travelntrouble

Our room is at the end of the corridor, perhaps because they fear our noise, and contains a four-poster bed, electric fireplace, wardrobe, desk, conversation area, breakfast table, and in the bathroom big mirrors, free-standing shower — and a jet tub! Suite! And the view out our ground floor patio door is toward the lake and mountains. Blanketed with mist at the moment, but over the next four days there’s some hope for sunshine.

Wi-fi has been promised, but over dinner it is generally agreed that the service is spotty at best and unavailable at worst. It may have something to do with the number of people trying to use it, but it seems unavailable at all hours, and although the sniffer on the computers says that the signal is fair to strong, the handshake doesn’t seem to function properly. The front desk people scratch their heads and say it should work, but the signal is generally strongest in the central part of the hotel, which is not where our rooms are.

Dinner is served in the big dining room, and the big dining room is indeed big — ceiling is about 18 feet high and our tables for the group are arranged in one area, with lots of tables elsewhere. We’re here in the off season, so the place is large enough to deal with several hundred guests. The daily rate for our room for B&B is €160 in the summer season when the place is really hopping, and the combination of food, location, accommodation and service make it one of the nicest places we have stayed. and the high season price is about what we would expect to pay for most any urban hotel for much smaller, less amenitous accommodations.

The place has some substantial history of about 100 years and has been added onto and updated from time to time. It is located on Loch Leane (pronounced lane), which was also the site of a medieval monastery now ruined, that has evidence of hundreds of years of use as a school, with leavings of scraps and discarded goods from all over Europe. And the name means Lake of Learning in old Gaelic. The evidence suggests that wealthy families from all over Europe sent their children here to the monks for an education. Right out our patio door there is a stone ruin which we will have to investigate.

So the hotel was built as a Victorian era vacation spot, probably with outdoorsy activities, and the surrounding lands were the Herbert estate. We’ll go see the manor house, Muckross (Galic for Peninsula of the Boar) House, some time the next few days. And the first Irish National park is right next door. If wifi worked, we could zoom in and get a better view of the lay of the land, either with mapping or Google Earth.

Dinner starts with cocktails in the bar, but there are precious few cocktails as such. Guinness, Jameson are easily the most favored libations, and wines of various types. The bartender is a little nonplussed by an inquiry for a whiskey and sour, our personal staple drink, but then again, that’s just a placeholder for the Guinness, Bulmers cider, or wine list.

After dinner, there is a scheduled concert involving the boys, beginning at 9 and lasting aobut an hour. After the concert, a few hardy souls retire to the bar, but the majority are more inclined to bed, so there is no jamming into the wee hours.

We went down a little early for the gathering, but not as early as some. The group was beginning to assemble in the bar, and the bartenders did a brisk business in Guinness, Jameson, and Beamish, which is another Irish stout. Lots of reunions as people filtered in, because like most of their tours, the boys attract a lot of repeaters. Paul says this his 15th tour with them. Several on the tour were here in Ireland when the volcano blew in Iceland, and were “stuck” here for an extra week, so there are lots of reminiscences about what was eaten,drunk and sung on that extended trip. And there are several who were on the Escape From the Orkneys tour that we were on 18 months ago, when the remnants of Hurricane Olivia threatened to keep us on the islands for several more days.

Dinner was very pleasant, and delicious, and was followed soon after with an impromptu jam in the lounge. Several people have brought instruments, so the tour promises much music besides the boys.

Have’t figured out this blogging thing to be able to sort things in order after we have been absent from the net for a few days.

Today is the day to leave Dublin and travel to Shannon and meet up with the group. This involves several modes of transport: walk the luggage up to the LUAS, which is the light rail from Dublin City Centre (pronounced center) to the Dublin Heuston rail station; then an intercity train from there to Limerick Junction, because the noon train is bound for Cork, and a shuttle train to Limerick; and a bus from Limerick to Shannon airport, which is the rendezvous point for the Men of Worth tour.

The ticket purchase requires no interaction with humans, just a few machines in the waiting hall that take currency or credit cards. If you’re in Ireland sufficient time in advance, you can buy tickets on line and pick them up at the automat, too. But it seems to require a European credit card, one of those more secure chip and PIN cards that have not penetrated to the States yet. Looking around for which platform our train will leave from, a couple of passers wave us to Platform 5, assuring us that’s the one to Limerick. Guess we look like tourists.

Our train from Dublin.

New app on the iPad is a GPS tracker, that works with the Apple Maps (wish us luck) and shows you direction, speed, location, elevation, and accel- and deceleration. The last is not so accurate, as it shows acceleration of .292 G’s as I’m sitting in this chair. But it worked on the train. Top speed of 92 mph, and maximum elevation of 369 ft above sea level on the trip to Limerick. Which goes to show that Ireland is not terribly mountainous. Or maybe that the folks who laid out the rail routes were pretty clever.

Changing trains at Limerick Junction caused some worry for Paula, due to the luggage load, but it was pretty relaxed. Although the train change was scheduled for 3 minutes and our train was four minutes late getting in, the station is just one platform so it’s a 50 step hike across, the little shuttle train waited for everyone, and pulled out in a leisurely way. And we’re into Limerick on time. No time to look around, as the bus to Shannon Airport is right outside the station. Again, the ticket is spit out by automat, and despite initial confusion that almost caused us to board the express bus to Galway, we gained the bus in good time and got front row seats for the trip up to Shannon Airport.

