Western Ireland Recap

In a word - incredible. In another word - unexpected. I could go on. The journey to Ireland was awesome. The group I was with was fantastic - fun, connected, young and old(er), informative and laid back....the group made the trip extra special. The last picture on this post is the whole gang of us on our last night at the house before heading into town for a final night in Ennis.

I took probably 3000 pictures and have narrowed it down, on first shot, to about 30 that tell the story. I haven't even gone through the photos from yesterday. This is the Western Ireland I saw, through the eyes of local guide and coach driver Olcan Masterson (also an accomplished Irish flutist, perhaps the best in the country so the rumor goes). Most of these images were taken in a 30 mile radius, all in County Mayo, and all off the beaten path. No tourists swarmed these locales, the sun shone upon us almost half the time and when it rained, it was fine, because it is supposed to rain in Ireland.

A big thanks to Olcan, to the group, to my roomie Jasmine who I feel like I have been roomies with forever, and to Ron Zimmerman, the photo guide, and Jacque from Strabo Tours - what an amazing journey.

Rossanrubble sunset

two days before - same place - no sun in sight

cow

Sheep

sheep giving a massage

fisherman cottage

Ennis Friary

winding roads, cliffs, coastline and mountains

all in one photo. I think this was Loch Nafooey

Clare Island

Achill Island

Pirate Queen Castle - Grace O Malley

wild lillies along the coast

Clare Island Lighthouse

a rainy day in Galway

the people of Ireland

window of fisherman cottage, abandoned

Sheefreey Forest

Abbeys and Cemeteries

Full moon on midsummers eve

the gang -

Sandy, Kaye, Carolyn, Jasmine, Steve, Terry and Ron. And me.

Westport

The first official day in Ireland with the tour group was fantastic. The trip is going to be very unplanned and very at the whim of the weather, so there is no itinerary and no actual idea what each day will bring - an adventure for certain. Last night we went to Ross an Rubbel and it was the most spectacular view of the Clew Bay and the many islands off the coast of Westport.



I wanted to share these amazing photos, though they may be the last I am able to post before the end of the trip. It happens that this morning dawned rainy and several people had business in Westport town, so I was able to access an internet cafe for this post. Enjoy!

An American in Europe

Traveling alone in Europe is a very different experience than doing so under the safety net of friends. When left to my own wits and devices, with no one to consult with and no one who has been there before, things become a lot more challenging but also a lot more interesting. Up until this point each place I have been has been with someone who understands me and speaks my language, both verbal and non verbal. Within England and Holland, I had a guide or a companion – a person experiencing with me the same situations or leading me to places where the situations can be interpreted if there was a need. But this haven could not extend beyond the borders of the countries where these friends live, and for just one day in this many day trip, I was left alone, to my own delight and peril.

I have been alone in Europe before. When I visited Canci for the first time I spent many days finding my way through the multi lingual transportation service of Holland and walking the streets by myself. But on this trip I have not had to do so except in the rare cases when I split off from the group for a few hours of solitary time. But on the day I left Holland for Ireland, I had to reframe my way of thinking and behaving, turn on my faulty internal navigation system, look more closely at signs and listen more closely to locals in case I should need assistance on my journey. The world is a very small place, and getting smaller every day. You can eat Indonesian food in Holland, Thai food in Scotland, buy French bread in Ireland and find Starbucks everywhere. A person from Ohio announces “go Buckeyes” in a kilt store in Inverness, a kid from Chicago hops on the bus in Ennis, a former colleague is discovered on the same tour in Edinburgh…yes, the world is a very small place. So you would think, given this, and given the fact the English really is an international language spoken by almost every shop keeper and desk clerk across every country, that traveling alone would be easy. But it’s not always. Even in this country, where I speak the same language, the system is different, as it should be, but also frustrating. And regardless of the kindness of strangers, there is always someone willing to prey on the ignorance of the American alone in Europe. Like offering to charge 35 euros for a cab ride 20 miles away when the bus will take you for 6.5.

