Tuesday: Dalkey

 

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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Friday: St. Andrews

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We took an early train to St. Andrews this morning, a one-hour trip from Edinburgh. we changed to a bus at Leuchars, the closest train station to our destination, for a 15-minute ride to St. Andrews. No matter, it was all easy and a smooth trip.

We had arranged for a walking tour of the city and that turned out to be a great idea. The tour guide was a well prepared college student and shared all sorts of facts and information about places we walked past: university buildings, ancient half-destroyed castles, unsettling sites of beheadings and witch killings centuries ago, Victorian swimming pools, and what is left of an ancient cathedral. It was a worthwhile two hours, with just us and another person on the tour.

Serendipity – the Alfred Dunhill Golf Tournament is going on this weekend and it’s free every day but Sunday, the finals. So we walked back to that after our tour and after a fish-and-chips lunch in a busy pub. We walked around at the tournament for about an hour but it was raining, often heavily, and it got to be too much. We walked back to the bus station and took a bus to the train, and got back to Edinburgh at about 4:30. We relaxed in the busy hotel lounge when we got back.

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Wednesday: Edinburgh

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[the toast trolley on the train]

We left London on a 10am train an to Edinburgh. The ride was a little over four hours, past fields and fields of grazing horses, sheep, and cows, plus quite a few perfectly rectangular farms.

We had lunch on board the train (cannelloni for me, fish cakes for husband) and I spent most of my time reading. It was very pleasant.

We checked into our hotel and then walked around the neighborhood a bit before having dinner at a small Italian restaurant. It was a good choice. Tomorrow we will see what we can discover here in this very old city.

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