Trip to Ireland
September – October 2006
Friday 6 October
The TV weather forecast was pretty bad for this
morning but
we looked outside the hotel after breakfast and there was plenty of
blue
sky.
Having tried unsuccessfully yesterday to find the right bus lucked out
this morning and took a Dublin
city bus to the National
Botanical
Gardens at Glasnevin. These are very
good indeed, well maintained and with some unobtrusive art as well. The two main green houses had an interesting
and the flowers (roses, chrysanthemums and dahlias in particular) were
extremely colourful in spite of the recent high winds.
There was a very large number of magpies to
be seen, these are not normally gregarious birds. There
is an amazing selection on view and
they are all identified. The different
types of lawn grasses were all set out side by side although they all
looked
the same, their uses varied from lawns to golf etc.
We rode the top deck of the bus back to O'Connell Street
and walked along to
Connelly station and took the Dart train to Dalkey.
The ride along the shore is interesting for
the tremendous number of wading birds, with a huge concentration of
oyster
catchers.
The best thing about Dalkey is the beer (Kilkenny
and
Guinness). It seems that the coastline
is privately owned. We were soaked
getting back on the train and returned post haste to Conolly.
Walking in Dublin
is difficult at any time and anywhere.
People are completely undisciplined and only think of themselves
so
movement becomes a series of confrontations.
This is so different to Paris
where people are considerate of others.
Dinner in the hotel was well prepared but badly
served.
Lobster bisque/breast of pigeon.
Cod/minute steak with chestnuts.
Irish coffee. Rugby on TV in
the evening. Leinster versus Munster.
Saturday 7 October
We took the Dublin
bus double decker No.747 route to the airport. This
was cheaper than Aircoach while the service is more frequent and there
is
a stop
just across the street from the hotel.
It worked well. We were up early
and arrived at the airport in plenty of time and surprisingly were able
to
check in almost as soon as we arrived.
1225 Dublin to Toronto 1715 Air
Transat
TS 537
1855 Toronto to Ottawa 1958 WS816
Both flights were right on time and the connection
in Toronto
was easily made
with plenty of time to spare. Air
Transat made a stop at Shannon and so
our last
duty on Irish soil was to have an Irish Coffee at the bar which
invented it in
the first place. When
Trans-Atlantic flights were much more of
an adventure than they are today, travellers from North America would
land at Shannon which was the first
place they airplanes could
make landfall. They would set foot on
terra firma and need a pickmeup before getting back in the plane for
the
continuation of the adventure. Irish
Coffee is a combination of soothing whiskey and wake up effect of
coffee and
now the drink is served world wide.
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