Great Britain & Ireland

8/14/2019 Great Britain & Ireland

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GREAT BRITAIN

England’s beautiful city of Bath with its elegant Royal Crescent

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September 1997 trip to Great Britain and Ireland

O ur 1997 trip to Great Britain and Ireland startedat London’s Heathrow airport, where we caught theNational Express bus to Bath. It is said that any tour ofBritain that skips Bath leaves something to be trulydesired. Two hundred years ago this city of 80,000 wathe trend-setting Hollywood of Britain. A beautiful city,built entirely of the creamy warm toned limestone calle“Bathstone”, with more protected historic buildings percapita than any other town in England. An architecturachorus line, it’s a triumph of the Georgian style. Afterchecking in at the Kennard Hotel on Henrietta Street,we signed up for a two-hour walking tour of the cityconducted by a trained local volunteer, a charming ladwho shared her love of Bath in a most delightfully chatthistorical-gossip-filled manner. She ended up the tourthe very elegant Royal Crescent and The Circus --IfBath is an architectural can-can, these are the kickers.

On our own, we visited the Baths (Roman and Med-ieval)--Back in ancient Roman times, high society en- joyed the mineral springs at Bath. From Londiniumthey would travel so often to Aquae Sulis , as the citywas called, to “take a bath”, it finally became knownsimply as “Bath”. We marveled at the museum’s welldocumented display of Roman artifacts. Dominatingthe town center is The Abbey , the last great medievalchurch of England. We entered this 500 year old Gothiedifice and saw where in 973, Edgar , the first king ofEngland was crowned. Of special interest became avisit to the Costume Museum, displaying 400 yearsof fashion--from Anne Boleyn to Twiggy.After three days on foot in the city, the dreaded timeto rent a car for the rest of the trip, had finally come.

Our home away from home in Bat

The Roman Baths and Abbey of Bath

Donna on Pulteney Bridge,

sometimes compared to Florence’s Ponte Vecchio

It was with considerable apprehension wgot into that car with its right side steeringand left hand shifting and I had some scamoments getting used to driving on theleft side of the road, especially whenapproaching those infernal “RoundaboutWe were soon off though, to a one daytour of places like Wells and its incrediblecathedral, where we bought a beautifultapestry pillow and a christmas tape sungby its choir. On then to Glastonbury, ancient home of Avalon, King Arthur, and the Holy Grail. We walked theAbbey floor from where the remains ofArthur and his Queen Guinevere weresupposed to have been dug up and re-buried in the Abbey choir. Further on wecame upon England’s most famous andevery Druid’s favorite stone circle:Stonehenge , with its parts older thanEgypt’s oldest pyramid.

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Stonehenge &The Cotswolds

Why was that thing speaking in Japanese to her?

Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill

The Market Hall in the center of Chipping Campdenbuilt in 1627 “for the sale of cheese, butter and poultry”.

S tonehenge’s huge stones were brought all theway from Wales to form a remarkably accurate

celestial calendar. Even today, every summersolstice (around June 21) the sun sets in just theright slot and the Druids all come out to boogie.The morning we checked out of the hotel in Bath,we made straight for Avebury . Here we found astone circle 16 times the size of Stonehengeand more interesting, as we were free to wanderamong the 100 stones, ditches and mounds of itsfascinating, 1,400-foot-wide neolithic circle.On then to the southern Cotswolds , where onthe edge of the town of Woodstock sitsBlenheim Palace. It is said that visiting oneEnglish palace is enough...as long as it’s BlenheiThis, the Duke of Marlborough’s home, thelargest in England is still lived in, which becomeswonderfully obvious as you walk through its warand gleaming interiors. The highlight for us was tSir Winston Churchill exhibition, centeredaround the room where he was born in 1874,while his mother was at a Blenheim Palace party.The beauty of the Cotswolds made it an absolute

joy to tour by car and we soon found ourselves atour next overnight stay in Chipping Campden. A working market town and home to someincredibly beautiful thatched roof houses and ver

