The trip continues

Cheryl and I were and still sad Randy and Jane had to head home early.  We are happy to hear Grandpa Dittmer is doing better.  I'm doing this on my phone so I hope it is successful.  Yesterday we went to see the Bayeux Tapestry- The 1,00 year old historical piece.  We encourage you to google it - Outstanding.  We also went to Arromanches and visited the Cathederal in Bayeux.  Today we went on a 9 hour D-Day tour.  Way more that I could have imagined.  I don't know how to enter photos doing this other than using Randy's laptop we previously utilized.  I will send to photos on WhatsApp

The Walking Tour

Well, we wrapped up our tenth day of our journey as the first leg has come to an end. We ate at yet another fine Fish and Chips place and had a lengthy discussion on which one of the many we had tried were in fact the best in the land. Of course, they all made the claim. The one today was a dead tie for our first venture in Glasgow, Scotland. Probably should go back to Glasgow and double check. Anyway, as we have literally walked miles, 47.25 to be exact according to my watch on steps, we start our next leg in the morning as we head to Charles de Gaulle Airport outside of Paris. Of course we made up for the walking distance in food intake. We will travel by car up to the small town of Bayeux, France in search of Winston Churchill Hotel. We will spend a couple of days searching out D-Day historical sites including a day tour as well.

Blue dot represents our location this morning and we are staying Dublin tonight

We will travel from Paris to Bayeux tomorrow

Another fine fish and chips eatery.

A bittersweet day

We've had quite a day; from a city walking tour of the rainiest city in Ireland, Galway, to walking the grounds of a 1,500 year old monastery site, Clonmacnoise, to a 2-man street fight within feet of us while walking to dinner in downtown Dublin.  Mixed in there were final farewells to our fellow travelers and wonderful bus driver / guide, Harry G. Fisher.

Clonmacnoise Monastery 

Downtown Galway

Clonmacnoise

Clonmacnoise - whispering doorway

Dinner Out

Tonight we feasted at the table of Knappogue Castle in the county of Clare, had a bit of good "Irish craic," and began the evening with a lash of Irish Meade. The castle was built in 1497 and once occupied by the infamous Oliver Cromwell and is complete with walled gardens. We had great fun of food and drink (not so much drink) and was treated to song and dance (them, not us), harp and fiddle play, and a bit of Irish Dance action (sort of like Lord of the Dance style). Earlier in the day we visited the Cliffs of Moher which were crazy high at around 700 feet to the waters surface. All in all, another great day in Ireland.

Knappogue Castle

Enlarge to see the people on the edge with no rail

Fun in County Claire

Started the day by driving the bus, and us, onto a smaller ferry for a 20 minute ride to County Claire.  A real highlight was spending extended time at The Cliffs of Maher.  Absolutely beautiful.  Finished up at the Knappogue Castle for a stroll around the walled garden and dinner, including an excellent show.  Another day and 1/2 in Ireland and we head for France on Monday.  We continue to enjoy the company of our fellow travelers whom we have gotten to know.

Cliffs of Maher

Knappogue Castle

More Ring of Kerry

As Paul mentioned we spent the day traveling around the Ring of Kerry which is a scenic route basically around the south western section of Ireland. It is about 100 km but takes an entire day as the roads are very hilly and very narrow especially for a big bus. This part of Ireland speaks the majority of the Irish language (official language of Ireland) spoken and that total for the country is around 6% actually being fluent. English is spoken in all areas as well. As we moved closer to the coast line the landscape changed drastically from rolling farm fields to mountainous woodland. The base of these mountains, hills, are some of the areas affected most by the Potato Famine of 1849. The flatter land next to the hills would have been covered with thousands of small plot farms that had been subdivided way too many times by greedy land agents for bosses who lived in England. When the blight hit the potatoes and rotted them over night poorer farmers lost their main food source other than wheat. The wheat was their rent money, so to speak, and when they ate their rent money they had to leave. Over one million starved and another million emigrated from Ireland, many to the U.S.. Their farm buildings and homes were made of mud so when they left the buildings just melted into the land with very little remaining. Now, they have many other types of potatoes and treat for the blithe all the time as the weather patterns have not changed that much. It was the damp weather and then extra warm temperatures that brings on the blithe. This part of Ireland, as most parts, is very beautiful. If you watched the movie Leap Year the two main characters traveled from Dingle to Dublin over the same roads we traveled. Of course that was a movie just like how Star Wars used the two islands in the fifth image formerly used by monks in the 12th century for some of their locations.

Rose Castle with the sun peeking through an observation opening

Fishing boats waiting near Rose Castle

Monument to Puck when his heard of goats saved the city from certain destruction at the hands of Cromwell 

Land once covered by farms victimized by the Potato Famine

Out to the Atlantic
The two small hard to see islands in the center are the ones used for Star Wars films

Just an average view of the country side leading down to the bay of the Atlantic

Ring of Kerry

This morning we left our hotel via a Jaunting Car (horse-drawn carriage) and took a ride through Killarney National Park.  The ride ended when we arrived at Ross Castle.  At this point our driver exclaimed, "Oh, ABC", and then translated for us; "Oh, Another Bloody Castle".  Following that we spent the next 8 hours driving on the bus on what's called the Ring of Kerry - A road trip around the peninsula with spectacular scenery of the countryside and waters surrounding the land mass.  Another highlight for me was a quick stop in the village of Sneem.  While in Sneem Randy and I met a new friend, Puck the goat.

Puck

Village of Sneem

Lower Lough Lean

Rose Castle