on one hand. But on the other, they are cautious of the many panhandlers in the area. Many of those are young and capable looking. There is plenty of mullets and fashion seems to be in all directions.

In retrospect we should have covered museums more but after counting our steps we did about 30k+, most likely much more for the little feet who did not complain. So we took it easy towards the end of the day and gave them the time to enjoy themselves at the playground until the rain had started.

Going to explore the countryside tomorrow.

August 11th. Dublin

We left at 6am to drive up to Holyhead and then take Swift ferry to Dublin. It is about 4:45 hour ride covering 300 miles. Kids were very good. They kept busy consuming all the perishables we packed and looking at a could of new things on iPad. The road kept pretty monotonous for a while until we passed Warwick castle.

After that it got very pretty. North Wales has plenty of scenic hills with yellow or bright green grass, featuring grazing black and white cows or sheep or both. Every now and then we saw a castle on those hills. A few are Unesco sites. We may have to come back here as well :)

Approach to ferry was very organized. Similar to Eurotunnel we got routed to our lanes to wait for our ship. About 150-170 cars seem to fit on the ship. After we parked, we went to the waiting deck on the fourth floor where lots of diversions, in addition to the view kept us busy for the next two hours.

The approach to the hotel from ferry was somewhat rundown. There were huge crowds of soccer fans predominantly dressed in red and white coming from the city center that horrified us with the thought of how we will look for parking and seemed to have explained by hotel availability was so scarce.  But surprisingly we were able to park right in front of our Beldevere hotel. They gave us quintuple room.

Hotel is located possibly 15 minutes from the center. As we walked passing even more more fans going in the opposite direction the area seemed to have improved only marginally. We also passed a guy who was playing "Million Red Roses" the old Russian song from the eighties. Kids excited to be able to finally stretch their feet were running in all directions.

After we crossed the river, the city got much nicer. It did not have the manicured scrubbed look of some of the other Western European cities. But it had some interesting and distinctive character that is hard to explain.

We headed straight for the library and see the book of Kells. They do a good warm up where in the series of rooms they show enlarged reproductions of various sections of it with explanations. And, finally, showing the books under the glass somewhat is not as impressive because you obviously cannot see all those interesting other pages. And the crowd seemed to permanently glued to it. It is amazing that the book is a thousand years old and the colors are as vibrant. Quoting the Greek tour guide last year "ancient people were not stupid."

The enormous library impressed me more than the one in Coimbra. It is not as lavishly decorated, and it does not look like they would be able to save all 200k volumes stored there but the sheer size of it, and very well presented exhibits of organic and mineral coloring materials used in decorating the Book of Kells, and also the oldest harp in Ireland (that will turn 1000 years old next year) were really memorable. The university buildings, a combination of classical and cement seventies styles, had faded to a point of stained gray and have pleasant comfortable look.

Next we walked over to Temple bar area. Originally there was William Temple Barr who was associated with St Patrick's cathedral who got this land. Over the years the land had expanded and one of the r-s was lost. So now it is a beautiful area filled with atmospheric Irish Bars. There was music coming from bars son either side of the road. We hopped in and watched live performers and cheering crowds. We eventually came down to Fitzsimmons and sat down. Isabella went dancing. Dan and I had some beers and snacks.

Musicians stopped playing and came down to say thank you to Isabella :).

We relaxed and continued our walk stopping by the castle to see the incredible sand structures, Cathedral to feed doves, and the Queen of Tarts to replenish our carb levels. There was a billboard at one of the area theaters, Olympia, stating that Regina Spector was performing on the 19th of August. Not only are we in a very nice place, it is very happening too :) At the theater there was a crowd of college students dressed predominantly in black waiting for the theater doors to open to see the Lambs of God. There were some kneelings when the doors opened.

As we got to Stephen's Green past the lovely shopping street that resembled the one in Seville, we saw a group of musicians with some serious equipment and a puppet theater finish setting up. The area, for Sunday night, was already somewhat deserted so we stayed to see what will happen. First there was a fun puppet number and a small crowd had built up. And then one of the musicians made a little speech saying the CDs that are given out are free, and she is not religious, but she will now sing a few songs for our lord Jesus Christ. The last two statements did not jive together so we got on our way disappointing Georgia who was ready for a good show.