rich Cotswold wool merchants. We walked the fullength of High Street, the finest in Eng-land andfound lodgings at Sparlings B&B, run by theelderly and very proper Mr. Black and Mr. Douglass, who proudly showed us their veryEnglish garden and fruit trees. From here wetoured the enchanting Cotswold towns of Stow-on-the-Wold with its peaceful main square andamusing stocks on the green, (which we bothrefused to try out). Moreton-in-Marsh, where wefound streets lined with real shops like ironmongers selling cottage name-plates and carpetstores rather than the usual gift and antique shopBourton-on-the-Water, with its quaint canals anUpper and Lower Slaughter with its ducks andworking water mill. Back in Chipping Campden wsoaked up the history all around us and visited thtown’s famous 15th-century Perpendicular “wool”church on Church Street and indulged ourselvesthat evening with the trip’s most memorable mealprepared by Pop in a small Mom and Poprestaurant tucked away at the end of High Street.

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Wales

Iron Bridge over the river Severn

Caernarfon Castle courtyard Conwy Castle and town walls

Heading north to Wales we bypassed the giant cityof Birmingham in favor of Ironbridge Gorge , wherethe Industrial Revolution was born in the SevernRiver Valley . This now drowsy valley (blessed withabundant deposits of iron ore and a river for transpogave the world the first iron wheels, steam poweredlocomotive, and cast-iron bridge. We stopped offhere and walked across this first Iron Bridge built in1779, while England was at war with her Americancolonies, to show off a wonderful new buildingmaterial. On then we went to north Wales and thetown of Ruthin (rith-in), which was supposed to be ahandy base for drivers doing north Wales. Afterchecking in at Ye Olde Anchor Inn , we strolled thetown, which appeared to be a low-key, workadaymarket town, whose charm apparently was in itsordinary Welch-ness. The people were its sights. Thfollowing day we drove over Llanberis MountainPass to Caernarfon by way of Betws-Y-Coed inSnowdonia National Park , with its center pieceMount Snowden , England's tallest mountain.Caernarfon was a small and lively town, but its castlbrimming with image and symbolism was impressiveto say the least. It was built overlooking the Irish Sea,700 years ago to establish English rule over northWales. We climbed the Eagle Tower for a greatview and checked out the exhibits on the history ofWales and the investiture of the Princes of Wales --most recently, Prince Charles in 1969. On then to

Conwy Castle , built dramatically on a rock over-looking the sea with eight enormous towers andinteresting story to tell. Back in Ruthin that evening,inn’s proprietor showed off his gourmet chef talentsserving us a most extraordinarily delicious meal.

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IRELAND

Slea Head on Dingle Peninsula

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Dublin

Ha’Penny Bridge over Dublin’s River Liffey

The pedestrian thoroughfare of Grafton Street

Street musicians on Grafton Street Temple Bar announcement

Time to leave Wales and head for Ireland by way offerry from Holyhead. After dropping off the car rentalwe boarded the Stena Line Ferry and crossed the Irissea uneventfully and docked at Dun Laoghaire , wherwe hailed a cab to take us to Dublin’s fair city. With ushumming “alive, alive-O.” the driver wanted to know:

“where to?” and was shocked to learn we had no resevation anywhere in the tourist filled Irish capital. He quly got on his radio and soon arranged to have us staythe Greenbriar , an old-fashioned but comfy B&B, quita distance from the center of town. After checking in,covered that distance on foot and found ourselves in tcenter of touristic interest, which is the tight triangle between O’Connell Bridge, St Stephen’s Green andChristchurch Cathedral. Within this triangle we founTrinity College (Book of Kells), Grafton Street (toppedestrian shopping zone), Temple Bar (trendy nightlife center), and the Dublin Castle. Greater Dublinsprawls with about 1 million people - nearly a third ofthe country’s population. On our second day here, wesigned up for the Historical Walking Tour of Dublin,conducted by a Trinity College history professor.Starting out at Trinity College, we did the Old ParliamHouse - Dublin Castle (where the Poddle and LiffeyRivers came together making a black pool, “dubh linn”Irish), Christchurch Cathedral with the story of their citfrom its Viking origin to the present and listened to ourguide talk at length about “The Troubles” and the rootof Ireland’s struggle with Britain. We spent considerabtime browsing on lively Grafton Street, buyingGuinness Brewery T shirts for our boys among othersouvenirs. We strolled the Temple Bar district, the heaof Dublin’s hot nightlife and pedestrians only hive ofcreative energy with its trendy shops, galleries andpubs with live music and Irish dancing.