Luckily I know better, and I think I know how to be as inconspicuous as possible, though the camera has a bad habit of screaming “tourist!!!” loudly and clearly for all to hear. But all the same, being on guard takes a lot more energy than leaning on a friend. And while a certain amount of relief is associated with the fact that I am meeting the photography tour group today and joining up with people who will lead the way, there is also a measure of disappointment that I cannot spend more time on my own. Despite the difficulties, the foibles and achievements resulting from traveling solo make for much more interesting story when the dust has cleared, the passport has been packed away and I am back on the streets of America.


Ennis - around town

Queen bar

Catholic church

friary - medieval ruins

Hup, Holland, Hup!!

My five day middle trip between England and Ireland was to Utrecht in Holland to visit my high school friend, Canci. I have been here three times since graduating high school 12 years ago (yikes!) and I love coming back because it gives me a chance to experience a few days in the life of a European living in Europe rather than an American on holiday. Of course, Canci plays a bit of tour guide, so we do things that are a bit atypical (like touring castles and walking into town in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday) but we also do totally normal things, like shopping at the market and neighborhood grocery stores, going to the spa (yes, that's totally normal), having friends over for dinner and board games, and going out to watch Holland play France in the European Football (aka soccer to Americans) Championships.

So really, the purpose of this middle trip was to relax and be Dutch for a few days - not to see a thousand things, but to experience them.

From Wednesday mid-morning until today, Saturday, I have experienced Utrecht once again through Canci's eyes. She's a great interpreter of not just the language but the wheres and whys of what they do and don't do. Every time we speak I learn something new and have a new respect for some of the standards of Dutch life. Of course I believe we can learn something, as a country, from everyone and I find there are some things the Dutch do that we, as Americans could totally adopt into our culture and be better for it. But that's a different conversation!

So, the agenda was simply lazy afternoons spent shopping and walking, eating and talking and evenings spent cooking, hanging out with friends, and having tea and fantastic cookies!

A few noteworthy experiences that I have chronicled with photos below include our trip to Kasteel de Haar (de Haar castle), not far from Utrecht http://www.kasteeldehaar.nl/uk/index_flash.htm While the one hour tour was in Dutch, I still was able to get the gist of the castle, inside and out, with Canci's interpretations whispered in the lulls.

We made several trips into the city centre, several minutes from where Canci lives. Utrecht's most notable (I think) landmarks being the Dom tower and cathedral, the canals (present in most Dutch cities) and my favorite store ever - the Rituals bath and body store! Of course, Utrecht must be accessed by foot or by bike, to experience it like a local. We chose bike, which means, yes, I got up on a rickety Dutch bike and wobbled my way behind the crazy bikers into town with Canci at the lead. OK, so I fell off a few times and had a hard time starting up, but I blame it on the bike, not on me! Yeah right....

Another noteworthy experience was our trip to the spa. Last time I visited, Canci and I spent a few hours at Houten sauna/spa and so we went back yesterday for massages and facials. The spa system is really incredible here - little sections of city and country set aside to look and feel like vacation destinations, with pools and showers and saunas and hot tubs - a lovely way to spend a few hours or a whole day!

Lastly, and probably the most exciting for me, was to get to experience the country gone nuts for the Holland vs France football championship game last night. The whole of Utrecht, and I am sure the country, was decked in orange (the country color) and people were screaming from windows and honking horns and crowding the bars. It reminded me a bit of the first time Aaron and I wandered into a sports bar the day Clemson played Carolina in Columbia - big mistake if you have no idea what's going on, but definitely a story to tell! Anyway, we watched the game at Mark's house ( a friend to Canci and Ronald who I had met on previous trips) and of course Holland won, so everyone went nuts! Mark passed out orange shirts to each of us and, decked in country color, we made our way to a neighborhood bar where we celebrated some more. I took some photos of this with my i-phone and I've included them here, but they are really hard to see. Needless to say it was a true cultural experience! And my new favorite Dutch phrase? "Hup, Holland, Hup" (interpretation: Go Holland!).









Technically speaking, this journey wasn't so much about photography as about visiting a place and a friend and just being me for a few days, but me in a different location. And I had a wonderful time.

