Cotswolds and N. Wales

We had another free weekend in England (which conveniently happened to be 5 days before our 4th anniversary), so we booked a few B&Bs, rented a car, and headed north.

Friday, July 10th - Cotswolds

The Cotswolds is a loosely bordered area an hour or so from London where all the Londoners go for a weekend break. If you had to pick one word to describe it, it would be "quaint". When you think of English country villages, the picture that comes to mind was taken in the Cotswolds.

I left work early on Friday and we made our first stop at Blenheim Palace. This is a giant house and gardens built by the king for the 1st Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill. He earned his fortune and title by winning some key battles for England back around the 1700s. Since then, the home has passed down through the family, who have squandered what was once a ridiculous fortune, to where now the 11th Duke lives in the East Wing and rents the rest to tourists who want to have a look.

The palace was nice, especially the gardens. Not as nice as some that we've seen, and bit on the expensive side (especially knowing that at least some of the money went to fund the lavish lifestyle of the guy living down the hall). The most interesting part is the connection to Sir Winston Churchill. He was in the bloodline of the original Duke, though not a direct heir. He had a huge connection to the place - he was actually born there when his parents were at a Christmas party and she went into early labor. He got engaged and married there, spent several holidays visiting his cousin the Duke there, and is now buried on the grounds.

After leaving the palace, we headed to our B&B in Stow-on-the Wold. It was a nice little place called Tall Trees Stow that was a working farm, complete with chickens, horses, a rabbit, and a black lab. We walked through the little town, peeking into all the windows of the small shops that had closed earlier in the evening. The shops were heavy on the antiques and hand-made woolen attire, which added to the quaintness. There was even a candy shop with the window full of old-timey candy jars filled to the brim with delightful goodies (it was a good thing this one was closed).

After checking out the town, we had dinner in a local pub and headed back to the B&B to call it a night.

Saturday, July 11th - More Cotswolds

Saturday was mainly spent driving around the area. There are tons of little towns throughout the area, so we drove from town to town, walking around a few of the towns and stopping off at a few of the sites. It was really nice to see the country. It is a completely different side of England from what you see in big-city London. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Cotswold Farm Park - basically a petting zoo. They have dedicated themselves to protecting rare breeds, so they apparently have a lot of goats and sheep and chickens that are in danger of extinction. They pretty much all looked like goats and sheep and chickens all the same. It was very hands on, so we got to pet some piglets and rabbits and of course the goats. The best part was when Jenna was holding a baby chick, and her giant smile turned quickly to frown as the bird relieved itself in her palm!!

• Snowshill Lavender - An enormous field of lavender. Purple everywhere. I think the point is that you frolic through the fields. I wasn't much for frolicing, and Jenna was slightly afraid of the thousands of bees, so we probably didn't take full advantage.

• Stratford-Upon-Avon - Birthplace and sometimes home of William Shakespeare. We visited his birthplace (although there were lots of, "we thinks", so who knows). We walked around the town, which was nice aside from the thousands of other tourists. Probably good for the hard core fans of the poet, but if you're looking for a nice town to visit, the others in the Cotswolds are much better.

North Wales - Saturday and Sunday, July 11-12

I'm not sure how to describe Wales. It is sort of a country, except that its not. It is a separate territory within the UK, but they have no separate government or anything. Anyway, it is on the West coast of the country, in the central section.

We drove up on Saturday evening and got to the town of Ruthin in time to make our reservations for a medieval dinner. The town's castle was converted into a fancy hotel, and the restaurant puts on a dinner show a couple of times a week. The grub was similar to what you'd find at Medieval Times, but the venue is much smaller, like a small banquet hall would have been in the original castle. They then put on a somewhat silly "murder mystery" show. In all it was about what you'd expect - overpriced but a lot of fun.

Sunday morning we enjoyed a good breakfast at grandma's B&B. This B&B was outside of the town and we could tell that not many people drop by. The couple running it had grandkids just younger than us, and since we were the only ones there it really felt like we were visiting the grandparents for the weekend.

