2019 Irish Highlights

So I know it gets hard to keep track of things on this blog once the number of related posts exceeds the limit that it shows. So much like with the last tour I'm putting up a kind of index here.

I. Day One (Nashville - Boston - Dublin)
II. Day Two (Dublin)
III. Day Three (Dublin - Galway - Bunratty - Limerick)
IV. Day Four (Limerick - Moher - Killimer - Tarbert - Killarney)
V: Day Five (Killarney - Kerry - Killarney)
VI: Day Six (Killarney - Cork - Blarney - Youghal - Kilkenny - Waterford)
VII: Day Seven (Waterford - Wexford - Wicklow - Dublin)
VIII: Day Eight (Dublin - Bushmill - Stanocum - Belfast - Dublin)
IX: Day Nine (Dublin - Edinburgh)
X: Day Ten (Edinburgh)
XI: Day Eleven (Edinburgh - London)
XII: Day Twelve (London)
XIII: Day Thirteen (London)
XIV. Day Fourteen (London - Detroit - Nashville)
XV. Rainbow Round
XVI. Movies

Video Bonus Round

Here's some of the videos we took on our trip:

I. Castle Dinner
II. Cliffs of Moher
III. Attempts at Hurling
IV. Pub Dancing
V. Parental Pub Dancing
VI. Royal Mews Horse Warm Up 

Rainbow Bonus Round 4

And contestant number four.

Rainbow Bonus Round 3

Contestant three (double rainbow!)

Rainbow Bonus Round 2

Contestant two.

Rainbow Bonus Round

Just for fun, all of the rainbows we took pictures of. Choose your favorite.

Contestant one.

Irish Ending

Just like that it was over and we were giving the security at Heathrow Airport their turn at patting Mom down. It wasn't quite as magical as our European Dream but a grand time was still had by all and we're ready for the next adventure!

Circus Send Off

Stomachs happy we strolled down Piccadilly to window shop at all the stores, ending up at the Piccadilly Circus. It reminded us a little of Times Square with more of a historical edge. That gold statue is actually a living statue street artist who was very good at her act, as well as kind to some kids who wanted their picture taken but were a little intimidated.

Munchies

Layers of treats served with the perfect teas.

Getting High

No visit to Fortnum and Mason is complete without having high tea there. We kept meaning to try somewhere else but how can you top the best?

Wordplay

It has this unique mix of traditional high class and modern playful whimsy I've never seen anywhere else. For example they have this line of gourmet chocolate but the names of the different flavors are things like "Forever Chasing Supernovas", "The Obedience of Bubbles the Dog", "Adventures in Darkness" and "The Night It Snowed Stars." I love stuff like that.

Adult In A Candy Store

I'm not much for shopping, but there's something magical about F&M that draws you in.

F&M

With the trip winding down, our last day was all about taking it easy and shopping at our favorite store in the world; Fortnum and Mason.

Da Best

We headed back to the hotel and then out for a dinner stroll. We first went a pub that looked good online but it was packed to the gills. It turned out that the school right next to the hotel, Imperial College London, just happened to be having graduation and everywhere was stuffed with celebrating graduates and their families.

We walked further and found this restaurant called Da Mario which looked full too but Dad went in and asked anyway. Turns out hey happened to have an open table. What a find! The food was absolutely amazing. It was so good we tried to go back again the next night but they were booked solid.

Lion

For Mari, since she loves lion sculptures. This is a casting made in 1869 of Donatello's Marzocco Lion. The original dates to 1418 and now lives in the Bargello Museum of Florence.

Metal

For Mom, since she loves wrought iron. This is a screen from Chichester Cathedral circa 1250.

Really Big

Here's a good reference of scale. Even though it wasn't what we expected we gave it our best shot and checked out a good deal of the museum. We enjoyed it but didn't leave with any real wish to return.

Big

The place was huge and many of the rooms inside the huge place were huge too, crammed full of every kind of artist medium you can think of. Painting, stone, metalwork, even clothes and a display in homage to the art of food.

Art In Art

It's a beautiful building inside and out, with this courtyard in the middle pond and all. We should have done our homework before coming though. At no fault of the museum we were expecting more "Britishy history stuff" and less "arty stuff."

V Hearts A

Onward to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Built in 1852 and opened on June 20th, 1857 by Queen Victoria herself it is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture. It was not built by Queen Victoria, just dedicated to her and her late husband.

Passing The Buck

It was just a short walk to Buckingham Palace so we figured why not, besides cabs would be easier to get near there. As we learned from our last trip, that flag means the Queen was in residence.

Lunch Rising

From the Royal Mews we took a random wander and stumbled across the Phoenix bar to eat lunch at. The food was top notch, always nice when that happens.

Carted Convoy

After a while they loaded everyone up and two convoys were formed. Each procession went motorcycle police, mounted police, carriage, carriage, Jaguar limo, mounted police, motorcycle police. It was very cool to watch it all come together, our vacation luck strikes again!

Warm Up Lap

The horses that had been led off earlier returned hook to carriages, and they took turns making circles around the courtyard. It was then one of the guides explained to us we were lucky to witness a somewhat rare event. Liberia and Sudan had assigned new ambassadors to England and they were about to be presented to the Queen at Buckingham, this was their procession.

Mounted Patrol

Not long after that several groups of mounted police arrived and started to wander about the courtyard.

Goings On

As we were about to leave we noticed a group of guides had shown up and were starting to block tourists off from certain paths and guide traffic across the two road entrances to the Mews. Soon after some staff started to bring some of the horses out and took them off somewhere.

Golden Folks

Here's Mom and Dad, not looking at it.