I am off to Ireland tomorrow, and I am not certain how much, if any, blogging I will be able to do. The place I am staying for the workshop does not have an Internet connection so it's more likely that I'll only be able to post one or two at either end of the 10 days rather than along the way. But keep checking back, there will be something to share before I come home. Onward towards more adventure!

Tommy the cat


Canci's house, downstairs




my room



de Haar castle























the Dom tower, Utrecht















Around the neighborhood

Parting Ways

Aaron and I spent the last day in England being "locals" -walking around Bury St Edmunds in the morning, having tea at Harriet's with Suzanne in the afternoon, and eating in with Wes and Suzanne that night.

It was a great trip and a wonderful chance to see our friends and some places we might not have gone otherwise.

At this point in the journey Aaron made the transition from "on holiday" to "heading home" with the ceremonial shaving off of the scruff. Here is an amusing before and after picture.

We parted ways the next day in the Gatwick airport - back to Dayton for Aaron and a short hop to Amsterdam for me - onward towards more adventure!

Cambridge

After heading back from Scotland we had one more official day in England and we spent half of it walking around Cambridge, a busy university town about 30 minutes from Bury St Edmunds. It was a hectic and historic city. My one disappointment was that we had to pay to see everything - to walk through the most beautiful parts of the city was to also walk through the university campus, but you couldn't enter for free unless you had official university business. So needless to say we didn't do this at every stop. I did pay to see the inside King's College chapel, which I think must be a misnomer because I consider it more of a cathedral. Other than that, I contented myself with what I could see for free from the streets. I know I missed a lot, but perhaps I will go back again?

The Eagle pub in Cambridge apparently has some RAF memorabilia inside and on the ceilings. We didn't eat there (I was kind of pubbed-out if you can imagine) but we did peek inside. This picture is really for Aaron.



inside




King's College Chapel









Inside King's College Chapel











punting down the river (which we didn't actually do)




Round Church - second oldest building in Cambridge - built around 1190 I think.

Glenkinchie Whiskey Distillery

No visit to Scotland is complete without a trip to a whiskey distillery. Ok, so I don't actually like whiskey, but the experience was still cool. This was a good tour - short, informative and the tasting at the end was surprising in that they let us taste whiskeys that were quite expensive. And yes, I tasted. But I made faces, too.

Of course we all shopped at the gift shop and came away with a little piece of Glenkinchie and a few pounds poorer, but that is the point, right?

Culloden

While I have no ties to Scottish history, the battle of Culloden, where over 1000 starving Scottish clansmen lost their lives fighting unsuccessfully to restore Charles Stuart to the throne, held a special interest for me. Outside of Inverness lies Culloden field where the mass graves of the Scottish and English soldiers are marked with simple stones. The site has been excavated so that Historians have a good idea of what lies where, and a visitors center offers a glimpse into the history of the battle and the events leading up to the battle. It was a solemn and beautiful place, fields of green waving in the wind, clouds blowing across the sun and away again. A place of sorrow and peace.

http://www.nts.org.uk/Culloden/Home/

Urquhart Castle

Though we toured Edinburgh castle, this castle - Castle Urquhart (pronounced ook-hart) was much more what I had envisioned when I pictured the castles of Scotland. The structure was in ruins, but there was a clear impression of what used to be. The layout of the structure gave evidence to the way life used to be, and the spiral staircase into the living quarters of the nobility remained intact. It was a truly cool experience to walk through history and touch ancient stones, cool from the breeze off the loch, with the sun warm on my back.

































History of the Castle


In 1288 the ‘Men of Moray’ rebelled against their king, Alexander II. By 1230, the king had crushed the uprising and brought in men he could trust to control the rebellious region. One such man was Sir Thomas Durward who was granted the lordship of Urquhart. It was probably his son, Alan, who built the first castle on a promontory on the banks of Loch Ness. The natural defences provided by the Loch were supplemented by a rock-cut ditch on the landward side. When Alan died without a male heir in 1275, the king granted the estate to John Comyn.
In 1296 Edward I of England invaded Scotland and Urquhart was one of the castles that his men captured. After the English defeat at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Urquhart was once more back in Scottish control, only to be retaken by the English in 1303. By this time the Comyn family had sided with king Edward I and Sir Alexander Comyn was put in charge of the castle. When Robert the Bruce drove the English out of Scotland he also defeated the Comyns who fled into exile. Urquhart Castle was now a Crown property.


