Know Where You Walk

We were unable to update our blog while we were in China due to the internet 'iron curtain' which was frustrating as we had SO MUCH to say about our China experience. But now that we are home we can wrap up our final entries. In the 5 weeks we were travelling we had so many 'know where you walk' moments with the amount of history that surrounded us at times.

Hilary had one of those moments when she went out to take a photo of the Hotel we had stayed in the night before in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

It was situated on an T-intersection and on one corner was a church that was established in 1238. Then this is the old tudor hotel we stayed in that is over 400 years old.



On the last corner was the house that William Shakespeare lived in for 19 years and died in only 4 years after writing his last play.



But when it comes to being surrounded by history we think that the burial tombs we were able to walk into in Ireland took the cake.

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They are older than the Pyramids and it was quite an experience to walk through the passageway and view the burial chamber and stone drawings. Once a year at the Summer Solstice is the only time that the sun shines through the front flat capstone and illuminates the chamber, it is such a sort after event that they run a lottery each year for a chance to be there.

Brilliant Brighton

The night before we went to London we spent in Brighton. All three of us agreed we wish we had a week there. However considering that we have had to nearly triple our Aussie Dollar to get pounds one night was our limit this time.

It was the nicest and most quaint seaside town we have visited on the trip. The highlight was the famous Brighton Pier which made you felt you had gone back in time. You could just imagine the Victorians walking along with their bowler hats and parasols.



But the thing that took our breath away was the Royal Pavillion, that was built by King George the 4th as his holiday home. Even Jess who has seen lots of Palaces and Castles by now said that it was one of the most breathtaking inside that she has seen.



We were not supposed to take photo's of the inside but I did sneak one when nobody was watching. This is only the music room, the large dining room had even a more amazing chandelier and other decor but there was so many staff there I couldn't sneak a photo, but this one will give you an idea of the granduer.

London - Vibrant, Regal, Clean and Crowded

We are in Helsinki at the moment on our way to Bejing.... Just finished our England leg of the trip with just under 48 hours in London. Jessica was our local tour guide and in one afternoon she managed to show us Parliament House, Big Ben, Green Park, Westminister Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Queen's Horse Guard house, 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London, London Bridge, Eye of London, the Thames River, Trafalgar Square and Regents Park. Lucky for us she knew her way around.

Here is Big Ben and they are right, it is BIG. The darkish clouds in the sky is weather that had been threatening to rain for days but we managed to miss all the bad weather even though there were serious floods in the regions we went through. Really fortunate that none of our sightseeing plans were affected by weather in Germany, Ireland or England.



This is the tower of London, where the crown jewels are kept and where Henry the 8th beheaded one (at least) of his unwanted wives.



The last evening Hilary and I went to Picadilly Circus and Soho on our own while Jessica caught up with her flat mates and work mates for her last Friday night in London. Picadilly was vibrant and amazing, most of all the crush of people was even overwhelming at times.

We'd been told that London was dirty and grimy but even in the seedier places of Soho, we didn't come away with that impression. We also never saw any rubbish or litter in the underground (tube).

Britain - Picture postcard perfect

Well we have only been in Britain for three days and where we have been so far has been picture postcard perfect and we just wanted to share the photo's with you.



In the next one look for the house covered in a creeper on the other river bank.



This photo was from our favorite village so far called Bibury in The Cotswolds.



Another little old cottage from The Cotswolds



We are now in Bath and took this photo yesterday of Pulteney Bridge & Weir.

You know you are in Ireland when...

The road signs are in gaelic





As well as the radio station and when you go to the servo they are all talking in gaelic

You also know you are in Ireland when its not such a long way to Tipperary after all…



You definitely are in Ireland when the football teams playing this weekend are Tipperary vs Limerick and they are playing in Killarney

When an irish pub looks like this (and not a fake one at our local shopping centres)



But best of all, you definitely know you are in Ireland when door signs say this..



p.s.

By the way, we found the black sheep of the family



Now we are off to England, keep smiling everyone and keep those blog comments and emails coming! :-)

Natural beauty here as well

We've been enjoying many aspects of Ireland and most of the ones we've shown have been castles, cathedrals and other man made structures but today as we made it to the very top of Ireland (we could just see Scotland), we got to enjoy the completely natural beauty of the Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge from the mainland to a small island.