By then the kids were tired so we headed back. Parking was expiring early tomorrow morning so we drove around looking for a place to park. There were plenty of parking spots around but all had the same issue. We tried nearby Qpark but it was 25 euro per 24 hours. So we just left it downstairs and went to our hotel. Dan found out that if you reserve spot online on Qpark website it is 12 euro. So we made a reservation for tomorrow.

August 10th. Greenwich

In the morning we took the train to Waterloo station and met with Ricardo and his family. After that we did a mad dash to subway then another train DLR from the financial district to get to Greenwich. DLR was pretty cool. It is unmanned and we sat in the first car with a large glass wall. So first we enjoyed the scenery as it was going above ground - all the skyscrapers and new neighborhoods. And when it got underground the view got even cooler. Kids huddled up in the front and enjoyed the view.

When we got there, it was almost lunch time. We walked around Greenwich in search of the interesting place to eat and eventually navigated to Zizzy, the Italian place. Isabella had macaroni with nothing on them.

Greenwich is beautiful. Every place had a fascinating story to tell about Maritime history of England and world in general. We passed the impressive Cutty Sark, and the observatory and the museums. Seen a little of Greenwich on the way. Saw a great view of London from the observatory hill and took a picture of us standing on the meridian line. And did not feel like we did the place much justice. We will come back and revisit everything including the food :)

Tomorrow we are going to Ireland. Hopefully everything will be OK with our rental car. We have reserved hotels for the first five days. We will be moving in the counterclockwise direction around the island. We don't know yet whether all the places have the Internet so we may go off grid for some time. Will try to provide updates when possible.

August 9th. New Places in London

Today we worked out of London. We should do it again. Kids went to Albert and Victoria museum with Irina and her boyfriend Ryris. They all really liked it. Afterwards they walked around in Hyde park and gradually walked over to St James park where we met them towards the end of the day. There is a great fountain in Hyde park for kids to splash in. It even has lifeguards on duty.

We hopped to Covent Market and Festival Gardens.What a beautiful happy area. There were multiple street performances taking place. Interesting stores and restaurants. Great place to come back to with kids. We also visited Camden Market. Another area not to miss. It is fascinating in its own way.

Real Doshirak

For lunch we went to Kimchi - elegant, great tasting and beautifully presented Korean fast food place. They take fast food to the new level. After this the local Jiki completely started to feel on the dumpy side. Here are some pictures of it.

Dan found some awesome bookstores. He was very excited. We got some good books to take home.

Baby swans are growing up fast. They are a bit smaller than grown swans. Their bellies and wingtips are starting the lighten up. I wonder how fast the beaks will turn orange. Their baby gray color is probably to make them less visible to the predators. They spend all their awake hours grooming. It feels like they much be constantly itching. Both parents continue to accompany them everywhere fiercely pecking other swans when tourists feed them.

Almost forgot. Last night there was a night market at our Market square. A bunch of food restaurants completely filled the little space available. We tried lots of things but the best thing was the DJ playing old style honky tonk music and a bike that was rigged to the bubble machine. Kids were going crazy over there .

We enjoyed watching them have fun. There was a mature local flower child who tried to party too under the discouraging eye of parents. There were also some grown up people without kids watching. Local pedophiles? Probably not all of them. 

August 6-8. New Malden and Other Places

We set a new goal yesterday - to find a Polish deli, Polski Smak. After wandering through some non-interesting residential neighborhoods for several miles we found it in New Malden. It is nice but Lithuanian Papa Karlo was better. We kept going and were rewarded with finding the whole little Korea. There is a slew of restaurants that offer traditional Korean delicacies, an absolutely gorgeous supermarket Seoul Plaza, and some travel agencies and TaeQuonDo studios. Alas it may be far for us to take Georgia classes here. But we will definitely definitely come back for dinner. As discoveries go, you may set out to find this one thing, and then you find a whole world out there.

We hopped on the 2-story bus to get back to Kingston. Kids rode on those before, but it was the first time for Dan and I. Awesome vantage point to enjoy the scenery. And yes, bus driver's job sucks and I think they know it! It is scary to watch them navigate the narrow street, and light poles, and tiny cars below.