Throughout the 15th century Glen Urquhart was terrorised by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles who repeatedly raided the region. In 1479 Sir Duncan Grant was brought in to try and bring some stability to the area. He, and his grandson, John, had some success and as a reward the Lordship of Urquhart was granted to them in 1509. Part of the King’s charter stipulated that they repair the castle and build a tower. However they were still not at peace with the MacDonalds and construction at the castle had to wait until after the last MacDonald raid in 1545.


The tower that the Grant family built is the best preserved part of the castle and a climb to the top offers spectacular views across the Loch. During the 17th century the castle went into decline. In 1644 it was attacked by a group of Covenanters who robbed the building of most of its contents. The castle had its last lease of life in 1689 when it was garrisoned by three companies of Grant Highlanders. In 1690 they managed to withstand a siege by a Jacobite force of more than twice their number. When the last soldiers left in 1692 they blew up parts of the castle to prevent any further use.

http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/scotland/urquhart/urquhart.php

Loch Ness

The day started out cloudy on the shores of Loch Ness - no signs of Nessie except at the kitchy tourist center. But once the clouds started rolling off the loch and the sun came through, the light and sky were just amazing. We pulled off a few times along the loch and then visited Urquhart Castle, which you can see at a distance in some of the images.

Urquhart Castle

Inverness

the capital of the Scottish highlands, Inverness is everything Edinburgh wasn't - small, quaint, nestled in the mountains and mist. Bagpipe music droned from a nearby pub competing with rock blaring from the one next door. People lazed at tables, pints in hand, enjoying the ambience along the river. The city by night was awesome - lit almost from within and glowing with history and heritage. I didn't get much chance to walk around the city during the day but I did attend a Catholic mass at St Mary's church on the river and we enjoyed the hospitality of the many pubs in the two short nights we were there. One other cool thing - the musical group we happened upon at a place called Hootenanny's was fantastic - they were called North Sea Gas and their music was the coolest blend of Scottish folk and Highland history with a bit of bluegrass thrown in for a twist. Despite the gray of the clouds, Inverness formed a perfect starting point for every journey a days' ride from there.

Aaron and Suzanne

City by night, first evening we arrived

The castle - current structure was established in the mid 1800s but there has been some fortified structure on this site since the 12th century.

St Andrews Cathedral

the old above the new

the city by day

Rooftops of the city

Pedestrian bridge across the river

North Sea Gass at Hootenannys

the Highlands

Up to this point I haven’t been especially poetic in the few blogs I’ve written – it’s been more a “this is the place, these are the photographs” kind of recount. This is mostly because I’ve had nothing lyrical to say, until now. Scotland was one of the places I had always dreamed of seeing. It began with my interest in (read, mild obsession with) the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series that follows the story of two people on a fantastical journey through Scotland and into the United States. Much of what I know of Scotland and its history comes from these near 6000 pages of story mixed with genuine historically accurate events. I have no head for historical facts, for dates and times and places and names, and yet I am able to understand and connect with the stories and truths of Scotland during the time of the final rising in 1745 and Bonnie Prince Charlie and his lot. I imagine I have a much better recollection of facts when I am not forced to remember them but rather do so for interest and pure pleasure. If only all of history could be like that! But I digress.
I had in my mind this image of the highlands of Scotland that was drawn by Diana and her accounts, but in the end it turns out no words can really and truly express the beauty - the amazing breathtaking awe inspiring I cannot believe places like this really exist kind of beauty - that I found . If, nay, not if but when, I come back it will be to the Highlands – to the places where sea and sky join in mighty peaks of mountains of rock and peat, of stunning impossible green, of castles crumbling yet still standing, testaments to a torrid past. I will come back to this place where these same mountains, shadowed beneath stormy skies that break for the sun, sink low into the valleys and lochs that reflect their majesty, where thousands of rugged sheep dot the landscape, where the mist and clouds roll in and out in dramatic and windy gusts that create light and shadows in the most amazing ways. I will come back to this place where the people, with their contradiction of musical and rough speech, sing songs of battles and loves lost and won. The brief, too brief, days spent in the Highlands were the most impressive I’ve had in my lifetime. Every mile from Edinburgh to Inverness is worth driving again, twice over. And with so much more to explore, how can I resist? I will come back to this magical place…it’s not a matter of if, but simply, when.

