Month: October 2019

Friday: Clermont-Ferrand

Posted on by Susan

We drove from Saint Emilion to Clermont-Ferrand today, about a four-hour trip. We had such a nice stay in Saint-Emilion and now have bottles of wine to enjoy for the rremainder of our trip.

We stopped at about 12:30 for lunch at a place I discovered online: Chez Juju. It was the only restaurant around and we had to drive along narrow roads to get there.

When we finally arrived we saw it was a very cute place, but just eight tables, all full. The owner said we could wait, which we decided to do since we had no alternative. There was nothing at all around.

We soon got a table and enjoyed a delicious lunch. The owner serves everyone the same lunch fare and changes it each day. Today: pate and salad; chicken, rice, cauliflower; cheese; walnut cake. plus house wine. It was a nice treat.

We continued on to our destination, an old city with breathtaking views, inactive volcanoes, a university, and lots to see. We will do all that tomorrow.


photos: all beautiful cows, all we saw today while driving.

Wednesday/Thursday: Saint-Emilion

Posted on by Susan

Our castle room is fantastic! What a lucky find on Airbnb.

Our hosts, Annick and Pierre, run the vineyard here and it has been in the family for four generations – five now that their son is out of college and actively working in the business.

We enjoyed a tour of their impressive wine-making operation where wine is still made traditionally – quite a tedious process from what we observed. Some of their equipment, like the numbered vats where the wine ferments – were made in the late 1800s. They produce about 45,000 bottles of wine annually. We tried some from 2016, 15, and 14, and liked it a lot. Yes, of course we got a few bottles to take with us.

Our small room in the castle is almost unbelievable, with ancient stone walls and very old solid wood furniture. It is much warmer here than in Ireland but the castle is probably naturally cool all the time. (It does not have wifi or television, and electrical outlets are scarce.)

Annick dropped off a fresh baguette and her own jam this morning and I met up with her after my run into town. (I thought I had woken up just before 7am, but with the time change it was actually an hour later. I guess I was tired after our long drive yesterday.) She is a schoolteacher and told me kids have school from 8-5 just four days a week, off on Wednesday.

We explored Saint-Emilion, full of many wine shops, cheese shops, and plenty of restaurants. The streets are very narrow and ancient, and sometimes tricky to walk on with their sharp, jutting rocks. It is beautiful and charming to walk around and very interesting to drive around. Grapes are harvested this time of year and workers are in the vineyards getting the job done.

photos: above – the door to our castle room.

below – wine vats from the 1800s, still used

bottles of wine produced by the vineyard

Tuesday: Bordeaux

Posted on by Susan

We had an early flight to Paris this morning, so were on the hotel shuttle to the airport at 4:30. The shuttle runs 24/7, about every 25 minutes. I was glad we just had a five- minute wait.

The Dublin airport was wide awake even if we weren’t, and we got to our flight and on to Charles de Gaulle airport quickly (or maybe it seemed that way since we mostly slept for the 90-minutes).

Once through French immigration, customs and baggage claim, we figured out how to get the leased car from Citroen we will use to drive around France and beyond. We set off for Bordeaux, six hours from the airport, during a rainstorm.

We finally made it to our destination. After our hosts greeted us, I took a quick picture of our castle lodging before we set off for dinner. Long day and we are very hungry.

photos: dinner in Bordeaux

the castle where we are staying.

vineyards as we drove

Monday: Athlone

Posted on by Susan

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Today was partially a travel day. We left Galway in mid-morning to drive to Dublin airport and drop off our rental car.

(I haven’t mentioned how handy it is to have brought an older phone with us to which we added a EuroSIM card. We can easily figure out where we are going when we are walking around towns.)

We stopped in Athlone – a nice little city – and got some laundry done and (yippee) I got my hair cut a few doors away while we were waiting. Those bits of housekeeping accomplished, we continued on to the airport. We dropped off the car (We wouldn’t rent a car in the UK again. Driving is too stressful) walked to the hotel shuttle (no easy feat with bags of clean clothing to carry, until we rearrange suitcases) and made it to our hotel where we are now in its restaurant.

Tomorrow we fly to France.

photos: Athlone, a pretty city on the east bank of the River Shannon.

A busy Monday at the laundry. Still, we got squeezed in. ” I don’t want you leaving Ireland with dirty clothes,”  said the kind woman in Suds. 

 

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Sunday: Galway

Posted on by Susan

We spent the day in Galway, our first warm, sunny day in about a week. What a pleasure to be outdoors without an umbrella.

Once we lucked into a parking space, we were in great shape. We walked all around the city for most of the day. Since it is Sunday, many stores were not open, but we enjoyed strolling through the pedestrian walkways, seeing some street performers, stopping for coffee, and spending time in the fantastic Charlie Byrnes bookstore. Wow, I could have spent hours there – there are hundreds of thousands of books. I bought just one.


photos: above – cappuccino stop

below: Just a small fraction of the bookshelves at Charlie Byrnes bookstore.