In the evening we went to see Red2 @ Odeon. Very nice. They still did not fix A/Cs so I fell asleep toward the end but it was really good! On second thought, John Malkovich has ripened up to pay touchy feelly roles. He and Mary-Louise Parker stole the show. Bruce Willis just like Johnny Depp do not add value any more. And I would see brilliant John Noble replace tired old old old Anthony Hopkins at any time.

Romik and Polinka are really coming early in November!! Hurray!!

Some other observations in no particular order. Thanks to electric wheelchairs and other similar devices, handicapped and elderly are able to get around much easier so there are more of them that we typically see in other cities. On one hand it is sad to see some of the children with special needs out there but on the other it is great that they are able to enjoy the nice weather and partake in the celebrations around just like everyone else and not be cooped up at home somewhere. I even saw an elderly guy in motorized chair with full rain canopy so that he can be out and about in any whether.

We thought it was unusual seeing a full kitchen with the microwave and fridge right in the middle of AllSaints church some weeks earlier, but since then we had seen many more churches feature eating areas right inside the church. St. Thomas' in Salisbury went further and even had children's playing area there. I guess it could be either a way to keep parishioners warm and coming back. And make guests feel at home too.

Last final bit of moving joy

As we did our planning for going to Ireland we found out that you need to fill out special paperwork to take the car out of the country and some brands, ours included, could not be taken out. "We know that you went to Belgium without the paperwork" told us the rep from the car rental company. I bet he also personally knows what we ate that day. So we had a few tense pre-vacation moments when we watched hotels availability disappear right before our eyes and could not get a definite answer from the rental company "who had customers they were helping." In the end, we just did some bookings of the hotels for the first few days and got a ferry from Hollyhead to Dublin. And according to our HR found out today we are OK to go as is. They've sent us a copy of company car insurance and that is supposed to be the magic salve that will open up the way for us.

Dan and kids went to see Despicable Me a day before. They had a blast. Isabella kept talking asking lots of questions about the cartoon. Georgia was trying to answer those questions and also tell me various details about it. The variety of concessions offered by far exceeds ours. I guess if one adult and two kids had splurged $35 to go see a movie, it would be best to try to offer as many options as possible to get them to continue the trend.

There are a lot more bicyclers and runners around. We even saw one at close to midnight last night, but its the opposite side of the spectrum seems to be filling the streets. I can't blame them. With fresh crispy buns waiting for us @ Tesco nearly every morning, and fresh fruit market always open across the street, and Patisserie Valerie greeting our every trip outside like Odysseus siren, it is a challenge everyday to not give in and fall into the sweetly beckoning arms of gluttony.

We got kids school uniforms today. At St. Lukes they are supposed to wear navy skirts or pinafore with blue blouse, navy cardigan, black shoes, and grey or white socks. There are several department stores that sell those things. They are inexpensive and there are several designs of each available. Georgia was very excited. Isabella did not care for hers.

August 5th. Preparing for the New Adventures

On Monday we got up at 4:45am and went to drop of Michalka at Luton airport. Unsurprisingly M25 towards London was already bumper to bumper at 5:30am. I don't know what they to do make it happen. There cannot be that many people in England going to London every day and at any point of the day. One of the issues may be that they have digital displays that flash suggested speed based on the pattern ahead. To some people "suggested" may mean "required" so they slam on the breaks and so does everyone else around, and then it propagates. I don't know how long they will be watching this pattern for prior to arriving to some resolution - like turning off the displays.

At the airport they route cars with drop off passengers to a special zone and collect 2 pounds upon exit. If you pay with the credit card, that's another 1.35 pounds. And if you linger in that area for 15 minutes, you pay 80 pounds for parking. A brilliant example of nickle and diming.

Another interesting local specialty is that road construction projects display informational signs that state the start dates and the length of the project. As we started to notice those signs we also saw that everyone of those is late on delivery.

It was very very good to have Michalka with us! Kids loved her and it was so relaxing to sit together in the evening watching the swans in the river. Sorry about the biking injuries!!

Having seen how busy hotels get at this time of the year, we started to think about our next bit of travel. Next week Irina is leaving and we will go on vacation. Ireland sounds like a great place to go to.

Went to the local Korean take out Jiki for lunch. Deep fried stuff floating in oily orange goo. However here is another little delicacy we found. Tastes like caramelized condensed milk but the texture is much lighter. Check out the sign in Russian to confirm. Can take orders to staff our fridge for the guests :)