Knock and Athlone

Today Travalon and I made the arduous journey to Knock. You would think a major pilgrimage site, with over one million visitors a year, would have a direct train line from Dublin, but we had to take the bus with very limited options. The bus was leaving from the airport at 8:50, so we figured we'd take the 8:10 shuttle, and we showed up for breakfast at 7:30... just to discover it doesn't open until 8:00. The woman did let us have some cold cereal, but as soon as the hot food opened up, people materialized out of nowhere and got into line so fast we had no hopes of getting any eggs before the shuttle arrived. That's OK, we told each other - we didn't need a huge breakfast, even if we had already paid 7 and a half euros for it.

The bus from Dublin did not go directly to Knock, either; we had to transfer at a substantial town called Athlone right in the middle of the country. I had been wondering what was in the middle of Ireland, since our tour only covered the coasts, and now I know. The ticket machine in Athlone did not accept our credit cards, even though it said it would, so Travalon had to hoof it to what they call in Scotland "the hole in the wall," i.e., the cash machine. While he was gone, I attempted to use my credit and debit cards with no success either. Then the machine did not accept 50 euro notes, so we had to get change from the concession lady. I bought a bag of popcorn from her, and Travalon bought potato chips, and this ended up being our lunch.

The trip to Knock was longer, but more interesting, since we stopped in lots of villages. We were expecting to have 55 minutes in Knock before the last bus left for Dublin just after two, but because another bus was late into Athlone, our bus driver had to wait, so we only had half an hour there. We explored the site and saw the old church and the wall where the apparition took place in 1879, but we didn't bother with the big, ugly, new basilica. I also bought a scapular, which I desperately needed, for like 65 cents. (Euro cents, not US ones.) Then we caught the bus back to Athlone.

Since Knock was so hurried, we decided to take our time in Athlone, which is not very touristy at all. We had a fine dinner of fish and chips and then ducked into a pub for half a pint (I was the only woman in there), then we went to Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul Church. Like in Knock, they knelt where we stand; like in Cobh, they received communion while kneeling. The music was, oddly enough, oompah stuff with guitars, an accordion, and a drum. Then we returned to the bus station and found a whole bunch of information about what is in Athlone, including the Medieval castle we'd seen near the church and the oldest pub in Ireland, from the year 980 AD. Had we only known... Also, there was a place we could have eaten dinner overlooking the river Shannon, since it was such a beautiful day. And they have Viking ship cruises on the Shannon. So if there is a place in Ireland we'd like to return to, it's Athlone.

The return bus from Athlone to Dublin did not take a direct route but meandered through a bunch of villages, so that was fun. Also, it was a double-decker bus with more comfortable seats and more legroom for Travalon. Some of the villages had great names like Killbaggen and Killcock; if "kill" means church, those names still make no sense. There were names I couldn't even begin to pronounce. We wanted to stop into some of those villages too, where people were very authentic, walking dogs and going for jogs and hanging out smoking in front of pubs. So very much like Wisconsin. We didn't see a single tourist shop in any of them. In Dublin, there is a tourist shop every five feet, and the pubs are what they think Americans are looking for in an Irish pub. But don't skip Dublin, if you come - the Archaeology Museum is excellent.

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Loch Ness

Yesterday Travalon and I got going early to catch the train from Aberdeen to Inverness, a very cute town on the Ness River. We went to the tourist office and managed to grab the last two tickets for the Loch Ness tour that day. Our bus driver was a woman named Sue who had an outrageous Highland brogue. She told us about "heeland coos," fuzzy brown creatures we call Highland cows, and also about Nessie the famous monster that allegedly lives in Loch Ness. Apparently the first recorded sighting of Nessie was when she (Sue always referred to the monster in the feminine) appeared to one of St. Columba's followers who was swimming across the lake and scared the living bejeebers out of him, so St. Columba told the monster to get lost. There were a bunch of sightings in the 1920's and 30's, when some photos were taken that I'm pretty sure were all later discovered to be fakes. You don't hear so much about Nessie these days, but they sure play the legend up in Inverness, which means "the mouth of the Ness," since it's good for tourism.