Time was once when Shannon was a busy airport, since every transatlantic flight had to refuel there, and it was the gateway to Ireland. Now it’s not so important, and there is not a lot to see in the area, either. I guess that supports the fact that there is no train to Shannon, only buses. Bunratty Castle is about it for historic Ireland in the area, and that’s about 10 minutes away. So the airport hotel has seen better days. When we were here four years ago, I seem to remember that it was a Holiday Inn. Now it’s a Radisson, but minimally updated, so it looks like new paint on WW II administration buildings. It’s windy on the west coast of Ireland, the wind buffets the one-storey buildings, and the windows rattle. Beds are comfy, and like many Euro hotels we have been in, there are only three electrical outlets in the room.

Did I say it was windy? The bus drops us off at the airport departure area, and the hotel is across the parking lot. Winds are 20-30 mph, and at one point, the rough pavement catches Paula’s roller bag, the wind gives her an extra push, and down she goes on her left hip. The rest of the hike is accompanied by assorted exclamations, and once in the room, the hip calls for two Aleve pills and a nap. Dancing may not be on the activity menu for a few days, and sitting on the bus may require some pillows.

Looking forward to meeting the gang at 6.

April 6

The close of a long day of walking.

Three missions for the day: to re- visit Trinity College to hit the Book of Kells bookshop; to try to find the Irish sweater store over by Grafton Street; and go pay our respects to Oscar Wilde, or at least his bronze likeness perched on a rock in a park. The day should also include a beef and Guinness pie at Madigans Pub on Earl Street, some adult beverages, and no motorized transport. And at the end of the day, another meal at the Italian restaurant half a block down the river walk from the hotel.

Our start was delayed by another fine breakfast in the hotel. No matter, plenty of time. We set out for the Book of Kells, only to find a sign stating that the gate was locked due to the Trinity Ball on the grounds on Friday night, which is the reason we were untimely ripped from the venue the day before and missed the bookshop. Oh, well, on to the sweater store. Not to be found. Dang!

Then Paula notices another entrance to the college, and suggests a flank assault. Entering through a small warren, we find both the exhibit and the store open for business. Two Celtic art ties and a postcard later we emerge, renewedly hopeful of success on our second mission and we hike up Grafton Street.

This is a crowded pedestrian shopping street, beginning at Molly Malone’s statue sure to fascinate the amercans with money who know little else of Dublin’s fair city, and winding down to St. Stephens Green, and a very Babel of languages, buskers, street people, and shoppers, pushing past stores and fast food places that would not be out of place in London or Chicago.

Pianist on wheels on Grafton Street

After vainly searching for a knit hat for Paula, it’s on to College Green and St. Stephens Green to look for Oscar. We made the whole circuit of the park, but Oscar did not seem to be in residence. Resolved to seek some beverage, we retrace our steps to find The Bank, Dublin’s best pub in several years voting.

The Bank

After a pause to refresh and the discovery that Oscar is actually at home in Merrion Square, it’s none too early to make our way to Madigans for some pub food. On arrival we find the joint is packed and SRO, all eyes riveted on the TV’s showing the running of a British steeplechase. These horseraces are controversial these days, as the last several important races have resulted in the deaths of several horses, and Parliament is poised to outlaw them as they have outlawed fox hunting for cruelty to animals. The sport remains popular on the telly, though, and not soul of any age stirred from their seat during the race. Nor did any react to the falls, the riderless horses that peeled off from the pack, nor the one riderless horse that finished the race in second place.

Then folks began to trickle out. We secured seats but found that the usual menu was suspended for the weekend in favor of a carvery, which was less interesting. So after a quick Jameson and ginger ale, we headed back to the hotel, to put down packages and put up feet before dinner. My pedometer says 3.9 miles of concrete, asphalt, and cobblestones.

What would a trip to Dublin be without a stop at the old Jameson (the “e” is not sounded, and the “s” is not voiced) distillery? Paula was one of eight in our tour to be an official taster, sampling a taste of Jameson, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker. No wonder she’s happy! What’s in front of her, however, is a hot drink — hot ginger ale (steamed by a latte steamer) and Jameson with a squeeze of lime, and beside that, a hot apple juice and Jameson with a couple of slices of apple — lining our stomachs before the tour. Great winter drinks, which we are looking forward to re-creating at home, since winter does not appear likely to have fled by the time we return.

It’s better than a magic lantern show.

The TV in our hotel room greets us by name, and provides a personal wifi bubble, so that the sniffers on the iPads and our smartphones can detect the presence of wifi in our and adjacent rooms, but our room’s wifi has a unique password. The hotel lobby and bar have a less secure public wifi network, but perhaps this is a little more secure. What’s more, with an app that is provided via the TV, I can transfer content from my smartphone or tablet or laptop to the TV. If only I had some interesting content.

What’s also fun is the fine custom, which we have seen elsewhere in other European hotels, of providing bedside switches for all the lights in the room, including night lights. Some day, perhaps all the switches will work electronically over the networks.

Also encountered the Eurofeature of using the room’s electronic key card as a master switch for all the room’s electricity. You put your key card in a slot by the room door to enable the electricity, and when you leave with your key, all the lights turn off after a delay. So yesterday we’re about to leave the room and where’s the second key? Searching in puzzlement, until finally, oops, it’s here in the door switch. The curse of jet lag…or old age…or American mindset.