The rest of the day was spent driving around to a few of the main towns in North Wales, which has nice scenery and the greatest concentration of castles in the UK. Again, here's the highlights:

• Conwy town and Castle - We had a few problems getting our bearings here, and we got lost finding our way, but eventually we made it into the town. It was a small town with a castle built by the King of England to suppress uprisings in the newly conquered Wales (like most of the castles here). We enjoyed walking around and seeing the small shops. The castle was nice but mostly ruined. Our favorite place was the official smallest house in Great Britain. It was outrageously small, literally having enough room for a bed in the loft and a sink and bench seat in the entrance.

• Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - No, that is not a typo. Those 58 letters (including 4 "L's" in a row) make up the longest town name in Europe (in Welsh), and we've been there and taken a picture of the sign. The translation is actually about 23 words, and was given the name just so that it could get the title, but I guess it got us to visit. Interestingly - the longest named town in the world is 163 letters, and is in Thailand.

• Caernarfon Castle - This is the biggest castle in the area, and was built as a palace for the King of England when he visited. Apparently due to a lack of money, it was never completed, so there are stones jutting out from walls that were originally designed to be a full wall, that was just never finished. This place is famous for the place where the final agreement between the English and the Welsh took place, as the King agreed that if they'd quit fighting, he'd give them a prince that was born in Wales and spoke no English. The idea was that he would speak Welsh instead (which was important to them), but as the story goes, the King brought his wife there to give birth, held him up and said, "Here is my Welsh-born son, and as I promised, he speaks no English". He soon after took his family back to England to raise the prince. Anyway, the "deal" has stuck, and generally the heir is given the title "Prince of Wales" and is given his entitlement at this castle. There is also a round platform on the castle grounds where Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales.

We had a long drive back to London, so we flipped on the UK Top 40 (very Michael Jackson heavy at the time) and made our way home.

June - Theatre Month

The West End theatre district of London is arguably as famous as Broadway. We've seen a few shows off and on since we've been here, but we'd been saving a few of the main ones, and decided that the summer was the perfect time. We ended up going to 3 during the month of June, all of which were excellent.

June 3rd - Oliver!

I read Oliver Twist by the great Mr. Dickens (who is an English national hero, by the way), a little more than a year ago. They've been playing the musical version here for a while, but around Christmas the lead role (which in the play version is not Oliver) was taken over by Rowan Atkinson. Yes, that's Mr. Bean. Since I enjoyed the book and we thought it would be funny to see him. We had to go.

Jenna started reading the book about 3 days before the show. She was able to finish it during the intermission, and she really loved it.

Unfortunately, the show diverges significantly from the book. For one, they have to focus on the adult roles a little more because otherwise they'd have to put more pressure on the child actors, who by law have to rotate nightly, and talent is probably not as good. Worse, though, is that they changed the story line to be more about the redemption of the bad guys than about the triumph of young Oliver. That was kind of disappointing, but in all it was still a pretty enjoyable show, and we got a good laugh out of a few of the Bean-isms.

June 9th - Mama Mia!

You can guess who wanted to go see this one.

We went just a few days after seeing Oliver. The theatre was newer (or at least more recently renovated) so the seats had better leg room and were more comfortable. Also, our seats were a little better, so the experience in general was a little better from the beginning.

One good thing about seeing this musical is that the Brits love it. It was fun to see everyone, men, women and children singing along.

The music was very good. I knew a few songs, and since Jenna had seen the recent movie she pretty much knew them all, so that was nice. From what she tells me, the main guy was significantly better than Pierce Brosnan. Probably not something I'd go back to, although I think Jenna is hoping to go again either with friends here in town or with my Mom when she comes over.

June 28th - Romeo and Juliet

In case you didn't know, here is a history lesson: Shakespeare was a genius. He was smart enough to write plays that appealed to both the upper and lower classes, but then he also built a theatre that was the perfect to display them. The Globe Theatre was unique in its time, having a large standing room only section that ran straight up to the stage, and then theatre style seats along the outside.

(note: this photo was stolen from Eric and Anne. Our seats were down in the corner, and their pictures came out a lot better - although since I stole it offline, it is a little pixel-y)

The original Globe burned down in one of the many great fires that London has seen, but was rebuilt in the recent past. You can visit year round, but in the summer plays are put on by the Royal Shakespeare Academy (which is where a many famous Brit actors got their start, including Colin Firth, Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, Jude Law, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons, and Patrick Stewart).

