Ni-a-ga-ra Falls, slowly I turned...

If you're old enough, you recognize the above as the start of a bit done by the Three Stooges. We took a bit of a road trip recently to Niagara Falls. It's about a 6 1/2 hour drive using interstates and a fairly pleasant ride. We drove up with our friends Dean and Gloria and with their company it made the trip seem even faster.

Now, I know that a trip to Niagara Falls seems sort of hokey - every honeymoon couple in every old movie seemed to go there- but the falls really are one of the natural wonders of the world and well worth seeing.

Michelle got a great deal on a hotel - The Fallsview Hilton in Niagara Falls Canada (http://www.niagarafallshilton.com/) - and both couples ended up with these amazing suites, plus two free buffet breakfasts and a credit for dinner one night. Pretty amazing.

Here is the view from our rooms:





As the video pans from right to left, you can see the Canadian or Horseshoe falls, the casino which was part of our hotel, the American falls and finally, on the far left, the "Skylon" tower. The tower has a buffet restaurant at the top where we ate dinner on our first night there (fairly decent food for a tourist trap and, of course, an incredible view). We also lost money at the casino (but what else is new?).

I should mention that when visiting the falls, it is a must to stay on the Canadian side since both sets of falls face that way and the best views are from that side.

The second day we were there we took the ride on the "Maid of the Mist" which is a boat that takes you right up to the Canadian falls. Michelle took these videos from the boat:




The American Falls





The Canadian or Horseshoe Falls


We did a bunch of other stuff, but probably the most interesting non-falls related thing we did was to visit something called a butterfly conservatory. This was a large dome with a controlled environment replicating a rain forest with all the appropriate vegetation and inhabited by literally thousands of butterflies of different species. You walk through the interior of this on various pathways and the butterflies fly around you, land on your arm etc. It was pretty incredible.




Here is a video Michelle took inside the conservatory



All in all our two nights and three days in Niagara Falls was a lot of fun and made for a good road trip. I'd recommend it.

Ireland - A Snazzy Finish

On our next-to-last day in Ireland we rushed about Dublin as reported in the last post, and took a rollicking ride over the bogs of Wicklow to the ancient monastery of St. Kevin at Glendalough. Glendalough is a lush valley which is almost a perfect image of the scenic beauty of Ireland. St. Kevin founded a monastic community there in the sixth century. For more details, I will refer you once again to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendalough.

We did not have time to explore Glendalough fully as the valley is quite large with two lakes and many sites, but we did see the main site associated with St. Kevin and early Irish monasticism.

A view of the valley with St. Kevin's Church

The Round Tower - the entrance was about 10 feet off the ground. They used a ladder which was pulled up in case of attack.

A video Michelle made of a pretty brook at Glendalough

The yellow flowers you see in many of our Ireland photos is a plant called "furze" in Ireland and known as "gorse" in England and Scotland. It grows wild and every so often farmers will burn it back to keep it from overunning their fields.

Furze up close

There was a cemetery near the ruins - even to this day people choose to be interred there because it is considered a sacred site.

Now for something spooky. Remember in the last post, Michelle looked up her grandmother's family name "Fanning"? Michelle took the picture above just randomly because of the mood it evoked of Ireland. When we got home and looked closely at the photo on our computer monitor, we discovered that the large gravestone on the far left commemorated - you guessed it - people named Fanning. If you click the picture you may be able to read the actual names on the stone. No idea if these are distant relatives or what, but it's kind of eerie anyway.

After Glendalough, we headed for our final accomodation of the trip: the Ritz Carlton Powerscourt. This place was amazing. When you consider that it was included as one night on our fairly cheap tour package and the rooms normally have a rate of like $500 a night, I can only assume that with the world economy the way it is, the hotel's business must be hurting.

Oh well, we certainly enjoyed our one night there. I would have to say that this was without a doubt the most luxurious hotel we have ever stayed at - and we have stayed at some pretty nice ones over the years.

The Ritz Carlton Powerscourt

To start with, Michelle and I were personally guided to our multi-room suite by on of the staff who proceeded to show us how to work all of switches and gizmos. The suite was larger than some apartments I have lived in. It consisted of a living/dining area, a kitchen with it's own separate butler's entrance, a large bedroom with king-size bed, and two bathrooms. One bathroom was a half-bath off the living room while the master bath off the bedroom/dressing room was a huge affair with a jacuzzi, a tiled stall shower, and a separate room with the john and a bidet. The tile floors in the bathroom were heated (so you shouldn't get cold feet) and inset into the bathroom mirror was a tv set (you could wake up in the morning and if you were still half-asleep look in the mirror to shave and think you had turned into Regis Philbin). The room also had a full terrace complete with an outdoor table and chairs. Whew! Some place!

