We left Mykonos on May 17, 2011, without incident, and flew back to Athens International Airport. Our connecting flight out of Athens was unfortunately several hours after we arrived from Mykonos. As a result, we got to know the Athens Airport pretty well. This gap of several hours was by design though because we were worried about tha flights from Mykonos being run on 'Greek time" so we gave ourselves plenty of wiggle room. We need not to have feared any delay though because the Greek island-hopper was run in a very efficient manner and the Boss and I arrived to savor some down-time in the Athens airport with plenty of time to spare. We spent the whole day there and I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie: The Terminal. Ten hours later, I was just about to start speaking Greek when they called the flight to Dublin.
The next leg of our epic journey would take us across western Europe to our last stop in Ireland. As both of our families are from the Emerald Isle we thought it was appropriate to stop there before heading home and returning to the real world. The evening of May 17, 2011, we finally boarded the Eire Lingus flight in Athens and made our way across the continent to Dublin. It was a red-eye and we flew over a darkened Italy and France. We landed in Dublin early the next morning.
Wow, what an airport. The new Dublin airport is beautiful, not at all what I remember from our last trip there 10 years ago. Unfortunately for the Irish, and it was the Irish that told us this, the new airport is a little too big for the the traffic coming in and out of the capital. It is a great thing for tourists though and a nice start to our Irish leg.
We only had a few days, so we limited ourselves to touring Dublin itself. The last time we were in Ireland we did not get to see much of the capital because Linda was running the Dublin Marathon when we were there and our kids were with us so we couldn't tour the pubs and other grown-up attractions. We had the rest of the island to explore and we drove all over the countryside with our children on that first trip visiting our roots.
This trip we stayed in the Westin Hotel which is very centrally located between Trinity College and the River Liffey. We were close to the insane party atmosphere of Temple Bar and stones throw from the great shopping area on Grafton Street. The Westin was kind of cool, it was built into an old bank and the vault in the basement had been converted into a very funky watering hole. Our room was an interior room which was nice because it was very quiet.
The next morning, we went for breakfast in Temple Bar and as we were walking back to the hotel we decided to stroll along the river. Unfortunately, the path of the planned stroll was blocked by police barricades and gawking crowds. We knew the Queen was in town for her historic visit to Dublin but do you think that we planned on seeing her? Not a chance. As Irish luck would have it though, we stood there behind the police line for a while, and amazingly, Liz's limo slowly passed our position and we make eye contact with the monarch, as the Queen waved to the cheering Irish crowd. I turned to Linda and said, "Do you realize that we are her only real subjects in this crowd?" Linda nodded, and then we started kicking ourselves for not bringing the camera. You probably think that this is poppycock because we have no photos, but I will swear on the graves of my ancestors in Tipperary that this happened the way I describe it. The rest of the day we hiked around Dublin finding our old hotel and O'Donoghue's Pub which we had to get pictures of for my pal Patrick O'Donoghue.
The first night in Dublin we dined at the Brazen Head which was billed as the oldest pub in Dublin dating from 1198. The pub has managed to retain the charm and characteristics of it's past and in particular it's patrons, who have included such literaries as James Joyce, Brendan Behan and Jonathan Swift as well as such revolutionaries as Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone, Daniel O'Connell and Michael Collins. Now Jim & Linda have been there.
The next afternoon we hooked up with the Andersons. To refresh your memory Roland and Brenda Anderson were the nice English couple we met in Saigon. We had made arrangements to meet them in Ireland before we left them in Dubai. We met in The Mint Bar, that very funky watering hole in the basement of the Westin. We immediately picked up where we had left off with them on the cruise ship between Viet Nam and the U.A.E. We got caught up while we enjoyed a libation and got back into joint-touring mode. We soon reached a consensus that the best way to see the town was to do so by buying 24-hour passes on Dublin's Hop-On/Hop-Off bus tour. Fortunately, the bus stopped just outside the Westin near Molly Malone Square and we could start our joint venture immediately. The start of the tour was dampened by rain but we jumped on the bus at Trinity College and toured much of the historic parts of Dublin that afternoon. We cruised by Grafton Street, St. Steven's Green, St. Patrick's Cathedral and finished up for the day at the St. James Gate Brewery where we got off the bus to do the walking tour of the Arthur Guiness establishment.
Now I am a baptised and confirmed Catholic and I might have sinned that day. I did not get out of the bus to tour St. Patrick's Cathedral and instead I chose to do the Guiness tour. I feel somewhat guilty about that decision but believe that since old Arthur Guiness and his family basically re-built the cathedral, Jesus, Mary and St. Patrick are indifferent to the choice that I made. God had his chance to strike me with a lightning bolt as I stood at the top of the Guiness Tower after the tour enjoying a gratus pint and I survived to write this blog. So I figure that St. Patrick intervened and stayed the Hand of God. We dined at the O'Neill's Bar with the Anderson's but the service was not good that night.
The next day we met up with the Andersons again and proceeded to complete the bus tour before our 24-hour passes ran out. Roland and I didn't quite make it to the end of the bus route but the girls did. The four of us took in the sights of the Kilmainham Jail and Phoenix Park where the Queen had been the day before and at the next major attraction, Roland and I parted company with our dear wives. Linda and Brenda continued on down the road to the shopping opportunities that were beckoning them as Roland and I jumped off the bus at The Old Jameson Distillery. We did another walking tour of the Irish Whisky facility, which ended in a quite satisfactory whisky tasting. That night our foursome ate at the Winding Stair restaurant which was a place recommended by my sister and Fodder's. We had an excellent meal there. We subsequently parted company with our English friends as they were headed to the south coast by train in the morning and we would be completing our epic journey on the morrow with a flight back to Calgary via Chicago.
We have been home for now since May 21, 2011, when we landed back in Calgary. We have subsequently returned to our family and our jobs in the Calgary oilpatch. But we had been bitten bad by the travel bug. So given the chance and with the grace of God we were going to continue our global exploration as soon as we could manage to get away.
We have had a very good year and therefore my next installment of this blog will start when we arrive in London two days from now on the December 1, 2011. Stay tuned!
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| Gym with Roland and Brenda in Dublin taken by the Boss |
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| The door I did not go in (St. Patrick's) |
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| Benjamin Guinness's statue on the grounds of the Cathedral. He was son of Arthur Guinness who founded the brewery. Ben restored the cathedral in the 1860s. |
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| The gate I did go in |
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| From the Observation Deck at the top of the Guinness Tour |
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| Hop-on/Hop-off Buses at St. Stevens Green |
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| The Stokes were here |
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| The Moores were here too |
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| A typical park scene |
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| For my buddy Patrick |
Last summer Sylvie and I stayed upstairs of O'Ds Pub and quaffed a few Guinness below. Well known for the musicians who have entertained, although we weren't that fortunate. The trio playing the night we were there weren't...
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