We booked tickets to Romeo and Juliet because we figured we knew that story well, while with other plays we'd probably lose a lot in the translation. We got actual seats rather than the standing room section, which we were really glad about when it started pouring rain (like in Will's day, it is open air).

The play was very good. We were able to follow along perfectly, although since there were no microphones we did miss a few things, which made us glad we didn't pick a different show. A few interesting points - The female roles were played by women, not men like they would have originally been. Juliet, who in the play was 13, was perfectly cast, because all though she was an adult, she looked like she was about, well, 13. Lastly, the Montague parents were both white, but Romeo was black, so I thought daddy should have been asking a few questions.

We had a great time seeing all of these shows. Just one more reason to love this city! We plan to see a few more shows before we go (Wicked and Billy Elliot are definites on the list), but we were happy to take a month to see these few!!!

Ireland Part Two - Countryside

This is the second and final post about our 6 day trip to Ireland. Start at Part One for info on Northern Ireland, Belfast, and Dublin.

Saturday, June 20th - Dublin to Cork

After a terrible night's sleep in our hostel, we packed up our bags and headed for Avis to pick up our second car of the week. We plugged in one of our Irish Cd's (we got 5, mostly full of traditional tunes, and we listened to these throughout the trip, so much so that we were singing along by the end) and set off. We got some great directions from the lady at Avis (when she said "Turn when the road comes to a 'T'", what she apparently meant was "If you don't turn at this intersection, you'll be headed the wrong way down a one-way street". Needless to say, her idea of a 'T' is very different from ours). Luckily, we had paid a little extra for the GPS (named Nora the Navigator by Jenna), which got us back on track pretty quickly.



Our first stop out of Dublin was the Powerscourt Gardens just south of the city. These gardens are outside a one-time palace (now turned into a museum and shops) and is very similar to some of the palatial gardens we've seen elsewhere in Europe. These are famous because 1) they are some of the only gardens like this in Ireland, and 2) they are thought of as the last great gardens built in Europe. They were very nice, containing trees and flowers from all over the world, including a Japanese Garden. As you look at the pictures you may think it looks familiar, as the recent version of The Count of Monte Cristo was filmed here.

We left the gardens and headed southwest through the Wicklow mountains. This area was one of the least green areas we saw in the country, but the landscape was interesting none the less. There were some great views over lakes and rivers, mountains, and thousands of sheep, and as this is a lightly traveled road, we had it mostly to ourselves to enjoy (which was probably good considering how narrow the roads were!).

Our destination after coming through the mountains was the Rock of Cashel, a ruined castle/cathedral near the south-central part of the country, the furthest inland we made it. This was originally built by a Celtic clan several hundred years ago, and traded hands and expanded through the years as it was fought over in tribal wars. The fighting was finally put to a stop when one of the winners got wise and donated it to the Church, where they built a large cathedral and created a large cemetery. High winds and rain in the area caused the castle to fall into disrepair, and as it lost strategic significance when castles became obsolete, it became abandoned and mostly fell apart. It was an interesting place to see - it overlooked some scenic farmland and especially interesting was the cemetery. It was filled with Celtic crosses, which Jenna likes a lot. Apparently, these became popular in Ireland because the circle behind the cross symbolized the sun that most of the local pagans were used to worshiping already, so it was more familiar. Also interesting was the fact that although the castle is in complete ruins, the cemetery still has a few open plots. But you can only be buried there if your great-grandparents are buried there and they signed up for a family plot.

After leaving the Rock of Cashel, we headed south to Cork. We made a quick stop in the port town of Kinsale, just outside Cork, which was suggested for a visit by both our 1,000 Things book and our Rick Steve's guide. Cork is the main city on the south coast where a majority of the immigrants who ended up at Ellis Island departed from. Although most of the ships left from the nearby port of Cobh. Kinsale is supposed to be a nicer town, so we visited there. We actually wouldn't recommend it for a short visit (we were there just an hour or so). There are a few things to see like a large fort and there is supposed to be some good live music later in the evening, but we didn't have time for those, so for us the town wasn't too impressive. After walking around the town and the bay/marina, we headed to our B&B in Blarney, also just outside Cork, where we grabbed dinner and dessert (my first banana split in years!) at a local pub before hitting the hay.

