In 2016 we took a Bus Tour with the Robson Road Runners to Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
Day 1.5 – Travel to Ireland
We’re off for a bus tour of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland with the travel club at Robson Ranch. So far, we have discovered that you don’t get to Ireland in a hurry. We flew Delta, so naturally we made a stop in Atlanta. Our plane was an hour late leaving Atlanta, so we had more than plenty of time to make our connection. After catching the bus out of Robson Ranch at 10am, we left Atlanta at 8:45pm Eastern time for the transatlantic flight. We landed in Dublin roughly 23 hours after leaving home. Of course, we arrive late morning, so the smart thing to do is wash up and hot the street. Well, we’re not smart, so there were some naps put on the schedule prior to sightseeing.
Food note: At this point I also need to mention that we’re not going hungry. In the first day we had lunch at DFW airport, dinner on the plane, breakfast on the plane, snacks on arrival at the hotel, and dinner at the hotel. That’s double the amount of meals we would normally have in the same time period.
Once we got out of the hotel, we took advantage of the Hop-A-Bus to take a 2 hour lap around the city. We stayed on the bus and left the more detailed sightseeing for tomorrow. We don’t meet up with the bus tour company until dinner time, so there’s a whole day to explore Dublin. So far we have learned that the Irish are not very good at rebellions. First, the Vikings had their way with the Irish, then the English ruled them for 700 years. After 700 years the Irish were ready to get rid of the English. Starting in 1916 there were three rebellions within a 5 year period. Since this is the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter uprising, there are a lot of exhibits in museums about the rebellions.
As I’m writing, Tammy is sound asleep (went to bed around 8:30pm). The attached picture is from her earlier nap. I’m surprised she got her shoes off. I think I’ll turn in also. More later.
Day 2 – Self Tour of Dublin
We had a slight delay in getting started. I was supposed to get Tammy up at 7am. I spent several minutes bringing Tammy back from the dead before she could talk in complete sentences, and she didn’t move out of bed until after 7:15. We were supposed to meet the Gowers at 8 for breakfast, so Tammy still had time to get ready. When she got ready she called to tell the Gowers we were ready to head down and woke them up. There would be a delay on breakfast.
After we got out of the hotel we hopped on the bus again. The first stop was the Christ Church Cathedral. They like to claim that it is 1,000 years old, but it’s kind of like grandpa’s hammer where the handle has been replaced three times and the head twice. There were still a couple of walls in one alcove that were of really old construction, but most of the building was rebuilt in the1870’s, and the crypt was redone in 2000. The 1870 rebuild involved removing one major wing and adding on in a different direction. They did save one wall from the 13th century, but they should have torn it down also. That wall now has a 18 inch lean to it.
The next stop was the Guinness Storehouse. This is an old building that was previously used for brewing and is now a museum. Near the entrance they had a glass floor covering the original 9000 year lease. That seems a little optimistic, but who knows. The lease includes water rights and has been challenged in court fairly recently. The good news for Guinness drinkers is that the lease was found to be a valid contract. In the end they taught you how to pour your own glass with the proper head on it, and you got to keep your pint. Actually, you got to drink it. Like they say, you only rent beer. We even got Tammy to taste it, but she made the pucker face.
As we were bussing back toward our hotel the group decided to head for more naps while I took a tour of the Jeanie Johnson The Jeanie Johnson is a replica of one of the “coffin ships” used to take the Irish to Canada and the US during the potato famine. The term “coffin ship” refers to the average 30% death rate for the crossing. The “coffin ships” were converted freighters that charged the equivalent of six months wages for a trip. You might think that six months worth of wages would buy you a nice passage, but you would be wrong. Our guide pointed out with typical Irish humor that you paid in advance, so the slaves on a slave ship were usually treated better, since they would be worth something if they made it across the ocean.
The Jeanie Johnson was chosen as the model for the replica, because of her excellent record. She made something like 15 crossings and never had a death. Then she was sold and used to carry timber from Canada to Europe. On her last trip she was overloaded and began to sink. Fortunately, wood floats, so she sank slowly. On the ninth day a passing ship rescued the crew from the rigging as the entire hull was submerged. Thus her reputation of never losing anyone was kept intact.
I made my way back to the hotel in time to wake Tammy up again for our formal meet and greet. After our tour guide introduced himself and passed out the luggage tags it was time for another meal. We will not be under fed on this trip.
I guess I’d better go to bed. We start the real tour with a bus tour of Dublin in the morning. While we’ve been around the city a couple of times, they are supposed to get us past the lines to view the Book of Kells. That was the one thing I was regretting missing today, so I’m looking forward to it.
Day 3 – Formal start of tour – Dublin again
First day of the official tour and you guessed it. We spent the first half of the day on the bus driving around Dublin. Dublin isn’t that big, so I think I pretty well know the roads by now. The highlight of the morning was Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Trinity College is an active University and a tourist attracion. Lucky for the students, they are on summer break right now. I would hate to fight my way through the clumps of tourists as I run across campus late for the next class. The big improvement is that all the tour guides use radios now rather than bull horns. They give you a small receiver to hang around your neck and an ear bud.
The library was impressive. (If you’ve watched Harry Potter, you’ve seen the long hall of the library.) The real attraction was in a separate room. The table in the middle has two of the four books opened for your viewing. I believe they rotate the books, so if you come back, you’ll see other pages. Not only did those monks do an amazing job of producing the details, they used materials that look virtually new. I can’t say I was able to read much. The Book of Kells are actually 4 volumes covering Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John from the New Testament. They are written in Latin, but they use the Celtic alphabet. Apparently if you can read the alphabet, you can sound out the Latin. In case you were wondering, the books are covered with extremely clear bullet proof glass, and the whole table goes down into a vault at night.