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Ireland

Inch Strand on the Dingle Peninsulawhere we found a large sign saying:

:DEAR INCH, MUST I LEAVE YOU I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP

PERHAPS MILES TO GO

The Gallarus Oratory

The Cliffs of Moher

We left Dublin for its airport, where we picked up our Irishcar rental and started the 6 hour trek across Ireland, headingfor the Dingle Peninsula, the westernmost tip of the island.Before reaching Dingle Town, we stopped off at InchStrand, a 4 mile stretch of lonely beach, shaped like a halfmoon, made famous by the Ryan’s Daughter movie, muchloved by Donna. In Dingle Town we checked in at Sraid EoiB&B on the quiet end of town. Dingle turned out to be extre-mely comfortable on foot. Nothing in town is more than a 5-minute walk away. Of the peninsula’s 10,000 residents,1,300 live in Dingle Town with its few streets, lined with ram-shackled but gaily painted shops and pubs. The harbor is always busy with fishing boats and yachts and during the daykids - already working on ruddy beer-glow cheeks - roll kegsup the street and into the pubs in preparation for another nigof music and craic. Dingle is renowned among traditional msicians as a place to get work and there is music every nightin many of the town’s 50 pubs. On day 2 here, we exploredthe 30 mile loop around the peninsula with its mix of “ Far anAway” beauty (Irish portion of 1992 Tom Cruise movie wasfilmed here). We checked out ancient archeological wonder

and stopped by

Lord Ventry’s fancy 17th century manorhouse and the Dunbeg Fort, a relic from Irelands iron age.Wvisited the Fagan group of beehive huts, mysterious stoneigloos (that Donna saw fit to put to personal use). We gazedat the “Sleeping Giant” island - with hand resting happily onhis beer-belly. We studied the fields, untouched since theplanting of 1845 when the potatoes rotted in the ground - areminder of the great famine. We paid a visit to the GallarusOratory, built about 1,200 years ago and one of Ireland’sbest preserved early Christian churches, its shape reminisceof an upturned boat and stone walls so perfectly fitted to-gether that they are still waterproof. We observed sweepingseaside views, the rugged Blasket Islands as well as god-forsaken lands slowly being reclaimed by the inhabitants ofthis westernmost piece of Europe. Back in Dingle Town weprepared to leave by way of Donner Pass , the mountainousspine topped by Mount Brandon with its incredible viewsover Tralee Bay, Brandon Bay and the open Atlantic. Onthrough Tralee we drove, towards the River Shannon andCounty Clare . We crossed the ocean like river at Tarbert oa car ferry and drove the scenic coastal route to the Cliffs ofMoher. For 5 miles the dramatic cliffs soar as much as 700feet above the Atlantic. We walked past solitary flutists andaccordionist playing the plaintive music of their land, along alow wall of the local Liscannor slate to the cliff edge and climbed O’Brien’s Tower, marking the highest point. We droveas far north as Kinvarra, looking at the Burren , a 50-squaremile barren limestone plateau, before turning around and hefor Ennis , our last overnight stay in Ireland. Ennis, CountyClare’s major city with a medieval history is a workaday Irishtown, ideal for anyone tired of the tourist scene, which I thinkwe were at this point. Returning the car-rental at nearby Shanon Airport the next day, we were happy to catch a middayflight to London. The hustle and bustle of this world metro-polis after pastoral Ireland, proved to be such a turn off, we cour intended stay in half and willingly returned to HeathrowAirport and our flight home to the good old U.S. of A.

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Great Britain & Ireland

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