Sunday, June 21st - Cork to Dingle - The Ring of Kerry and Pub Music

On Sunday morning, we enjoyed our first traditional meal at the B&B - Full Irish Breakfast for Aaron which consisted of ham, eggs, sausage, and black pudding (dried pig blood mixed with oatmeal - tastes like sausage but still makes queasy because you know what's in there); A vegetarian omelet for Jenna (cheese on the inside, tomatoes placed nicely on top). On our way out of town, we stopped at Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone. We had decided way before hand that we would not be kissing the stone. For one, it is pretty expensive to go in, and the castle itself is not supposed to be too nice. Secondly, if you want a picture of yourself kissing it, you have to pay for the one they take and print - none of your own photography. Lastly, and probably the deciding factor, kissing the stone is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, drawing some 500,000 people per year. Since most of those come "in season" from May to September, there are literally thousands of people who put their slobbery mouths on it every day, which is really just gross. Anyway, we'd hoped to just drive by and get a good picture of the castle and say we'd at least seen it. As it turns out, it is hidden away in the woods off from the roads and parking lots, so that was a big bust.

We left town and headed for Killarney, a large town near the Ring of Kerry. Just outside of the town is the Killarney National Park, which from what we hear is a major stop for Americans, but not for other tourists. Not sure what everyone else's problem is, because it was awesome. The park sits on a huge lake and is surrounded by trees and hills. We were able to stop off at several points to see some waterfalls and some amazing views over the countryside. Just how green this area is is hard to believe. The namesake as The Emerald Isle is well deserved. After getting through the park, we started out on the Ring of Kerry.

The Ring of Kerry is a road all along the coast of a peninsula in County Kerry. It is a must do for all tourists making their way through the area. We started out later in the day, around noon, which isn't advisable because of the number of tour buses that clog the very narrow roads in the afternoon. The buses have the right of way, and take up more than half the road, so you have to just pull off to the side. We passed 16 in the first hour, then just another three the rest of the day (they mostly all leave at the same time in the morning, so you hit them in a pack). There were several stops along the Ring, including several 1000 year old forts, some amazing views of sea, mountains, green grass, sheep, cows, and a few beaches. We were surprised by the number of beaches that we found in Ireland - there were 4-5 that we saw - all of which were way too cold to swim in, but provided a nice view none the less. We even stopped for some afternoon tea and scones, which were delicious!

We finished up the Ring by about 6pm, and headed off to our next B&B in Dingle, the main town on the nearby Dingle peninsula. Dingle is famous for its pub music - it has at least 18 different pubs and nearly all of them have live music during the tourist season, and some of the better ones have it year round. Our B&B hostess gave us a suggestion of a good pub for food and music, so we headed off there for what turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip. The food was decent but forgettable, but the two musicians who played were great. They played a lot of traditional songs -probably the more popular ones since we recognized a few from our cd's - but it was a lot of fun. Several locals were here as well (although the majority were tourists) and they were singing along. We definitely got into it, singing along when we could and just taking it in when we couldn't. This was a true highlight of Ireland.

Monday, June 21st - Dingle to Ennis

This was a fairly light day. To start, we enjoyed an amazing breakfast from the B&B - the Milestone House. The Dingle Peninsula is very scenic, much like the Ring of Kerry, so we chatted with the B&B owners for a while about the best things to do. They were amazing, giving us some great advice on places to stop along the way. They also suggested a scenic hike for us to take along some cliffs. If you are ever in the area, we definitely suggest this place!

We started out on a drive around the Peninsula. It was very similar to the Ring of Kerry, only quite a bit shorter and much less crowded. We saw some more amazing views, more forts, the spot where they filmed Far and Away, and thousands of sheep. I'm not sure if this still holds true, but when we were researching we saw that the peninsula is home to about 20,000 people and 500,000 sheep! The highlight of the day was the walk suggested by our hosts. We walked all along the coast through some farmland and along cliffs. We also saw the school house from the film Ryan's Daughter. That would have probably meant something if we'd seen or even heard of that movie, but apparently it was big in the 70s.