Edinburgh - in the city

A day in the city

Edinburgh and Arthur's Seat

We began our first day in Edinburgh with a climb up to Arthur's Seat, a large rock outcropping that overlooks the city, ocean and surrounding area in a 360 degree natural setting. The elevation was about 790 feet and the views were lovely - you could see the castle and cathedrals, the coastline and the house of parliament. And the climb was certainly great exercise! After several hours we hiked back down to the city and explored the Royal Mile, wandering the streets, closes and wynds and meandering in and out of shops. We ate lunch at the World's End Pub (fish and chips all around) and back to the room for a rest before continuing on. Here are the images from the morning on Arthur's Seat.

Scotland Bound

our first day on the road began in Bury St Edmunds, scouring the Wednesday market for breakfast. After breakfast we were Edinburgh-bound.
Several hours of scenic countryside later, the car began to billow smoke from the hood. Pulling off on the side of the road confirmed something not quite right, but we decided to press on. Another hour later the smoke began again. Optimistically, we pulled over a second time, let the engine cool, and continued on the journey.
The third time the smoke erupted, we pulled off into a seaside town after crossing the border. The mechanic there told us he thought we could make it the last hour to Edinburgh and so we continued on. Two more pull offs later, one of the belts literally melted off and we were stuck on the side of the road 20 miles from Edinburgh. With the help of cell phones and insurance we were able to get towed to the airport where we rented a car and after two more hours arrived, four hours later than anticipated, in Edinburgh, hungry but not discouraged - this was our holiday after all! Even though most the restaurants had closed we went in search of one that might, on the off chance, be serving after 10 on a Wednesday night. And we stumbled upon a jewel of a place - an authentic Italian restaurant in Scotland. The irony didn't escape us, but we tucked in for some of the best food and service ever. The owners were boisterous and friendly and the food was fantastico! we took a midnight stroll through Edinburgh to burn off the pasta and gratefully sank into our beds, preparing for another day.


market morning in Bury









castle on the coast - still in England!







the brilliance of having a photographer along is that everything is documented! look out!


Scotland at last!



















Sheeeeep!




it really is that green



Wes and Suzanne, still simling!




no wonder the Scottish saw similiarities in North Carolina - we could be in the Smokies...sort of. Except for the accents and the driving on the left.






the italian restaurant















Edinburgh by night

















self portrait

Journey Begins in Bury St Edmunds, England

One rainy day in Bury St. Edmunds makes history comes alive. We arrived early after a long and uncomfortable flight - not enough leg room, cranky flight attendants and turbulence - but we arrived. And after snapping a few shots in the Gatwick airport, we rode two hours to Bury St. Edmunds. We walked around for several hours and despite the intermittent rain and overcast day, the ancient ruins of the St Edmundsury Cathedral and the Abbey were enough to keep us awake and issue us into the late afternoon. It's still a bit foggy (in my head and outside) but tomorrow's trip to Scotland promises to be clear!

Gatwick Airport




St Edmundsbury Cathedral - first building on the grounds circa 900AD
The ruins of the Abbey and the graveyard

History
For over 1,000 years the site of Suffolk 's Cathedral has been one of worship and pilgrimage. The death of Edmund, King of the East Angles, at the hands of the Danes in 869 led to the building of an abbey to house his remains. St James Church was built within the precincts of the Abbey, becoming a Cathedral in 1914.
http://www.stedscathedral.co.uk/index.htm

Bury St Edmunds today

The Nutshell - the "smallest pub" in England. Seats only 10 people. No standing room.

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