Sue dropped us off at the docks and we got onto a boat and cruised Loch Ness, a very beautiful, long loch (Sue says, "Don't call it a lake!") with high, craggy hills all around it. We had a gorgeous, sunny day, and Travalon and I stood at the front of the boat enjoying the sights, which did not include the monster, I'm sad to say. The boat stopped at Urquhart Castle, a Medieval ruin that overlooks the lake, and we climbed all over it. Travalon took lots of great photos, but of course I cannot take any because my camera is dead - I can't see anything in the view screen. It's not entirely clear that my previous photos are gone, or even that I cannot take photos now - I just can't see what I'm doing. And of course I will not know if my photos survived until returning to Wisconsin, when I can try to upload them to Rich's computer Aquinas. The question is this: is it worth repairing such a cheap little camera?

After Travalon and I returned to Aberdeen, we had dinner at Jamie Oliver's restaurant. (He is apparently some celebrity chef.) I was starting to get a cold, so they made me a hot toddy, and that really seemed to help. Today we had another uneventful flight back to Dublin, then we explored some free museums here, like the Natural History Museum (aka the Dead Zoo) and the Archaeology Museum, which had displays of the remains of some people found in the bogs, so it was kind of a creepy day. One guy had perfect fingernails, and in the notes it said this shows he was of high status. They all met violent ends.

I was feeling much worse today and wanted another hot toddy, but the first pub we went to couldn't make them so we set off down the street. We happened to pass a place called Toddy's and wondered if the name was any indication of their familiarity with the drink (so far as I know, it's just hot water, whiskey, honey, and lemon), and indeed they could make one for us. Travalon had one too because he's been suffering with a cold since before our trip started, and it waxes and wanes, but today it is waxing badly. So we're both sniffly and miserable, but the hot toddies and seafood chowder at Toddy's really helped. How lucky to have found them!

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Castle Hat

Sorry for the lack of blogging yesterday, but we were staying at Castle Hat, and there were no computers there to use. The day started out fine, with an uneventful flight from Dublin to Aberdeen. (Uneventful is just how I like my flights, since I am terrified of planes.) The Aberdeen airport is small and seems to be nothing but an ad for something called the RSB Group. We weren't sure where to catch the train to one of the two villages Lady Hat would have been willing to pick us up from, so we just took a taxi, which was a fifty-pound trip. At least the taxi driver had an entertaining Scottish brogue and told us Hat was a really popular surname in the area - his best friend's name was Hat.

We arrived at Castle Hat in the early afternoon, which seemed to throw Lady Hat for a loop. "I understood you weren't arriving until five," she said. She told us we could explore the grounds, which were covered with spectacular blooming rhododendrons, and that dinner would be at eight. Eight!? We hadn't eaten lunch, so Travalon and I decided to find the nearest pub. Lady Hat practically jumped at the chance to dump us off in front of the Hat Arms Hotel, a very cute building bearing the Hat family coat of arms, but it was not open. Travalon and I wondered what to do: walk the three miles back to Castle Hat on an empty stomach, or wait around and hope the pub opened? Fortunately a woman walking a dog helpfully told us there was a bistro in a village another mile and a half down the road, so we headed there. Once in town, we asked a guy if he knew where the bistro was, and he laughed and said, "I'm the owner!" So we had a good lunch and walked back to the Hat Arms Hotel, which was mysteriously open for business. It was a gorgeous day, so we sat outside sharing a ginger beer and then decided to walk the three miles back to Castle Hat, but we hadn't taken into account that all the creatures in Scotland are very friendly and come to greet you when you pass by. We had to stop to talk to horses, ponies, cattle, and sheep, plus Travalon took lots of shots of the Scottish Highlands, with rugged mountains rising behind pine-covered hills and yellow fields filled with rapeseed plants. Consequently, we were late for dinner at Castle Hat, but oddly Lord and Lady Hat didn't seem that put out, especially considering how annoyed Lady Hat had seemed when we arrived earlier than she expected.

Castle Hat is not as sumptuous as the Irish castle we stayed at, but it was not a disappointment. The decor involved loads of animal heads and tiger skins, the Hat family tartan everywhere, the Hat family coat of arms everywhere else, the Hat family crest in the rest of the places, and paintings of ancestral Hat clan members all over the walls. Lady Hat is a fellow plant lover, and there were blooming orchids and cacti all over. Our room was light-filled, with a bathroom nearly as large and just as light. Richard Bonomo will be proud to learn it contained a bidet. (Unlike the toilet downstairs, the one in our room did not have the Hat family coat of arms prominently featured on the lid.) Dinner was in the formal dining room and was fish soup, roe deer from the estate, spinach grown on the estate, and for dessert, a plum crumble with plums grown on the estate. We talked with Lord Hat, a fine tall specimen with very blue eyes and white hair, about the Hat family history, although I felt a little like the poor cousin admitting my branch of the Hats were Irish. (I didn't even mention the Catholic part.) He is the twenty-third Lord Hat and can trace his family directly back to Angus Hat in the eighth century. Wow! I'm not sure I can even name all my great-grandparents. We talked late into the night, since the sun doesn't set in Scotland at this time of year until well after 10 pm. Then I took a bath, because there was no shower, and fortunately I had brought my own shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel. Castle Hat does not provide such amenities, though oddly they did have shaving cream in the bathroom.