We finished driving around the ring by early afternoon, and headed for our next destination - a little further north to Ennis. This was probably one of the big disappointments of the trip. Our books said this was a nice town, and a few places were supposed to have live music, but as we walked around town it was completely dead. One of the two places suggested by both our book and the hostel where we stayed was supposed to have great food and good live music. We walked in at 10:00 (prime time for live bar music) to find 3 guys standing at the bar and not a single other person in the place. We ended up sulking back to the hostel where we spent the evening reading instead.

Thursday, June 22nd - County Clare and back to London

The last day of our trip was pretty light as well. Ennis is the main town in the County Clare, in the east-central part of the country, which is also home to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren.

We headed first to the Cliffs, which is probably one of the most scenic and famous places in the country. These are huge cliffs and if you've seen pictures of Ireland, you've most likely seen these. Not too much to say - just have a look at the photos, or for a real idea go see them for yourself.


After leaving the cliffs, we drove off to the Burren. This is a barren, rocky land supposedly formed by glaciers. There isn't a ton to see, just some stark landscapes that are very different from the rest of the green country. We drove through, stopped at the one major site (some kind of tomb/burial altar), and took in the views.





There really wasn't much else to do in the area - we didn't have enough time to go to any other site, but it was too early to go to the airport. We ended up making our way to the Dromoland Castle - a super-luxury hotel that was nearby. We had at one time considered staying here and at another castle, but at $700 a night we just couldn't justify the cost. We could justify afternoon tea, though, so we walked around the grounds, gardens, etc (which were very nice-they definitely spend the money well) and had tea in the restaurant in the garden.

After we left the hotel, it was about time to go home, so we headed for the airport, dropped off the car, and made our way back home. Best part of the return trip - a busker (guy playing music for money) was in the train station in London on our way home playing "Oh Danny Boy"!

Ireland Part One - Northern Ireland and Dublin

Our second big trip of the summer was a quick hop across the Irish Sea for a 6 day tour of the Emerald Isle. Like some of our other vacations, we've split this post in two.

Thursday, June 18th - Northern Ireland and Belfast

We hopped an early morning flight to Belfast in Northern Ireland. We picked up a car from the airport and headed north. This was our first experience with driving on the left, and it went surprisingly well. Other than a small problem with a roundabout in the first 100 yards, we didn't have any trouble.

We drove directly to the northern coast, to a rock formation called The Giant's Causeway. I could try to explain, but it sounds confusing, so just see this picture:

There are something like 35,000 of these stone columns right along the coast, and it was incredibly beautiful. The rocks stretch all the way to Scotland (which isn't really too far), but most of it is under water. Legend says that a giant living in Ireland made the columns to build a bridge to his lover, who lived in Scotland, which is where it gets its name.

We also did a short drive along the coast and had a picnic lunch on some cliffs overlooking the sea, which only could have been better if we'd been able to eat outside the car, which was our only safety from the rain. The country was unbelievably green, but apparently that comes at a price!

After lunch, we headed back south toward Belfast. We dropped off the rental car, dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and headed out to see the city. We didn't have much time, so regrettably we had to pass on the IRA sites. If, like us, you were too young to care or understand what's gone on in N. Ireland for the past several years, and especially in the early 90's, I would highly suggest researching some history. Belfast was the center of most of this history, but has become a safe place to travel to in the past decade. As it turns out, though, it just isn't really that nice. We were able to see the City Hall (although just from the outside as it's currently closed to visitors for renovation), and the main shopping district (which is not much more than the average High Street in London).

The only thing that we really liked was that the city quenched our cravings for home. It has now been 9 months since I was last in the US (4 for Jenna), so we have been missing a few things. Belfast seemed like Little America, which normally would really put us off, but we already didn't like the city much, so when we saw the shopping mall (the first we've seen in Europe) with giant signs for Maggiano's, Chili's, and TGIFriday's, we were in heaven. After a quick stop at the Yankee Candle store (which also don't really exist here, and where the signs saying "America's favorite candle" seemed very out of place) we stopped at Fridays for a good 'ole Texas meal of Mozzarella sticks, fajitas, and an ice cream covered chocolate brownie. Not exactly traditional, but delicious! With our bellies full (and we're talking America full, where you go home feeling like you want to purge, not Europe full where you just go home satisfied), we headed back to the hotel .