Abe and Roz were given similar quarters.

The living room of our suite

The view from the terrace


The bedroom

This is one of the bedside tables. The shiny thing is a touch screen which controls the whole suite -all the lights, the TVs, the drapes etc. there was another one on the other side of the bed.

After relaxing for a bit we met for drinks in one of the lounges and then ate in their "pub". The food was quite good and not overly expensive considering where we were. Finally, we sat down in their lovely lobby for some Irish coffee and dessert.

Roz in the Ritz Carlton lobby

Since we had to be up at oh-dark-hundred the next morning to drive to the other side of Dublin to drop our rental car and catch our plane, we decided to call it a night.

The next morning Michelle and I were served Eggs Benedict by room service at 5:30 A.M. This was our last "Irish Breakfast" and probably the best of the bunch. Then it was off to the airport and home to New Jersey.

Dublin II and a Rare Bog

The next day we awoke in our Rathcoole B&B, breakfasted, loaded the car, and drove back to the Luas station for round two of Dublin. This morning our objective was Trinity College and the Book of Kells.

Trinity is an old college. According to the bus tour guide it was founded by Queen Elizabeth I to make the Irish "civilized, protestant and educated" and it failed at all three. Actually, the Irish were civilized and educated while the Saxons were running around in loincloths, but that's another story. Suffice it to say that Trinity is one of the world's great educational institutions and possesses a library of rare books the greatest treasure of which is the Book of Kells. This is an illuminated version of the four gospels copied and illustrated by Celtic monks around 800 A.D. For more information, I'd suggest the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells.

We arrived in Dublin on the Luas tram and after a brief stroll arrived at Trinity College.

Roz and Michelle on the Quad at Trinity

Another view of the Quad with a mixture of students and tourists

After a stroll around the campus quadrangle, we found the building - the old library - which housed the Book of Kells. After paying an entrance fee, we were admitted to a darkened room which held several volumes of the precious work. Not unexpectedly, we were not allowed to photograph the pages, so I will insert some illustrations from the Web to give one an idea of what we saw.

I believe this is supposed to be St. Matthew - one of the gospel's traditional authors


Another illustrated page from Kells

While seeing this ancient and beautiful work was moving to all of us, I believe it was particularly meaningful to Roz whose life's work as a librarian involved books and the knowledge they preserve. From the chamber with the Book of Kells, we went up a flight of stairs to the "Old Library" filled with rare and ancient books.

Roz in Librarian Valhalla

As with every tourist attraction, the Kells tour dumped you out in - what else?- a gift shop. One nice thing they had though, was a free service where a young gentleman would look up your Irish surname on a computer data base and tell you what was known about it. Michelle had him look up her grandmother's name: Fanning. It appears that in the olden days the Fannings were big shots in Limerick and eventually spread across Ireland. Anyway, it was kind of a neat thing.

After Trinity, I sort of dragged everyone up the block to the National Museum of Ireland's Archaeology and History Museum to see the gold work that has been dug out of Ireland's bogs. Somehow, I managed to get ahead of everyone and Roz and Michelle ended up with hand-knit sweaters from a shop along the way.

The Irish National Museum of Archaeology and History on Kildare Street Dublin

Gold Torcs (necklaces) and a cloak pin dug from the bogs. These were produced in the Bronze Age

An Irish sweater - but not the actual ones bought on our expedition.

Anyway, it was still well before noon and it was time to move along on our whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle. I must say, I would have liked more time to explore and savor Dublin, and I hope to get back there again someday.

But now, it was back on the Luas, back in our car, and off to the valley of Glendalough, site of one of the earliest monastic communities in Ireland. On the way, and completely by chance, we traveled through one of the scenic wonders of Ireland - a pass through the Wicklow Mountains called the "Sally Gap". When leaving the environs of Dublin, we entered the location of Glendalough in our GPS and blithely let the "Bitch in the Box" guide us on our way.

The way she took us was along a narrow, somewhat scary, and utterly spectacular road across the beautiful Wicklow Mountains, through peat bogs (the first we had seen in Ireland) and down forested mountain passes.

A typical stretch of Sally Gap road - yes, it was that narrow

We saw some impressive scenery - that's a peat bog in the foreground

Incidentally, peat, which is compressed vegetable matter that forms in the wetlands has been an important source of fuel in coal-less and tree-scarce Ireland. It is cut from the bogs and dried to serve as fuel for homes and even to generate electricity.