This morning Lady Hat fed us cereal and toast in the kitchen, then Lord Hat took us to see the stone circle on the Hat estate. It had a huge stone altar carved with what looked like a shamrock, three sort of round indentations Lord Hat said are called "the devil's hoofprints." Then Lady Hat dumped us in the village of Insch, a place with no amenities like coffee shops or toilets, but there was a hill towering over the town known as Dunny Deer Hill, and on the top of it was an ancient stone arch. Travalon took lots of photos, since my camera died once we arrived at Castle Hat. (Probably from getting so wet at Bru Na Boinne.) I am just loving all these ancient stone monuments all over this area, the northeast part of Scotland. Lord Hat tells us there are more here than anywhere else in the country. Then Travalon and I took the train to Aberdeen, a very pretty town full of granite buildings. We had lunch at a Brazilian restaurant and then set off to explore the city. Fortunately we found the internet cafe where I am now writing this, since I know my family members will be most interested in reading about Castle Hat. One guess where Pa Hat and Brother Hat's Christmas presents are coming from this year.

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Ireland: The Ancient Stuff

It is getting late, and we have a very early morning tomorrow, plus I am writing this on the hotel's one free computer, so I will make it quick. Last night the "modern" shower at the castle was a letdown, since it had temperature regulation problems, so I used the claw-footed bathtub. And that was great! Otherwise, staying in a castle is an amazing experience. I highly recommend it to everyone.

This morning we drove to a place called Bru Na Boinne (or "the Boyne riverbank") to see Neolithic tombs. Before that, our busdriver/tour guide took us off the route just a bit to see what some people regard as the finest high cross in Ireland. It was enormously tall and carved with Biblical scenes, and I took a bunch of photos of it. That was what I'd been hoping to see in Ireland - ancient Celtic crosses! Then we drove to Bru Na Boinne to see sights that made the cross look brand-new. We went to a burial site called Knowth, right near the more famous Newgrange, and admired the 5000 year old, very tall mound of the main burial site and all the smaller mounds surrounding it. Around its edges are rocks carved with all sorts of swirly designs. I took lots of photos of that too. We even climbed up on top of the mound, but then it began to rain on us really hard - bad juju from standing on ancient graves? The guide told us to climb it.

Since we were thoroughly soaked but we were going to take a walking tour of Drogheda, the town we are now in, I elected not to bother changing in case we just got rained on further. There aren't that many highlights in Drogheda, but two of them were fabulous: the head of the martyr Oliver Plunkett and an ancient Norman gate still towering over the city. After the walk, I did change into dry clothes for dinner. A number of amateur musicians played traditional Irish music for us during dessert, and after they were done, I struck up a conversation with them and played a tune I know as "Coleraine" on some guy's mandolin. He had an app on his phone that records a tune and then figures out what it is, and it said that it was indeed called "The Coleraine Jig." (They played a tune they call "The Cork Hornpipe" that my band calls "Harvest Home," but they were aware of that name for it too.) None of them knew "The Coleraine Jig," but they liked it and want to add it to their repertoire. It figures that I would go to Ireland and end up teaching Irish musicians Irish tunes.

Hopefully my famous hat will be dried out by tomorrow. It got quite waterlogged in the rain today. They say in Ireland it only rains twice a week: once for three days, and once for four.

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Titanic Museum and Cabra Castle

Today we drove to Belfast and went to the Titanic Museum, on the site where the Titanic was actually built. It is a weird modern building with things like the prows of ships sticking out in several directions. Inside we took a ride that sort of showed us what it would have been like to help build the Titanic (LOUD!!!) and watched actual video footage of the underwater wreckage being explored. Travalon is a HUGE Titanic fan, so he went a little nuts in the gift shop buying stuff for himself, me, and friends.