Friday, June 19th - Dublin

We got up early and headed for the train station to try and catch the 8:30 train for Dublin. Due to some poor planning (or rather, great planning, poor execution), we missed the train that actually left at 8:00 (which is what I had written on our itinerary but didn't look at, thinking I remembered). The next train didn't leave until 10:30, so we ended up taking a bus instead. We got to Dublin just before noon, about 2 hours later than originally planned, but we ended up saving about 50%, so it wasn't too bad.

"In Dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone.

As she wheeled her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow

Crying cockels and mussels alive, alive-oh.

Alive, alive-oh. Alive, alive-oh.

Crying cockels and mussels alive, alive-oh. - Dubliners

We grabbed a cab to our hostel, which was probably the worst place we've stayed to date - shared a dingy bathroom and had a room with paper thin walls, right next to reception where people came in late into the night, and left early in the morning. We walked from the hostel to Trinity College, which is the first university of Ireland and its largest/most famous. It also holds the Book of Kells, which is a copy of the Gospels from the 11th century. Written by monks, it is famous for being very artistic, which I guess was surprising because it was made during the Dark Ages when people were more worried about eating and surviving tribal wars than making art. Anyway, for us it was okay. We don't really understand art enough to appreciate it fully, but it was something to check off the list.

Next we headed off for what turned out to be the highlight of Dublin for us - the Kilmainham Gaol (appropriately pronounced "jail"). This was the city's jail for several hundred years, including the most turbulent years of revolution in the early 1900s. It was also the first large jail in the world where prisoners had their own cells (before they stuffed many people into large cells), and became a model for every modern jail that exists today. It was closed just after Ireland won its independence in the 1920s, and now offers tours and a great history lesson on the struggle of the Irish.

So this is something that you should definitely look more into, but for a brief lesson...England invaded Ireland in the 1300s and ruled for 700 years. The history and culture were very different (Celtic vs Saxon), and as a result the Irish never really took too much of a liking to the English. In the late 1700s, a few revolts started popping up sporadically every generation or so. My assumption is that they got an idea from their neighbors to west, and the phrase "Taxation without representation" was uttered more than once.

In April 1916, a group of Irishmen thought that with Britain literally entrenched in WWI, they had a perfect opportunity to rise up and gain their freedom. They read their Proclamation of the Irish Republic from the steps of the city post office, and subsequently attacked the English and were slaughtered in what became known as the Easter Rising. 97 men and women were taken to Kilmainham and sentenced to death. 15 of them faced the firing squad in the jails courtyard before public opinion forced the government to commute the sentences of the others.

A few years later, a group of the survivors realized that a frontal attack on the English would never succeed, and forming the Irish Republican Army they resorted to guerrilla tactics like assassinations that the IRA became so famous for. It took several years, but in the end these tactics did work, and in the 1921 the English finally agreed to let most of the island cede from the UK (six counties in the north stayed with the UK, which not everyone was too happy with...)

I'm not sure why we're so fascinated with the struggle of the Irish against the English. I guess to some degree we sympathize with their situation. As we looked at the plaque in the courtyard that commemorated the deaths of the rebels, we read the names of Pearse, MacDonagh, and Connolly and had visions of Washington, Franklin, and Adams. It was also extremely evident as we traveled through the country that Ireland is entirely unique when compared to England in all aspects, from culture to climate to landscape, and it just feels right that it be its own nation. As Track 1 on our traditional Irish music CD put it - "Some men fight for silver, and some men fight for gold, but the IRA are fighting for, the land that the Saxons stole." - Dubliners

After leaving the jail we headed back into the city, walked through Temple Bar area and down Grafton street, grabbed dinner at another very non-traditional noodle bar, WagaMama, and headed back to the hostel to prepare for our journey to the countryside...to be continued