The next attraction was a visit to the site of an old monastery at Glendalough (pronounced Glen Da Lock). The guide did a good job of giving you the back story on the hour drive out of town. All that is left of the monastery are the walls of the cathedral (half built in 11th century and half in 12th century) a couple of smaller buildings and the round tower. The tower is still intact – not bad for a 1000 year old structure. The guide was pointing out the Roman arches used in the construction. It seems many of the monks would have made a pilgrimage to Rome and brought back the architecture. Tammy asked the obvious question about the age of Rome, since we’d seen it a couple of years ago. Then we realized that a lot of the buildings we’d seen in Rome were roughly a 1000 years older than the ruins we were looking at, and the Roman buildings looked much more modern. Those Romans knew how to build stuff! Today the grounds are used as a cemetery. I saw head stones ranging from the 1750’s to the 2000’s. The main rule about getting buried there is that you parents must be buried there.
Next up was a dinner and show in the building with the largest thatched roof in Ireland. The location for the building has been in use for a lodge or eatery since the mid 1600’s. The food was good and the show was really good. The male singer started by reminding us that many Irish had left home to find employment over the centuries, including himself. He himself had gone to London to find employment and ended up being the lead in Les Miserables. It should give you a clue to the quality of the show that he did not standout as any better than the others. The show included singing, Irish dancing, and a comedian. As we were sitting down, our guide advised Tammy that since she was sitting in the front row, she needed to know something about the comedian. If she made eye contact, she could expect the comedian to focus on her for his jokes. Tammy managed to keep his attention elsewhere, even on the one joke she didn’t get. The lady at the next table didn’t laugh hard enough once. Everyone else got a good laugh, and she remembered to laugh more for the rest of the evening.
The end of the dinner was an Irish Coffee. Tammy didn’t drink hers, so I had two ! The tour guide had noted that the whiskey would put you to sleep while the coffee would try and keep you awake. The result would be a battle. After drinking two, I think I had a war.
Note from earlier
I mentioned that the Irish weren’t very good at rebellions. One of the guides on the Hop-A-Bus gave an example I meant to send along. During the 1916 uprising, the rebels numbered about 1700 amateurs against 20,000 trained solders for the English. To help even the odds, the rebels decided to use the latest military techniques. Since the first world war was their best example of how a war should be fought they dug trenches in the middle of a city park. The English then proceeded to climb to the higher floors in the surrounding buildings. This turned out to be a rather poor tactic for the Irish.
Day 4 – Drive to Cork
Our first day to get our bags outside in the morning !
The first stop was at the National Stud Farm. Horse racing is a big deal in Ireland, and we got to see where some of it starts. The farm was originally built by an individual and includes some specatacular Japanese gardens. The farm was eventually given to the state, hence the National in the name. Being a government backed activity, they don’t invest in the highest dollar studs. Their focus is to find studs that have a decent track record at lower stakes races and a good blood line. The goal is to buy cheap and gamble on the offspring having better records than the stud. Their typical stud starts his career at $20K per session. Now bear in mind that he can do 4 mares every other day. There are plenty of breeders willing to gamble the $20K with a good blood line, so they stay busy.
A stud doesn’t get to work year round. It seems all thorough bred horses born between January 1 and December 31 get January 1 as their birth date for racing purposes. Therefore, most trainers want a horse to be born from the middle of January to the middle of February. So they have an old a horse as possible. This means a stud in Ireland will do about 120 mares per year. Fortunately for their studs, they also have a good following in Australia, and the Aussies have a different schedule, so there are another 120 mares from down under. After two years the kids start producing a record, and if its good, the stud’s fees start climbing. Their best stud is now getting $120K per trick. He is 18 years old, so his working career is near an end, so they have several horses that are vying to become the next main bread winner for the farm. You might ask about the stud that doesn’t produce fast offspring. He gets made into a gelding and put to work as a steeple chase horse.
The next stop was the in Waterford. Yep, we got a tour of the crystal place. However, the luck of the Irish was with us. We had an hour get lunch before our tour, so the women wanted to spend most of that time shopping in the Waterford shop. However, there had been a timely power outage, and the cash registers wouldn’t work. You could look, but you could not buy. Yea !
There was also a street fair going on in the middle of town. Tammy ate lunch at the first trailer mounted pizza oven I’ve ever seen. She said it wasn’t Pizza Hut, but she didn’t leave any.
On the road we stopped for a scenic overlook of a small town and harbor. While everyone was taking the same picture someone looked behind us. It was milking time at the dairy farm across the road and all the cows were headed for the barn. Someone accused or guide of staging the show.
On the way onto town, the bus stopped to drop off nearly everyone for dinner at a fancy restaurant. Since it was a very popular place to eat, the eight o’clock sitting was full, so our group had the 5:30 sitting. At 45 Euro’s per head, Tammy and I decided we could find something more to our taste and more timely in town, so Tammy and I rode the bus on to the hotel . Jim and Linda went for the meal, so I’m sure we missed the best food ever eaten by humans, but that’s the risk we run.
Day 5 – Kissing the Stone
We spent the morning taking a tour to the small port of Cobh (pronounced Cove). The port is famous as the last stop of the Titanic and the Lusitania sank just off the coast. They have a very nice museum dealing all forms of migration out of Ireland over the years. Do you know that over 25% of Australians have Irish ancestry? Yep, the prison ships sailed out of Ireland also.