Going Gold

And finally the big daddy of them all, the Gold State Coach. Built in 1760 they only drag this one out for coronations, as has been done for every crowning since George IV in 1821. It weighs 4 tons and features more pure gold, gilding and artwork than you can shake a stick at. It takes eight horses to pull and they can only do it at a walk. The ride has been referred to somewhere between "horrible" and a very stiff upper lip "not very comfortable."

But it's sure something to look at.

Horsepower

A display talking about more modern royal conveyances. Every royal car is painted either maroon or black, or some combo thereof. They use Bentleys, Roll-Royces, and Jaguars with the newer Bentleys running on bio-fuel.

High Tech Horse Buggy

This is the Diamond Jubilee Sate Coach, finished in 2010 it's by far the newest coach. It was used for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and is interesting because it was built using all modern technology while trying to make it look classical. Instead of wood much of it is aluminum, it has modern shock absorbers for a smoother ride, built in cameras, air conditioning, electric windows and a slew of other things. The older carriages take 6 or more horses to pull, but this one only needs two. They still use 6 though, as it's tradition and looks grander.

Scottish Coach

Here's the Scottish State Coach from 1830. For when they want to have a fancy parades in Scotland. All of the coaches are kept immaculate and in full working order to be used at any time.

Irish Coach

There were probably 20 or so coaches so I just picked the ones I felt were either extra cool or relevant to our trip. Such as this one from 1851 called the Irish State Coach which is used when they want to have a fancy parade in Ireland.

Visiting Maryland

First we got to get up close to a few of the royal steeds. I don't know much about horses but you could tell they were well bred, very healthy and beautiful animals.

Every horse is named by the Queen, most often after places she has visited, royal names or military ranks. They breed two kinds of horses, Windsor Greys and Cleveland Bays.

Mew Work

The Mews are very much still in use, and are often closed when special occasions come up as they are busy getting the horses, carriages, and cars ready for whatever the event may be.

Horsing Around

With just two days in London we got our tourism on, heading to the Royal Mews. First built in 1377 the original purpose was to house the royal hawks. In 1534 it burned down and was rebuilt into the stables, expanded to what is here now in 1732. It was formerly called the King's Mews or Queen's Mews depending on who sat the throne, until finally they got tired of changing the sign and just went with Royal.

Here is where all the horses belonging to the royal family are housed and trained as well as all the royal carriages. In later years this also became where they kept royal vehicles.

Gorey Rest

Then just took an early evening to relax in our trying to be opulent, exceedingly traditional, very nearly actually functional rooms.

Quick Pick

It was too late to do much today, so we took an easy wander. We walked around the Royal Albert Hall which looked a little different than the our first visit as it was being renovated.

Hidden Passage

But I guess this family is just into modern because nothing worked for us. The rooms were dark and claustrophobic, not helped by heavy drapes around canopy beds. There were no power sockets in the right places, the shower-tubs were near lethal to get in and out of, the hallways were very twist and tight, and to cap it off my mother with impaired vision had to play "Where's the door?" thanks to this wallpaper.

We did not enjoy our stay at the Gore, but YMMV. It makes for a fun story now, I mean they got five posts when the rest of our hotels only got one each.

Almost French

Let me start by saying everyone who worked at the Gore was incredibly friendly and went out of their way to help us whenever possible. The whole place was richly decorated with that heavy, traditional feel as advertised so if that's your thing maybe the charm would have outweighed everything else.

Tradition

Nothing says traditional like an old fashioned key on a giant keychain that's hard to fit in your pocket and you're paranoid about losing because they can't just program you up a new one.

Rolling Around

They were very proud of the fact that on December 5, 1968 the Rolling Stones rented out the entire place to throw a launch party for their new album "Beggar's Banquet." Playing on the name of the album they threw a huge dinner which apparently dissolved into a massive food fight.

Getting Gored

We took a cab to our final hotel, the Gore. Ah, the Gore. The Gore was billed as a "traditional hotel", having been built in 1892 as a grand place to stay while attending performances at the Royal Albert Hall.

Platform 9 3/4

The train trip was perfect and though not overly eventful, one of the more fun times we had on the trip. We ended up taking almost 6 hours because there was a fatal incident on one of the other tracks that messed up the train traffic, but we didn't mind.

Of course ending in King's Cross Station how could we not look for the famous entrance to the Hogwart's Express. Unfortunately our muggle blood won out, no secret doors opened.

Edinburgh To London On A Train

For some it might be just a typical thing, but it did strike us how special it was we were traveling by train through Britain. Magical really. It was a coastal route with lots of views of the North Sea and sheep grazing in fields. We also passed Berwick Castle but it was too rainy to get a good picture. The only reason I even bring it up is because the castle is in a town called Berwick Upon Tweed which is the most British sounding town ever.

More Classy Passengers

See how fancy? We got our own table with cookies and a newspaper. We even ate them with our pinkies out.

Classy Passengers

Living large in first class.

Coming In First

Our train was set to depart at 9:30 so were loaded up on our first class car and found our first class seats. Honestly I don't know how much the tickets cost or if going first class was all that much more expensive, but it was fun.

Getting Classy

The day started at Waverly Train Station where we relaxed in the first class lounge while waiting for our train to London. We'd all been looking forward to taking the train so this was going to be travel that was about more than just getting from point A to point B.

Did I mention we had first class tickets?

Bus Back

And that was it, we took the bus back to the hotel and got ready for another day of travel. Only this time we were excited about it!

Tea Bird

We sat and had some tea at the palace, entertained by this brave Scottish fellow who had no problem wandering around and under our chairs or hopping up on our table. He may or may not have been fed for this behavior.