dublin airport

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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