The main attraction for the day was the Blarney Castle. They’ve got beautiful gardens and an impressive castle. Our guide advised those of us wanting to kiss the Blarney stone to get on with it, since we would only be there for two and a half hours. (The line can get long.) I got Tammy up to the entrance before she headed off to see the gardens. It seems the stone is at the top of the castle and requires climbing up a really long spiral staircase. The coolest part of the trip up was checking out the fortifications. If you held the high ground in the castle, you could defend it easily. The spiral staircase was very steep and shoulder width narrow. All you had to do was stand there and whack the bad guys on the head. While you were doing that, your buddies could shoot arrows into the staircase from adjacent rooms.
The Blarney stone is located on the outside of one of the shafts used for dropping stones on people below. To perform the act, you sit down, lean backwards until you think you are upside down. The trick then is to not think about how far above the ground you are. They had a guy there to help you, and I took advantage of the tip jar before I took the seat. (I wanted to make sure he didn’t drop me.)
There were a total of 13 of us from the tour that made the climb up to kiss the stone, and I have the picture to prove I was one of them.
From the Blarney castle it was about an hour and a half drive into Killarney. We got there with a couple of hours before dinner. Those with energy headed out for a walk around town. The bus ride wasn’t long enough to get a proper nap, so Tammy broke out the eye shades for some more nap time. With some advice from our guide, I checked the TV for some Gaelic football. It seems the All Ireland Championships are at the quarter final stage this weekend. Sure enough Galway was playing Tipperary. This was the first time I’ve seen it, and it is cool. It starts out looking like soccer, but then you realize they are carrying the ball. Apparently every 5 or 6 steps you have to dribble like basketball. Sometime they bounce it off the ground and sometimes off their foot (I don’t know what difference it makes.) They can kick it whenever they want, or they can fist it like a volley ball serve. Every now and then it looks like Rugby when a guy is running and gets taken out. The scoring is different too. They have a net that looks like a soccer goal and you get a goal for kicking it in the net. At the ends of the goal are poles like in Rugby. You get one point for kicking it above the net and between the poles. A goal is worth 3 points, but they don’t total it up until the end. The final score was Galway with 1-10 (1 goal and 10 points and Tipperary with 3-13.
Gaelic football is only played as amateurs. The big deal is to work up to the team that represents your county and these are the teams playing for the All Ireland Championship. The really cool thing about Gaelic football is that the only people that can play for the county’s team have to be born in the county. As a result, there is great rivalry between the various counties, and the fans fanatical.
The evening was at Celtic Steps. I’ll bet you can guess what kind of music they played and what kind of dancing. One of their female dancers had won the world championship 3 times, and one of their male dancers had won it seven times. Let’s just say it was a fast paced evening.
Tomorrow we’re off for a drive on the Ring of Kerry. Our guide has described it as bus aerobics with the rough roads. He also says the roads are narrow. This might be interesting. The roads we were on so far have been about six feet wide, so I’ll be interested to see what he calls narrow. The only way I can figure out how our bus is getting down the road is to compare our bus to the Tardis in Dr. Who. It is obviously much smaller on the outside than on the inside.
If you’ve been checking out the pictures, you may have noticed a trend. I think this will be Tammy’s sleeping trip of Ireland and Scotland. We eat a big breakfast then get on the bus, and Tammy takes a nap. We stop for lunch, eat again, take a few pictures, then get back on the bus, and Tammy takes a nap. Once we get to the hotel, there is the before dinner nap and the sleep of the dead after we eat. I’m having a lot of fun waking her up !
The Ring of Kerry is a road that roughly circles the county of Kerry. The first two thirds was along the coast and then we ventured into the mountains. We finally got typical Irish weather, so the tour director had no problem with people spending too much time at the photo ops. I use the term photo op loosely, since there wasn’t much view in the rain. They never like to go more than 1.5 hours between stops with rest rooms (the facilities on the bus have a very limited capacity), so we stopped in the middle of the morning for scones and tea. Here we learned more about the IRA.
We’re down in the far south of Ireland which is the home of the Sinn Fein political party. You may not have heard of the Sinn Fein, but you have heard of the IRA, which is their military arm. The term Sinn Fein roughly translates to “Together Separately”, and they are still pushing for reunification with Northern Ireland. Our tour guide pointed out some of the oddities that crop into daily life as a result of the long term conflict with the English. One of these oddities is their scones and tea. The Irish like their scones and tea, but most places you are not able to get cream with them. Cream is considered British. Our guide is British and likes cream, and he’s been coming to this same stop for years. As a result, the owners like him, so he was able to round up some cream for the people that wanted it with their scones. Another oddity is the name of one of the ports in Northern Ireland. If you are English or from Northern Ireland, the port city is called Londonderry. If you are from the Republic of Ireland, they call it Derry as it was called before the English took over 700 years ago. If you think he’s joking, you’ll see both names on maps. Wen I was watching the Irish football game, it was on the Irish TV channel, and they did refer to a game in Derry.
We stopped for lunch in a small town. As the bus was stopping, our guide pointed out several places to eat. Tammy got off and made a bee line for the Blue Bull. That’s where the guide was going, so most of our group was following him. I kept trying to get Tammy to try something else, but there was no hope. Later I found out that she misread the name. Rather than Blue Bull, she read Blue Bell. We think the food was good. Most of us weren’t hungry, but when the bus stops you will eat. Knowing that I could miss a meal, I checked out the appetizer section and saw nachos. I always like to see different countries interpretation, so I ordered the nachos. For those that want to know, they weren’t bad – different, but not bad. They were the mounded style with good crunchy chips and a good mix of cheeses. The jalapenos were well flavored, and the hot sauce was good. I never would have thought to put black olives on nachos, but they work. The side tray with the hot sauce also had mustard and mayonnaise. Mustard works ok with nachos and the mayonnaise works pretty good with plain chips.
