My Trip to Ireland and London

11 & 12 July
On Saturday afternoon, Bernie drove us to O’Hare for our flight. Jessica and I had been eagerly waiting to leave on our trip for a long time. We were able to get two seats with lots of legroom, so we were relatively comfortable for the flight. Aer Lingus has monitors in front of every seat with a menu of movies and TV shows and games to keep folks occupied for a long flight. We didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, but we squeezed in a couple of hours. We got into Dublin around 8 am, went through customs, and met the bus driver who took us to our hotel – Bewley’s Hotel in Ballsbridge. We weren’t able to check into the hotel yet since it was still too early in the day, but we left our luggage in the corner of the lobby and walked around the neighborhood. The bus driver had told us that there was a big outdoor arena across the street from the hotel, and Bruce Springsteen would be performing there that night, so there were lots of people out on the streets and around the hotel all day long. Walking down the street, we had two different sets of people ask us where the line was for some kind of hand stamps for the concert that night…apparently we looked like locals.
When we came back to the hotel, they had a room ready for us, so we were thrilled to go up and take a nap! At 2 pm we got on the bus for an afternoon tour of Dublin. We viewed the Book of Kells and the cool, old library at Trinity College, and we had a little time to walk around downtown. We learned on the tour that Dublin has more coffee shops per capita than any other European city, and Handel’s Messiah had its world premiere in Dublin. For dinner, Jessica and I walked over to a wonderful burger place across the street from where people were lining up to get into the stadium. We were given a table right away, in spite of the humongous crowds of people filling the streets outside. We soon realized that most of the drunken concert-goers were just milling around on the street anyway waiting to go into the stadium.

Monday, 13 July
Our tour group had a “Full Irish Breakfast” (eggs, sausage, cooked tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, blood sausage, cereal, and pastries) in the hotel restaurant before heading out of Dublin to roam the countryside. Our first stop, a couple of hours down the road, was the Rock of Cashel. We were given a guided tour as the rain started coming down slowly, and then more forcefully, and everyone was shivering and hoping we’d move inside. The last part of the tour was in a cozy little room – one of the few with a roof inside the ancient, crumbling buildings.
We drove through Cork and stopped at Blarney Castle for lunch. I had a delicious, traditional Irish Stew, and then we walked around and did some shopping. Kissing the Blarney Stone wasn’t a big draw for Jessica and me, but there were a few folks from our group who climbed the steps of the castle to do some kissing. We were fortunate to have about 2 hours of sunny, warm weather during our stop in Blarney, and then another rain shower came down shortly after we climbed back on the bus.
An hour and a half of driving through green, hilly areas and we were in Killarney. We stayed at the Killarney Towers Hotel, which was a nice, downtown boutique hotel with a lot of charm. I can’t imagine actually paying the rack rate though – the price posted on the back of the door in our room – 250 Euros per person per night… That means at that price it would cost 2 people approximately 750 dollars to stay there for one night!! We had a huge buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant, started to get acquainted with some of our traveling companions, and checked our email in the lobby. Jessica and I took a short walk around downtown Killarney, and we agreed that it was a really adorable, colorful little town. We had been told that most pubs in town had live music nearly every night of the week, and that certainly seemed to be accurate. We walked past a few places where we heard music pouring out onto the street, and we stood and listened to a band at one pub’s outdoor patio for a bit. That was around 9 or 10 pm, and I’m sure the music lasts long into the night at many of the pubs.

Tuesday, 14 July
We ate another big breakfast, and then took off for a day of touring on the bus, beginning with a short stop on the outskirts of Killarney in a field that overlooked a river lined with mountains. It was really a gorgeous view, and we were lucky to enjoy it before the first rainy sprinkles of the day began. We spent a good portion of the day driving around the Ring of Kerry, stopping frequently to enjoy the beautiful vistas – the green hillsides covered with sheep and cows, mountain slopes, coastline, and views of the Dingle Peninsula across the bay. Our tour was supposed to include a stop at Muckross Gardens on our way back into Killarney in the late afternoon, but our bus driver, John, explained that we would have to skip it because of a local strike that was occurring. The horse and buggy drivers were protesting a recent ordinance requiring their horses to wear nappies (diapers). John told us that crossing the picket line might possibly endanger our safety; the protesters might throw rocks at the bus or harass tourists who enter the Gardens. I didn’t fully understand the circumstances of the protest, but it made sense to skip that part of the tour.
Jessica and I took a walk along a path at the edge of the Killarney National Park and then sat with Ron & Aimee and Adam & Melissa at dinner. They were the folks we bonded with the most on our trip, partly because Aimee is a teacher and Adam went to school at UW. After dinner, Jessica and I walked around a little bit more, and then we met Ron & Aimee at the hotel bar for a drink and some good conversation before going to bed.