For lunch our tour guide dropped us off in downtown Belfast, but most places were closed on a Sunday, so Travalon and I ended up eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I was jonesin' for pizza, but at least Chinese food is a break from meat, salmon, and potatoes. With some meals they would actually give us more than one type of potato, like fried and mashed. And potatoes with pasta! The insanity never ends. And the only vegetables they seem to eat are carrots and turnips, so the Chinese veggie mix was most welcome.

On our way to Cabra Castle, we were delayed by a Eucharistic procession that included a brass band, little girls in white First Communion dresses, and a young African priest. It was raining, but that didn't dampen their spirits. All the houses and shopfronts had little Marian shrines set up, so it must have had something to do with May being the month of Mary. We could hear them praying the rosary, and the little girls waved enthusiastically at us. They were headed for a church up on a hill. We were going so slowly behind them that one of our group got off and used the facilities at a hotel along the route and then caught up to us, no problem.

I do not know why this castle is named Cabra, which is Spanish for "goat" but who knows if it means anything in Gaelic? Travalon and I couldn't believe it when we saw our room: stone walls, a canopy over the bed, a claw-footed bathtub (and a blessedly modern shower), and antique furniture. I didn't think they would have internet access at a castle, but in fact they do have a computer here - three euros for a half hour, but that's better than nothing. This place is so romantic, it's the ultimate honeymoon destination!

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The Giant's Causeway

Today was much better than yesterday. First we had a tour of Derry (which is what I call it; were I Protestant, I would call it "Londonderry") by a guy who was both entertaining and incredibly moving when talking about "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland and the peace that has lately been reigning. We almost cried, listening to him. Also, his accent was endlessly entertaining. The Northern Irish accent is much stronger than what we'd been hearing so far. He took us up on the old walls of the city, but we only got to see part of them, so Travalon and I vowed to come back.


After the tour, our group drove to the Giant's Causeway, an amazing natural formation of hexagonal basalt pillars each about a foot and a half across, so it looks like a giant stone beehive from the top and a pipe organ from the side.. We climbed out onto it - no big deal for someone used to the rocks at Devil's Lake - and I took lots of photos, one of which turned out really well. The reason it is called the Giant's Causeway is that the mythical giant Finn McCool created it to walk across the sea to Scotland to fight another giant, over a woman, of course.


Back in Derry, Travalon and I took our laundry to a laundrette, where they do it for you, since this town does not have a good old do-it-yourself laundromat. Then we had lunch at a very authentic Irish pub recommended by a drunk guy who had asked us if we were tourists. Because Northern Ireland is not as touristy as the Republic, it seems more real. People were watching rugby and what we call soccer on TVs and cheering on their teams, and the food was much better than at touristy pubs. There is sort of a British veneer over things around here, like the wake-up call and elevator talk in the Queen's English, but underneath things are very, very Gaelic. I would recommend Derry as a great place to visit, despite what I might have said about it yesterday. The people we encountered today were unfailingly friendly and helpful.


Travalon and I walked along the city walls, making the whole circuit, which is about a mile. Then we went to Mass at the Cathedral, St. Eugene's, and it was just like Mass back home, unlike the one we went to in Cork. They had vigil Masses at 6:15 and 7:30. So far my fears about finding Mass here have been completely unfounded - they always have them at wonderfully convenient times. Now we don't have to worry about finding one in Belfast tomorrow.


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Bad Luck in Derry

Today was our first bad day of the trip. It started with breakfast, which was overcrowded, and a woman in our group had hot tea spilled on her by a waitress. They didn't seem to have enough waitresses to handle the crowd. Then we went to the Museum of Country Life, and just as we arrived, they had a preplanned fire drill, so we had to wait to use the bathroom after our long bus trip. At least they had delicious scones in the cafe. Good thing we had those scones, too, because we had to wait forever in line at our lunch stop, some restaurant with five choices on the menu, all meat. (Richard Bonomo would love it.) It was cafeteria-style but very expensive. The line snaked out the door, and Travalon and I were at the end of it, so we shivered in the cold weather. We went to the Belleek Pottery factory, which was the only thing about the day that seemed to go fine, because then when we got to our hotel in Derry (Doire), they didn't have a room key for Travalon and me. Finally they "upgraded" us to a normal-sized room, begging the question: what was our original room like? To top it all off, the front desk sent us a message that our flight home had been canceled, and the first one they could get us on is June 1st. The downside: I'll be really exhausted when I get back to work the next day. The upside: maybe now we'll have a chance to visit Knock, the one place I'd wanted to visit that wasn't on our itinerary. Here's hoping tomorrow is a much better day!


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