As we climbed into the mountains, we quickly ascended into the clouds. Whereas along the coast much of the roadway was lined with hedges and trees, now it was rocks and air with more tight turns. This made meeting opposing traffic even more interesting. We did learn that there was a gentleman’s agreement that all trucks and tour buses took the loop in the same direction. There were many spots that meeting an oncoming bus would mean someone was going to be backing a long distance. With that agreement, everything seemed to work out well. I was sitting in the aisle seat on the right side of the bus. Therefore, the opposing traffic was passing on my side of the bus. I could see them approach in the windshield, then they would disappear. I don’t know if we ran over all of them or if we had some form of ray gun that just vaporized them. Our guide was talking about the tight section to come, and he wasn’t kidding. As we dropped back into the trees, the road got extra twisty. Let’s just say it was twisty enough that two MINI’s would be careful if they met. We made it back to town.
The next activity was an hour long ride in a horse drawn carriage or Jaunty as the Irish call them. Tammy went straight for the comfy clothes and a dry bed while I was sent out to experience Ireland. The ride is through the park located across the road from our hotel. The park is 25000 acres and set aside for walking, horse carts, and horse back riding. The rain was not much more than a heavy mist, and the cart had a top and side curtains, so it was fine. I was a little surprised to see quite a few people walking the trails, but as far as the Irish are concerned, it was just another summer day. When I got back to the hotel Tammy was settled in for her late afternoon nap. I don’t know If I’ll get her out later or not.
Day 6 – Ring of Kerry
Day 7 – Cliffs of Mohr and Limerick
We left Killarney for the southwest corner of Ireland. First we took a ferry across the mouth of the Shannon river. We were scheduled on the 10:30 ferry, and the tour director had been begging us to be at the bus for a 9am departure. Wonder of wonders, we left 1 minute early. The drive was typically one hour, so we had a little extra for traffic. That was good as we got a delayed a little getting out of town. We rolled into the ferry landing at 10:15 and the ferry was waiting, so we drove straight on. As we shut down the bus, they pulled up the plank behind us, and we were off. If seems the 10am ferry was running late. Good catch, now we’ have a little extra time at the cliffs.
The Cliffs of Mohr are on the west coast of Ireland and are 200 meters high. If you scampered off the bus and hurried the 300 or 400 meters to the edge of the cliffs, you got some nice views before the next round of drizzle or clouds moved in. The cliffs made several quick appearances while we were there, so most people got to see them. They had a nice visitors center with pictures taken on clear days, so you didn’t have to spend the whole time outside. The viewing sites on the cliffs were a little sporty with the wind blowing 20 mph, the temperature at 60 degrees, and alternating in and out of clouds to keep things wet,
Then it was back in the bus for our driver to Limeric. The guide had given us a history lesson on the morning drive, so to change things up, he passed out sheets of paper and encouraged everyone to try their hand at writing a limeric. There was to be a contest near the end of the drive. I only remember one, because for the most part they were not worth remembering. The guys from California came up with:
There was a group from Texas
And all the men were sexist
The women got mad
and withheld what they had
until the men bought them Lexus
Dinner was at a restored castle in a medieval style. The food was good and the entertainment was a hoot. There were rules to follow and for the most part we did ok. Later in the evening it was announced that a fellow named Mike had been found guilty of looking at a fair maiden other than the one he brought. The announced punishment was to be having his eyes gouged out, his nose pushed in, and his ears cut off. The King (one of our travel mates) decided to commute the punishment to singing a song for our entertainment. Mike announced that he was English and his friends were Irish, so in their honor he sang “God Save the Queen.” Once you know the history, you know why the Irish were hooting so loud.
Tomorrow we’re off to Galway.
Day 8 – Galway and Cong
We got a new bus driver for 2 days. They have some silly rule about not letting a driver work for 14 days in a row. The replacement driver was the boss of our original driver, so we were tempted to give him a hard time. Our route took us through some of the roughest land in Ireland. When the English conquered the Irish in 1650 they confiscated all the land from the Catholics and gave it to English settlers except the part around Galway. It is on the Western part of the island, so the weather is at its worse, and the ground is rocky and rough. The English didn’t had no use for this land. As a result, the region around Galway is the home to most of the people who claim Irish as their first language (<10% of all Irish). The famine contributed to the decline of the Irish language, since the poor soil in this part of the island meant the conditions were at their worse. Therefore, the part of the island inhabited by the Irish was hit a lot harder by the famine. In other parts of the island the better soil could grow things other than the potato.
Memories are long in this part of the world. In Ireland, Irish is the first official language with English second. They teach Irish in all the public schools, but English is still the most widely spoken by a large margin. The concentration of Irish speakers around Galway is a result of the English treatment. To get back at the English in their own subtle way, the traffic signs around Galway are only in Irish. Everywhere else in Ireland, they are in both English and Irish.
The weather in Galway was typical summer day (20 knot winds and rain). Our guide gave us a brief tour around the park square turned us loose to be back on the bus in an hour and a half. It didn’t take us too long to decide a pub was a good idea. We chose a pub that dated from 1659. Our thinking was that any place that had lasted that long must have good food, and we were right. The big excitement in Galway was Tammy realizing she had lost a hearing aid as we were about to board the bus. Tammy says she thinks the hearing aid blew out of her ear. I would not want to admit that wind could blow in my left ear and blow the hearing aid out of my right ear. For the rest of the trip, I’ll need to be on her left if I want her to understand me.