Wednesday, 15 July
Our bus left Killarney around 8 am in the midst of a few rain sprinkles, but then the entire rest of the day was sunny and beautiful! We took a ferry ride across the River Shannon and enjoyed views of sheep-filled hillsides under a blue sky with big, puffy, white clouds. A short while after crossing the river, we stopped for lunch at a quaint restaurant where the whole group packed into a small back room. Jessica and I tried the fish and chips and thoroughly enjoyed the meal!
In the afternoon we were treated to one of the most beautiful, memorable sights I’ve ever witnessed – the Cliffs of Moher. The views were spectacular! The cliffs are about 5 miles long and 700 feet high and they drop straight into the water. We were lucky enough to enjoy the view under sunshine with just a slight haze in the air. There are paths along the top where visitors can walk along to look out over the cliffs and take pictures. At one end, there is a sign warning not to go any farther because it’s not safe and it’s someone’s private property. But there’s no fence preventing it, so lots of people walked beyond the sign, and some went pretty far along the edge of the cliffs. The bus driver warned us to be careful, because nearly every year someone either falls or is blown off the edge into the sea! A short distance away from the cliffs, we drove through the area known as The Burren. It’s very rocky landscape with lots of hand-built stone walls on people’s land, even built in tidy rows up steep, rocky hillsides.
On our way into Galway, we were taken on a short tour of the city and John took us to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott. Jessica and I ate dinner with Adam and Melissa. After dinner, we walked into the city center, which was about 20 minutes from the hotel. Galway is a city with a lot of young people and a definite college vibe. Even on a weeknight, there were lots of young people out walking around, lounging on the grass in the park, and eating & drinking in the restaurants and pubs that line the 6 or 7 block long pedestrian street.

Thursday, 16 July
We ate another large breakfast in the hotel, hopped on the bus, and headed north out of Galway. We were treated to a catamaran ride on the only fjord in Ireland; a fjord is defined as a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, in a valley carved by glacial activity. On the catamaran we cruised out to the sea and back, looking at beautiful scenery all along the way. We ate lunch at a restaurant called Peacocks, and then spent the afternoon riding through the mountains.
We made a stop at the Celtic Crystal Factory, where we were given a tour of the showroom by the woman whose family has owned the business for over 30 years. She explained some of the different cuts of glass and designs on the bowls, stemware, and other pieces of art. The masters who create the works of art are required to do a 5 year internship before being hired on as employees at the factory. One of the masters did a short demonstration and impressed us with how easy he made it look!
Back in Galway, the bus driver dropped us off in the city center, and we had an hour and a half to walk around and do some shopping. It was nice until a rain shower came down, but at that point it was almost time to head back to the hotel, so we climbed on the bus and went back a short while later. We ate dinner with Ron, Aimee, Adam, and Melissa. Jessica and I decided we weren’t completely worn out from our full day, so we walked back to the city center to do some more people-watching. Some things I observed throughout Ireland were that people often smile as you pass by on the street and the drivers are very polite and yield willingly to pedestrians or other drivers (you rarely hear car horns). People there are very social and enjoy going out to restaurants and pubs any night of the week to chat and hear live music. I noticed that Mohawks and mullets are somewhat popular with teenagers…That doesn’t make much sense to me…