More bog land and hills

Some of the locals - Don't know who owned these sheep, there was nothing for miles.

Finally, after some scenic but white-knuckled driving, we arrived at the village where Glendalough was located. We had lunch in a quaint country restaurant and headed for the monastery of St. Kevin.

Next: Glendalough and a spooky coincidence.

Dublin or Nothing

Well, when last we left our intrepid explorers, we were about to board the on/off Dublin tour bus. The Bus left from O'Connell Street near the River Liffey - pretty much the heart of Dublin City. The Liffey flows through the middle of Dublin and O'Connell Street crosses it on a wide bridge. We were also near the General Post Office or GPO which figured in the heroic but failed attempt at Irish independence known as the "Easter Rising" of 1916.

The GPO on O'Connell St. The Irish freedom fighters of 1916 occupied the building. After bitter fighting they were forced to surrender to British forces.

After the rising was put down, the British executed a number of its leaders as a stern warning. Like most such brutality, it backfired, creating martyrs and winning more support for the cause of independence.

A statue of Daniel O'Connell, who won the right for Irish Catholics to vote, be elected to Parliament, and enter the civil service.

This angel decorates the base of the O'Connell statue - note the small hole near her elbow; it is a bullet hole from the Easter Rising.


This statue is on O'Connell St. near the GPO. It is James Larkin a founder of the Irish labor movement.

At any rate, the bus continued along O'Connell St. and across the Liffey taking us past a number of Dublin historic sites. I'll post some pictures Abe took along the way.

A street in Dublin


The river Liffey - sometimes referred to as "Anna Liffey" in Irish song and poetry


A side street in Dublin. The weird yellow thing coming at you is an amphibious vehicle which is used to give harbor tours. The US Army used to call them "Ducks".


Some of the lovely Georgian row houses for which Dublin is famous. The doors are often decorated with much pride and individuality.


One such Dublin row house door.


The Bank of Ireland - this building was originally the Irish Parliament House in the 1700's

The offices of the Taoiseach or Prime Minister



St Patrick's Cathedral - interestingly, it is a Protestant Church of Ireland (Episcopal) cathedral


A statue of "Molly Malone", Dublin's favorite fish monger. Who knew she had such cleavage? The tour guide on the bus told us some blarney/malarkey about her supposedly "moonlighting" as a hooker (not that she actually existed - it was a song). Dubliners call her the trollop with the scallops.

I have to say that the bus tour was fun, the tour guide regaled us with a combination of real history and pleasant blarney. Supposedly, Dubliners are noted for having a wry or even warped sense of humor even for Ireland. Well this guy had one and we loved it.

Its was getting on about lunchtime at this point and, as the bus was approaching the stop for the Guinness tour, we decided to hop off, take the tour and get something to eat.

There is no longer a tour of the actual brewery. Instead, you tour the "Guinness Storehouse" which contains various exhibits, a restaurant, bars etc.

Roz at the entrance to the Guinness storehouse

A sign welcomed us to the tour

This sign pretty much explains the process demonstrated in the exhibits

After touring we ate lunch at the Guinness restaurant located on an upper floor of the building. This was the view from our table.

The final phase of the tour was a free pint in the "Gravity Bar" on the top floor. Roz and Michelle enjoy some of Ireland's finest.

The view from the Gravity Bar

After the tour of the "Storehouse", we hopped back on the bus for the trip back to our starting point. Once back by the GPO, we decided to cross the O'Connell St. bridge on foot to explore an area of Dublin called the "Temple Bar". This is a neighborhood along the south bank of the Liffey which contains many pubs, restaurants etc. It is a very lively area and seems popular with young people.

Roz, Michelle and I on a cobblestone street in Temple Bar

We wandered about the district checking out some of the sights and the pubs until hunger pangs once again overtook us. We found a pub with food and live music and settled in to soak up some local color (as well as food and booze).

Roz in front of "The Oliver St. John Gogarty"

The pub was named after a historical character of early 20th century Dublin: Oliver St. John Gogarty. He was, among other things, a physician, poet, author, and participant in the Irish war for independence. Gogarty was also a sometime friend of James Joyce and purportedly served as the model for Molly Bloom's lover Blazes Boylan in "Ulysses". At any rate, the place had all sorts of paintings of famous Irish literati.

Inside Gogarty's Roz cozies up to Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats - she just can't resist those Celtic literary types! Must be her librarian's training.

Michelle and I in Gogarty's

Abe and Roz sat across from us.

The music was lively and the food and beer were good. At this point we decided to call it a day and made our way back to the Luas on Abbey street and thence back to our car and our B&B.

Next: Trinity College and the Book of Kells