An hour later we stopped in the village of Cong. It’s main claim to fame was that the John Wayne movie “The Quite Man” was filmed there. Well, it is also rumored to have the church where Christopher Columbus stopped to pray for setting sail to discover America. We were able to add some excitement to the local’s day when our driver needed to negotiate a right turn that I would have trouble getting a car around. Since it was the main intersection in town, all traffic stopped. This gave us a good audience. No one seemed to mind, and some locals came out of the bar to help watch the corners. I think we spent about 10 minutes working the bus back and forth. It might have been easier if it wasn’t also seriously down hill. We found a small place to eat that had hot chocolate and a lemon lime cheese cake that could pass for a decent Key Lime pie. We stopped in a Woolen store and I bought a flat hat to keep my head warm. It seems Tammy packed so much jewelery that I wasn’t allowed to bring a polar fleece. At least now my head will be warm.
Our guide has informed us that our hotel for the night will be one of the best (A/C and elevators). This raised a cheer from the bus. I don’t think they liked staying in the converted Nunnery that we had last night. We shall see.
Architectural Notes:
In almost every town and village you will see the ruins of a Catholic church. The ruins date from 1650 when Cromwell destroyed all the Catholic churches and outlawed the religion. The Irish have left the ruins in place rather than forget the past. It was 200 years before the Catholics were allowed to build new churches.
In the smaller villages and out in the country you will see the ruins of houses dating from the famine. I’ve seen different numbers, but the population of Ireland in 1850 was roughly 8 million. Over 1 million of those died and over 2.5 million immigrated, lowering the population to between 4 and 4.5 million. In other words, there were a lot of empty houses. Many have just been left. The population has remained virtually flat since then with immigration continuing to bleed off the young.
The Irish economy experienced a boom when they discovered low corporate taxes. This temporarily slowed the exodus of young people, and also gave the population more wealth. The Irish government came up with a program to buy farmers land and convert it to tracts for private homes. The land was sold at deeply discounted rates to allow people to build private homes. You’ll see a good number of these near the edge of towns. The funny thing we noted about these homes is the landscaping, or lack there of. The concrete foundation of the home extends out about 2 feet on all sides where we would have a flower bed. Then they use asphalt to cover as much of the property as they can. Even on a small lot you will have parking for 6 or 8 cars in front and more around back. They don’t have more than 1 or 2 cars. It appears that having some piece of ground that is not covered by growing stuff is so unusual in this country that it makes is desirable to have your entire lot paved.
Day 9 – Northern Ireland
As we left Londonderry, the sun made an appearance. In fact the entire afternoon was bright and sunny. Since we were following the coast, this made for some truly spectacular views.
Our next stop was at the Giant’s Causeway. A geologist will tell you the octagonal pilings of basalt were created by a volcano. The legend is much better. It seems there was a giant living in Ireland and another in Scotland. The giant in Ireland wanted to meet the Scottish giant, so he built a causeway between the two. The Scottish giant came walking across. As he got near Ireland, the Irish giant realized the Scottish giant was bigger and meaner looking than he thought, so he ran home and asked his wife for help. His wife dressed him as a baby and told him to pretend to be asleep. She then invited the Scottish giant in for a drink, but told him to be quite and not wake her child. The Scottish giant saw the Irish giant and decided he didn’t want to meet that baby’s father, so he ran back to Scotland tearing up the causeway to prevent the Irish giant’s father from crossing.
Our tour guide noted that a tour ship was docked, so the Giants’ Causeway was more crowded than he had seen in 20 years. Yes, there were people there, but I wouldn’t call it crowed by our standards. As we drove along the coast, our guide was explaining that the small towns were popular summer vacation spots for the Irish. He also pointed out the near absence of cars on the road. They just don’t know crowds in Ireland.
Tonight we’re staying in a hotel that has been added on to an old castle. One of the room is supposed to be haunted. We’ll see if we make it through the night.
We changed countries today. For those of you who didn’t listen to the evening news in the 70’s and 80’s, Northern Ireland is a part of the UK and not part of the Republic of Ireland. Today when you drive between them there is not even a sign at the border, however there are plenty of evidence that you are crossed over. You see the Union Jack flying from buildings. The distances on the street signs are in miles and not kilometers, and there is no Irish subtitles on the signs. We stopped in Londonderry if you are Protestant or Derry if you are Catholic. There we had a fantastic guide. His mother is Chinese, and his father is Irish, and in a country defined by whether you are Catholic or Protestant he is a Buddhist. He gave a very good talk on the history in the area while walking around the old city walls.
I learned several facts you may find interesting. For example, nine out of ten gas stations have closed in Londonderry. It seems gas is about 25% cheaper across the border in Ireland. Seriously, border access is a big question with the Brexit. The peace treaty that created the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland specifically prohibits any restriction to cross border traffic. When the UK leaves the EU, the EU border will be unmarked between Ireland and Northern Ireland. That’s one of those pesky details to be worked out.
Things are looking better as time passes. Our guide doubts the older generations will ever make peace, but the younger people have hope. It’s been 14 years since the cease fire was signed, so many of the children don’t know about the fighting first hand. He gave an example of leading a tour of school children recently. They were looking at a painting from the 70’s. In the background a woman was beating a trash can lid on the ground. This was the signal used to let the neighbors know the English army was coming. One of the kids asked why they didn’t use a cell phone.
Our bus parked in from of their city hall called the Guild Building. The building was very unusual for a city building. It was originally built for the Trade Guilds a long time ago. It had burned and been rebuilt, then the IRA blew it up a couple of times. They just rebuilt it again. It has beautiful staned glass windows and a full sized pipe organ. The main hall is rented out for occasions like weddings, and if you can play the organ, you are welcome to give it a go. The council chambers are at the end and fairly ordinary looking. The guy showing us around said the city council was not in session, so they had to heat the building.