Friday, 17 July
We packed up the bus and left Galway to head east to Dublin for our last day of the tour. On the way, we toured Clonmacnoise, a monastic settlement with remnants of old buildings, a cemetery, and a watchtower. It was a sunny morning, but there was a constant cold, blustery wind, so we actually hoped the tour wouldn’t last too long. The settlement is on a hill so it must be windy there quite often. We grabbed a bite to eat and then traveled the rest of the way to Dublin. We arrived in the city about 2:15 pm and John dropped us off in the city center and told us which city buses we could take to the hotel whenever we were ready to head over there. Jessica and I walked around, dodged some more raindrops, did a little shopping, and watched several different street performers. There were a lot of people out walking around, and the sidewalks and shops were rather packed in some places.
A couple hours later, we got on a city bus, and it was only about a 10 minute ride to our hotel. When we stepped out at the bus stop we saw Ron and Aimee walking back from the city center, so we chatted with them on the way into the hotel. We had some time to relax in the room, change clothes, and get ready for dinner. The bus driver took everyone across town to the Abbey Tavern; it was up on a hill overlooking the bay in a very nice area with expensive, beautiful homes. We enjoyed a nice dinner complete with entertainment by a small band and some Irish dancing. Then we headed back to the hotel around 11pm.

Saturday, 18 July
We were told to have our luggage outside the room by 6 am for our transfer to the airport. The hotel provided us each with a sack lunch – a sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of Fanta – and then about 20 of us rode to the airport for various morning flights. Jessica and I were on a 9:50 flight to London, so we had plenty of time to check our bags, go through customs, and turn in shopping receipts to get the VAT tax refunds. The flight was just a short hop, and we landed in London around 11 am.
In Heathrow, we walked through the long hallways and underground tunnels until we found the Paddington Express train. It was a quick, easy way to get into downtown London. And then in the Paddington station, we bought tickets for the underground and just had to go one stop to the Bayswater station to get to our hotel, which was about 4 blocks from the station. The Grand Plaza Hotel was a converted apartment building, and we had a nice room on the lower ground floor level. The only unfortunate aspect of the hotel was that the shower was really low, and the glass partition only went halfway down the length of the tub, so when either of us took a shower, the floor would get drenched with water. I suppose they’re used to cleaning that up, but it was a bit of an inconvenience. Aside from that, the room was good and spacious, and we had several TV stations, so we watched some strange game shows and good old American sitcoms each night before going to bed.
Our first afternoon in London after we unpacked our bags, we walked down the street to the corner of Hyde Park. On the way, we bought sandwiches and drinks at what would become our favorite, oh-so-convenient “Pret a Manger” café 2 blocks from the hotel. We ate a picnic lunch in Kensington Gardens, walked through to the south end of the park, and then spent a while just wandering down various streets in the neighborhood.
We had big plans for our first night in London – tickets to see “Wicked” in the West End. We got dressed up and took the underground to the Victoria Station. We knew the theatre would be somewhere in the vicinity, and we were happy to see upon exiting the station that it was directly across the street! We had plenty of time to find a place for dinner and look around before the musical started. Just a few blocks away, we found a great restaurant called “Giraffe”. While we were eating dinner, a few women who appeared to be cast members from a show came in (one was wearing thick, white stage makeup). Our waitress confirmed what we suspected – they were the 4 main actresses from “Wicked”! If we had seen them after the show instead of beforehand, I’m sure we would have been gushing about how wonderful their performance was! We absolutely loved the musical – the acting, the staging, the story, the music. It was all incredible. I’m so glad that we had the opportunity to see a live musical on stage in London. Jessica and I were a little surprised by how many audience members came pouring into the theatre just minutes before the show started, and lots of them were clearly tourists carrying shopping bags in with them. We also thought it was quirky that over half the audience was purchasing and eating little cups of Haagen Dazs ice cream during intermission; it must be a London theatre tradition.