The University of Ireland, Galway raises funds for their rowing team today

Saturday: Cliffs of Moher

Posted on by Susan

It was a wet, wet, wet day to visit the Cliffs, but since we are just in the area today, we went anyway.

The 45-minute drive there was pretty, as all drives around Ireland have tended to be. As we got closer, we saw more than a few large coach tour-buses. I guess rain won’t stop anyone’s plans.

There’s a short walk from the parking lot to the cliffs, and it gets more amazing with every step. We walked up the slick staircase to get the best look we could, but there were no puffins out today. Nor were there any other sea birds or the wild goats I had read about.

The cliffs themselves are fantastic, and I’m sure they could be unbelievable on a sunny day. The rain continued. We watched a short film at the visitors center and eventually left.

We had planned to have lunch at a nearby town, but it was deluged with tour buses so we kept driving and found a pub about a half- hour away. The sun came out at the end of the day and our Saturday was complete.


photos: a rainy, foggy day at the Cliffs.

Friday: Ennis

Posted on by Susan

We left Wexford after breakfast this morning and set off for Ennis, about an hour from Galway and 40 minutes from the Cliffs of Moher.
Ireland has so many roundabouts which come up sometimes one after another. Still, the drive went well and we stayed on course.

We stopped along the way for tea and a snack, and enjoyed the beautiful countryside, green and often full of grazing animals.

We arrived here at about 3:30 and had lunch. I was happy to go for a swim in the nice (but hot) pool.

Tomorrow we will check out the Cliffs of Moher.


photos: above – the golf course near our hotel.

below: the hotel (and town) pool, well used by I was the only one in my lap lane.

animals grazing throughout the countryside

Thursday: Wexford

Posted on by Susan

With Hurricane Lorenzo threatening rain and wind today, it wasn’t the best day to go to the Wildfowl Reserve, but we aren’t in Wexford long so we seized the moment anyway.

We had an interesting drive on some back roads – small houses set close to the road, huge houses behind gates and then the reserve at the end of a dirt road.

It was much too cold to take any of the hikes they had mapped out but we could see birds from the observation tower. There was a class of adorable school children in the tower too, and they were fun to interact with a bit.

We eventually left and went into the town of Wexford, where finding a parking space is no joke. We did, then walked around a bit in the cold rain. The rain and wind got worse throughout the afternoon as the storm made its way to our part of the country.

We had a delicious dinner at the hotel and planned for our drive to near Galway tomorrow.

photos: Hurricane preparedness while we were out of our room today.

below: a view from the tower. bird looking for food at low tide

Wednesday: Wexford

Posted on by Susan

We left behind the bustling city of Dublin this morning and took a bus to the airport to pick up a rental car. We were surprised to queue up behind at least fifty other people, but 90 minutes later we had our car and drove to Wexford, a river city almost two hours away.

Sitting on the righthand side of the car and driving on the British side of the road were a challenge for sure (not for me, I sat on the left) and making a right turn takes some practice, but all is well and we made it here.

With Hurricane Lorenzo threatening very bad weather tomorrow, I am glad we are in a comfortable quiet place, with a lap pool and full gym that looks pretty deluxe if we are hotel-bound tomorrow. If it turns out to be a decent day after all, we will explore this very old and beautiful city.

photos: top – the tables and chairs are off the hotel restaurant’s back deck as they prepare for Thursday’s storm.

bottom: the noisy, busy nighttime streets of Dublin

The River Slaney in Wexford, Ireland

Tuesday: Dalkey

Posted on by Susan

 

20191001_132526This morning’s weather was rainy, windy, cold, and generally miserable. We still followed through with our plan to go to Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin that is about a half-hour train ride from Dublin.

My cousin lives there (she is in the U.S. for a few weeks so we had to change our plans to spend a few days there this week) and so does Van Morrison, Bono, Sinead O’Connor, and some other interesting people. Dalkey is a charming city and even though we were not going to stay there, it was still worth checking out.

Or was it?

The walk to the Dublin train station was a bit of a struggle with the wind but we got there eventually and didn’t have to wait long for a train.

Once in Dalkey, it seemed to be even colder, windier, and it continued to rain as we walked into town.

We were content to sit in a warm, dry coffee shop for a while and then left and tried to enjoy the shops on the main street.

Eventually we had some delicious seafood chowder and decided to go back to Dublin. It was not the best day to visit Dalkey. The train on the way back was delayed for an hour because of the weather and I was grateful we were sitting in it rather than waiting on the platform.

Eventually we realized that the train we were on aas not going to our intended destination, so we got off and waited for another one – frustrating.

We walked back to our hotel and have a fun dinner with our Ireland-based niece near where we are staying. This salvaged our otherwise cold day.

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