Day 10 – On to Scotland
Along the way we stopped at the birth place of Robert Burns. They had what was supposedly his original house. I don’t think they had finished 2×6’s for the rafters back when the house was built. It’s possible that it has been refurbed more than a little. To tell you the truth, none of us really cared about Robert Burns, but it was a good lunch stop. The museum where we parked was also a short walk from the Bridge over the rive Doon (Brig a Doon for those of you that don’t speak Scotish).
An interesting side note on the walk back down to take pictures of the bridge was passing the local wedding. I got there in time to see the Bride and Groom leave the church. Outside they had a beautiful VW window van and a new Bentley. The Bride and Groom left in the VW and the Bentley drove off empty.
After our stop, Tammy was surprised with a birthday party. They had gotten enough chocolate cake for everyone to have a scrap, and Tammy had her own strawberry pie. Can you call it a pie if it is so small that one strawberry covers the entire top?
As soon as we got to the hotel a bunch of us headed for the bar to get dinner. Good move on our part as it filled quickly and the service was not the fastest. However, the food was good, so who’s to complain?
Next I made the trek across the main road to the ATM. It was not a difficult crossing. In some towns you might have to wait minutes to get a break in the traffic. In Drymen you have to wait minutes to see a car go by. If I haven’t told you about the money, it is a little funny. The Republic of Ireland uses Euros. Nothing unusual there. Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, so they (along with Scotland) use British Pounds. However, there is a wrinkle. The major banks are responsible for printing the money in the UK. If you get a pound in England, it will come from the Bank of England. In Northern Ireland and Scotland, you will not have heard of the banks. I just got Scottish pounds from the Clydesdale Bank. That’s all well and good, and they are all legal tender until you try to spend them. Since few people from Scotland go to Ireland, they will not recognize the money. As a result, many of the small shops will not accept pounds from Northern Ireland. Therefore, our guide told us to not get any (or as little as possible) money in Ireland. He even had pounds to loan us until we got to Scotland. Now I’m not worried, since whatever I have left goes to the driver and guide. It’s their problem to spend it outside of Scotland.
Out hotel for the night is “interesting.” It’s several hundred years old and has been added to and modified over the years. I have no idea how many turns we made to find our room. Those that stay in the bar too long are in for trouble. Not only are there lots of turns, the floors tend to lean in different directions, and the halls are covered in carpet made of Scottish tartan. I can only imagine that many a drunk has met his match in these halls. This is the last hotel where we will have a one night stand. We stay in both of the last ones for two nights. Well, that’s not completely true. Since we have a stupid early morning flight home, we will be leaving the hotel at 3am. That means bags out at 2am. Many of our group are talking about spending the night in the bar. We’ve got a few days before I have to worry about that.
I’m happy to report there were no ghost sitings last night. However, the new day was still something to worry about. It seems this is Tammy’s birthday, and we all know how well she deals with birthdays that end in a “0”.
We had a leisurely start with the bus departing at 9:30. It seems the ferry port was only a 15 minute drive, and we were scheduled for the 10:30 ferry. Check-in went well. The guide had informed us that there could be any level of checks from a head count to a full baggage and passport inspection. They opted for selecting 6 of the passengers and checking their carry on luggage. The selected people were escorted from the bus. They were all back in a few minutes, so on we went, and the bus was allowed on the ferry. The ferry was “busy” according to our guide, so we found seats for the duration and settled in.
Once in Scotland we began to notice the differences. The land looked more productive and fertile. In Ireland virtually the only thing we saw growing was hay. Right off the bat in Scotland we saw grain crops (don’t ask because I don’t know the difference). There also appeared to be more cattle or sheep per acre. We drove through the edge of Glasgow and it was obviously an Industrial town. Our guide said they didn’t stay in Glasgow because it wasn’t the pretty old city that Edinburgh is, and also because there is more crime in Glasgow. Glasgow is a factory town with more Catholic / Protestant problems than you have in Ireland. We drove on to a tiny town named Drymen.
Day 11 – Doune Castle and Scottish Highlands
We had a local Scottish guide for the morning and got a different view of the history. According to her after the Romans conquered England they built Hadrians wall because the Scots were too hard to conquer. Our English tour guide offered his view that the Romans just didn’t see any reason to conquer Scotland. I also learned the meaning of “Mary Queen of Scots.” I had always thought it was an abbreviation for “Mary Queen of Scotland”. It seems the Scottish considered their King or Queen to rule over all Scots where ever they may live. I also found it interesting that prior to the late 1700’s it was easier for the Scots to travel to Europe than to England. There were no roads and it was safer to go across to the mainland than down the coast. As a result, Scotland had a lot more in common with Europe than the people they shared an island with. Scotland even has a different legal system than England. One example she gave was that in Scotland there are three verdicts possible: guilty, not guilty, and not proven (not proven means everyone knows you did it, they just can’t prove it).
The lack of population in Scotland also makes it where the English go for a weekend drive. It is there version of Arkansas. So far we’ve seen a group of Porsche 356’s and Austin Healy 3000’s. There were other groups of older cars that I didn’t recognize (probably Austins and MG’s).
As we continued into the highlands it got noticeably cooler, and the rain was harder. We keep laughing that they consider this weather to be summer. Then they pointed out the yellow barriers that can be used to close the road in winter when it snows.
Architectural note: In Ireland you saw a few brightly painted houses, but nearly all the doors were bright colors. The English say that is to help the Irish recognize their own house after a night of drinking. Scotland takes after England in color choices. The houses, including doors and trim, are all various shades or gray and beige. The other thing Tammy noticed was that the Scottish did not have all of the bright flower baskets that she saw in Ireland. I believe the reason is that that they can not find many flowers with beige blooms.