Sunday, 19 July
On our way out of the hotel in the morning, we stopped at Pret a Manger to buy pastries and juice. We had to go back to the Paddington station to exchange our vouchers for the 2 day London Passes that I had purchased prior to the trip. Then we took the underground to a station at the edge of the river and walked over to Gabriel’s Wharf for the guided bike tour. While we were sitting outside the bicycle rental shop waiting for the tour to start, Jessica spotted David Hasselhoff sitting two tables away from us eating breakfast. We chuckled about our celebrity sighting and slyly took pictures of him and the woman with him. As it turned out, they were renting bikes for the day but weren’t part of our tour. Our guide, Steve, took about 15 of us on a 1 ½ hour tour of central London. It was one of our favorite activities on the whole trip! We leisurely biked along the water’s edge, on quiet little side streets, on busy streets, and over bridges across the river. At various points along the way we stopped to learn a bit about the sights, like Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen’s Tower (that contains Big Ben), the Tate Modern museum, Leicester Square, Chinatown, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, and the Millennium Bridge. We also passed a group of bikers who were doing a leukemia fundraising ride.
Jessica and I walked down the wharf and ate lunch at the café inside the Royal National Theatre and watched a group of jugglers who were doing an entertaining performance outside. After lunch we rode the underground to the Tower of London, an ancient castle on the river that was used to defend London and house prisoners hundreds of years ago. From there we walked over to the Tower Bridge, walked up the long staircase to the top, learned some of the history of the bridge, and made our way back to the Tower of London to the underground station to go back to the hotel. We ate yummy fish and chips at a pub a block from our hotel that evening and then shopped for some souvenirs.

Monday, 20 July
We had no specific time to be anywhere this morning, so we slept in and had more pastries and juice for breakfast. We took a stroll through Hyde Park and toured Kensington Palace, where they had rooms displaying furnishings and information about Queen Victoria’s childhood. They also had displays about debutante balls and 10 or 12 of Princess Diana’s dresses.
We took the underground to Leicester Square so we could sit for a bit and do some people-watching, we ate a delicious lunch in Chinatown, and then we went to Trafalgar Square. We walked from there to the Florence Nightingale Museum and enjoyed the displays in there. Afterwards we bought tickets and rode on the London Eye, which is sort of like a huge ferris wheel. It took about 20 to 30 minutes to get to the front of the line, they put 15 or so people into each large glass-enclosed car, and then you get one loop around. During the 25 minute ride, we snapped lots of photos and were able to look out and see views of the city in all directions.
We went back to the hotel to relax for a little while. Then we got back on the underground and went just a couple of stops and came out at the Marble Arch on the northeast corner of Hyde Park. We ate dinner at Marks & Spencer, did a little shopping, and then checked out Primark, which was quite the shopping experience. We had seen many people walking in that neighborhood carrying “Primark” shopping bags, and once we entered the store, we could see why it was so popular. It was gigantic and had unbelievably low prices for surprisingly high quality clothing! I bought a pair of jeans for $6 and a few t-shirts and a dress shirt for even less than that!

Tuesday, 21 July
Since we had gone into Primark near closing time the previous night, we started our day with another trip back there for more shopping. The store appears to be busy no matter what time of day. Jessica and I walked across Hyde Park on the eastern edge and then over to Harrod’s, which was a lot more highbrow than Primark! We just did a short walk-through of some of the fancy sections of the store, including the gourmet foods section. Then we went across the street and ate lunch at a café called EAT. We took the underground back to the hotel, relaxed for a couple of hours, and then got back on the underground and went to Covington Garden. We wandered around the area in the rain, made our way back to the hotel, and then ate dinner at Bella Italia and packed for our trip home the next day.

Wednesday, 22 July
We had a long morning of multiple forms of transportation ahead of us, so we had one last round of pastries and juice for breakfast, gathered up our luggage, and walked to the Baysbridge station. We took the underground to Paddington, where we boarded the Heathrow Express. At Heathrow, we wound our way through the airport, checked our bags, and went through a few levels of security – we had to show our passport, have a photo taken of our face, go through the security line, and in a different area had to show our passport again where a security guy looked at the photos of our faces on a video screen. Then after a long walk to the gate and showing our boarding passes two different times, we could finally relax and wait to board the plane.
In Dublin, security was tight as well. We went through customs (where the officer on duty was playing solitaire on his computer) and then passed through what I thought was the main security checkpoint. I then filled my water bottle, we went up some steps, and saw that we had to go through another security line. I explained that I had just filled my bottle at a drinking fountain downstairs, but they still made me dump it out and carry my water bottle empty to the other side. Whatever.
We quickly ate lunch, bought some chocolates to use up our last few Euro coins, filled out customs forms at the gate while hearing them announce “final boarding” overhead…even though it was 30 minutes until the departure time. We showed our passports one last time upon boarding the plane, and settled in for our flight. Everything went smoothly, and 7 hours later we were on the ground in Chicago where customs/security was a breeze, and Bernie was waiting there to drive us home.