We got a history lesson about how the monarchy of Scotland got combined with England. It seems one of the English Kings was raising his son Catholic. Since the King of England was also the head of the Church of England, Parliment did not think it would work to have a Catholic King, so he was exiled to France. A search for the next King found the King of Scotland to be the closest relative, and he gladly accepted. Let’s see King of a relative back water country or King of the most powerful country on earth? It’s been 350 years, and there are still people in Scotland that don’t like being a part of the UK. I know the Scottish voted to stay with England a year or two ago. I need to ask what our guide thinks the vote would be after England voted to leave the EU.
The Monty Python fans among you would recognize the Doune Castle from the Holy Grail movie. It’s also been used in Outlander and Game of Thrones. Everyone really liked the tour, since they had audio tapes that gave you a good idea how the people lived in the castle. Tammy made it up the spiral stairway to the great dining hall and the guest quarters. The guest quarters included a privy. However, Tammy had not listened to the tape yet and thought it was the port to pour boiling oil on the attackers. I guess boiling oil wasn’t the only way to keep people off your walls. I liked the kitchen. The fireplace gave you an idea of how much food might be prepared. The spit would be big enough to hold an entire ox. I think they said the entrance to the fire place was 14 feet wide, and I can attest it was well over 6 feet tall.
A funny thing happened on one of our leg stretching stops. There was a turn around at the bottom of the hill for the buses to drop off or pick up people. When we got there, a bus from Holland was parked in the middle of the turn around. As we were getting off I heard our driver telling the other driver to move. The other driver did not seem too interested in moving and he explained the car park was full, so he was staying where he was. We were only stopping for a few minutes to take a few pictures and stretch the legs. As we started loading back, the other driver decided to move his bus. Our driver had convinced him his bus was moving with our without a driver.
It was a long day, and we all got bus butt before we reached our hotel in Inverness. Inver is Scottish for river mouth, so we are staying in the town where the Ness river empties into the ocean. The Ness river comes out of the Ness Lake, so in the morning we’re going to take a boat ride to look for the Loch Ness Monster.
Day 12 – Loch Ness, Culloden, and Whisky
The next stop was an ancient burial site dating to around the same time as Stone Hinge. Think 40 to 50 foot circular mounds of stones with vertical stones outside in another ring. The mounds originally had stone roofs over a small central room and a entry that faced the rising sun on the winter solstice. There wasn’t a lot of info at the site, so we were left to our imagination.
Today was spent touring the sights around Inverness. We got up to a mostly cloudy morning with spots of sun and no rain. The interesting part was the wind. It was blowing at least 25 knots. Our first stop was a boat tour on Loch Ness, and several people opted to stay on dry land. The boat was a large enclosed cat with outdoor seating up top, so it was fine. There were pictures taken of Nessy, but I didn’t want to spoil the mystery for you. The fun thing about our boat ride was that it was the last one they ran. As we got off, the boat company decided not to let any more tourists try the gangplank, so they canceled all the tours for the rest of the day.
Then it was a few minutes down the road to visit the site of the Battle of Culloden. It would be equivalent to our Gettysburg. Let’s see how much of my English and Scottish history I can get right. Bonny Prince Charles was the son of the deposed King (James I think) that ruled over both England and Scotland. Bonny Prince Charles had been exiled to France and had been told his whole life that he should have been king. The French seized a good opportunity and told Prince Charles they would back his efforts to reclaim the crown. You see, France was at war with Britain and knew a Scottish rebellion would be good for their cause.
Bonny Prince Charles was returned to the West coast of Scotland where he began raising an army from the Highlanders. His forces would be called the Jacobites after the French version of his name. He then marched south and began having his way with the English. Apparently the Highlanders are rather fearless in battle. It also helped that the English had moved a good bit of their forces to protect against an invasion from Wales. (The English intelligence said the Jacobites would be attacking London by way of Wales). The Jacobites got to within 100 miles of a rather undefended London before their supply lines grew too long. First mistake – over extending the supply lines. Second mistake – going back toward the Scottish Highlands and giving the English time to regroup.
Both armies made it up to the Inverness area. Bonny Prince Charles then got real stupid. He decided to over rule his advisers and have a battle on open ground against the English. He was outnumbered 2-to-1 and the British had the best trained army in the world. What could go wrong? All of his generals told him it was suicide, and in a compromise he decided to make a surprise attack at night. Third mistake – Don’t march your army at night through boggy land. Morning came and he still hadn’t managed to attack the British, but he had managed to exhaust his troops and get some lost. Fourth mistake – When a plan proves to be bad, don’t stick with it. He still had time to disappear into the surrounding mountains, but he formed up and attacked a little after noon. The battle lasted less than an hour and the Jacobites lost in a really big way. That was the end of the Scottish uprising.
They had a very nice museum at the site, and I really liked the was they had done the battle field. They had flag poles showing where the various forces had been staged. There were red flags for the British and Blue for the Scots. The Scots advanced on the British lines, so the actual fighting took place near the red flags. This gave you a chance to stand in the middle of the battle field and visualize what happened. This battle occurred about 20 years before we declared our independence. Someone on our side had studied history and knew it would be a good idea to hide behind the trees and rocks.
Our last stop was at the Glen Ord distillery, and you might be able to guess what they distil around here. Glen Ord has three distilleries and the one we visited is dedicated for exports to Asia. One of the other plants supplies Europe and the third does North America under the Singleton name. The different regions have different tastes, so this makes a lot of sense. It was the standard tour and tasting. Tammy is not good with accents, and our guide was definitely raised in Scotland, so Tammy didn’t understand much of the tour. However, Tammy does understand tasting, and she does not like Whisky. Therefore, she did the wifely thing and gave me her samples. Then when someone asked and our guide snuck out the 18 year old bottle for a second round, Tammy managed to get me a sample of that also. I had a very nice tour.
An interesting story we heard from our guide dealt with moving the cattle to market before roads and railways. As in America, they had cattle drives. The distance was roughly 200 miles from the highlands to the market. There were professional drovers that moved the cattle, since any given farmer might only have 1 or 2 head to take to market. Of course they used Border Collies to help them herd the cattle. Money was a rare commodity, so the drovers took the cattle and set off on speculation. They stopped at inns along the way to rest and get something to eat for themselves and their dogs, promising to pay on the way home. When they got to market they sent the dogs home, and the dogs were smart enough to find their way home all 200 miles. The dogs would even stop at the same inns for food. After the drovers got paid, they headed home, stopping at the inns to settle their bills for themselves and their dogs.
Tomorrow is a long day. Our bags are out at 7:30. We drive to Edinburgh with a couple of stops on the way. Then our tickets to the Tatoo are at 9pm. You may not hear from me for a while.
The next stop was a chance to see the Saint Andrew’s golf club. Like our guide said, if you are into golf, our one hour stop would be three and a half hours too short. If you are not into golf, then the stop was 50 minutes too long. It is amazing to watch people tee off and play a course that people have been playing for 600 years. However, why anyone would want to play golf in that climate is incomprehensible.
Days 13 & 14 – Edinburgh
Day 13 was a full day. It was a long way to Edinburgh with a couple of stops to break it up, and of course we got to eat lunch. We came down through a different path through the highlands than we went up. The scenery was more open and the road was better. The first blooms were showing on the heather, so they will be in full glory next week. I guess we’ll have to settle for post card photos.
The first stop was Blair castle. This castle was a place to live and not a defensive castle. Construction started in the 1100’s, and it was occupied until one generation ago. The last Duke living their had no heirs, so they researched the family tree to find the closest relative to inherit the place. He was found in South Africa, and had never heard of the family. It really was a case of the knock on the door, and wham you are a duke with a castle and 15000 acres of land. The castle was amazing. The only bad thing was that they didn’t allow pictures except in the main hall.
The entry hall may contain decorations worth more than my house. They had so many early muskets that they used them to form designs on the walls, and the walls were probably 30 feet high. There were also the swords, daggers, and bayonets. We were informed that every November all of the wall decorations were removed, cleaned, oiled, and rehung. Most of the rooms of the main building were decorated to maybe the 1700’s. There were other buildings that I believe would have held the more modern rooms.
We eventually made Edinburgh, and got to marvel at our driver navigating the bus through the festival clogged city. It seems every August Edinburgh has an arts festival that runs all month. Some of the down town streets are closed for street fairs with the population of the town doubles from it’s normal 500,000. We had a couple of hours at the hotel to rest before heading out for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The show started at 9pm. We already had a weather forecast, so I spent my free time finding a sweatshirt to add to my clothing. Tammy had found a blanket earlier. Before the show was over, we were both happy with our purchases. Our bus delivered us to within about a half mile of the entrance. They had a side street blocked off and were parking buses 4 abreast the length of the street. Our guide walked us up close to the entrance and made us all imprint several landmarks to find our way back to the bus. As you got close, the crowd became solid. It looked totally insane, but there were lots of workers with orange vests guiding the crowd. Before long your bags had been checked and your ticket scanned and you were on the parade grounds. Then it was a simple matter of climbing about a million steps up the viewing stands. The stands were so steep that the views were great, but that meant they were steep.
The show was really good. It started with a bagpipe and drum band. There were 200 bagpipes, so I’ll leave the sound to your imagination. I liked the girl’s marching team from New Zealand. They did some of the most complex marching moves I’ve ever seen, and their precision was excellent. When they started doing the moves backwards, I was impressed. Tammy liked the kids on motorcycles doing the patterns and riding with pyramids of kids on the bikes. With colored lights and projecting scenes against the walls of the Edinburgh Castle at the end of the parade ground, it was a well produced show. One detail that made it really special was the weather. It was cold (<10C), but we got to see the first show of the year that did not include rain.
We got back to the hotel close to midnight to finish off a long day.
After getting to bed late, the bus didn’t leave until 9:30 the next morning for our tour of the Edinburgh castle. With all of the people in town for the festival there was a real crowd. We took a look in a couple of buildings and gave up. Next we were off to see the Royal Yacht Brittania. When I realized the yacht was only one year newer than me, I could identify with it. After taking a break in the tea room, we had to rush through and skip the engine room in order to meet the bus on time. We made it with 2 minutes to spare. However, one couple from our group did not make it. It’s a long story, but we ended up leaving them.
Back at the hotel, Tammy got a nap while I headed out to find a coffee mug from Scotland. Then we all met for our last dinner out. The restaurant was very nice, and everyone had a great time. I think some of the locals weren’t totally thrilled with that group of Texans toasting each other, but we didn’t care.
The next morning our bus left the hotel at 3:30 to take us to the airport and begin our trip home. More than half of our group had booked our flights though the travel agent that booked the tour (cheaper than we could get). We left Edinburgh at 6am with stops in Amsterdam and Detroit to get us home in time for dinner. We had a bus waiting at the airport to take us back to the Ranch. It wasn’t long after we got home before Tammy was in bed.
Everyone I talked to thought the trip was a real success. Of course there were details that weren’t perfect, but the group just rolled with the punches and had a great time. By the end we were all ready to go home and plan our next trip.