This bridge was created by fisherman originally about 350 years ago. They built the bridge to get closer to the migrating salmon that came through the area each year. The bridge still gets put across every summer and taken down every winter.



Here you can see Hilary in the red windbreaker and Tony in the grey one. Hilary has always claimed to be afraid of heights but after making it across this bridge she's decided she can't say that anymore.



The rocks below are part of the Giant's Causeway. These rocks were formed around 60 million years ago by a large flow of lava into the valley. The lava was able to cool quite slowly thus forming the mostly hexagonal shapes. There are about 40,000 of these rock formations in a small bay. This formation is likened to how mud can dry with geometric shapes, it was an amazing landscape!!!

Best day ever

Our son Davis, when he was much younger, described the day TV was invented as his "best day ever".... So, as a long time fan, and drinker of Guinness, you can imagine how wonderful it was for me to have a pint of Guinness with Hilary and Jessica at the Gravity bar on the top of the Guinness storehouse museum.

It was the best pint of Guinness i've ever had and the setting and company couldn't have been better!!!

Bottoms up!

Ruined and regal castles

We are now in the middle of castle country still in the southern part of Ireland and enjoying having Jessica share this experience with us. The most dominating from a landscape perspective is the Rock of Cashel, it is high on a hillside and has a very Camelot sort of look to it.



When you are walking around the Rock (Camelot Castle), you definitely have an "if only these walls could talk feeling"... The info about the Castle suggested that St Patrick spoke at the cathedral within the castle walls. The audio visual presentation that was part of the tour highlighted what a varied past life the castle has had.



The most impressive / regal castle is the one at Kilkenney which has only recently been restored to it's former glory. This castle was owned for many centuries by the Butler family who were involved in the wine trade and also counsel to several past english Kings.

Irish countryside, perfect one day, awesome the next

We've been working our way around the southern part of Ireland and up the western coast. Yesterday we did the Kerry Peninsula and today we did the Dingle Peninsula. The scenery is ruggedly beautiful, we really felt like we were in the back of beyond at times. When you can see no other sign of habitation except for 3 sheep, you know you are a long way off the beaten track.



At the start of our way around the Kerry peninsula we stopped for lunch at a small coastal town called Kinsale. This is one of the places we could have easily stayed at a lot longer. We were lucky to get there on the day of their farmer's market which had great and colourful stalls. The town is a set of narrow streets with colourful shops. The footpath was only 18 inches wide in many places and the streets were all one way because of how narrow they were.



Here is a view along the coast of the Kerry peninsula.



The Dingle peninsula today was more mountainous and home to more sights of historical significance. We saw a fort that dated to around 200 b.c. The amount of rock in the fields meant they didn't have to go far to get raw materials for the walls that were everywhere.

Reminiscing About Medieval Times

We are still in Ireland but we were reminiscing about Rothenburg (Germany) last night and re-visiting our photos from that magical weekend and thought we'd share the best of them. The festival was to celebrate an event when the Mayor saved the town from plunder 400 years ago.

Rothenburg is still completely contained within its medieval walls dating back to 12th century. The wall is still in excellent condition, you can walk around most of the town on top of the wall. The whole town gives off a completely 'walk back in time' atmosphere. It is a fairly large town as well, had a population of about 6,000 back in it's heyday.

All weekend about 200 people dressed in medieval costume were walking around the town playing their trumpets, drums, flutes and singing. You would turn a corner and there was another group, either soldiers, town wenches, musicians etc. The idea is that they would walk from one old hotel to the other and effectively sing for their supper. Once they had sung some medieval 'ditti' they would be rewarded with beer and wine from the hotel.

The wall



The wenches



Singing for their supper



Hilary fraternizing with the locals



Tony showing why men have 2 arms

Idyllic Ireland

We've made it at last to Ireland. Hilary has dreamed of visiting the country for many years and it is living up to her high expectations. The weather was rainy when we landed in Dublin and that persisted all the next day. We've still managed to get some great photos as you'll see below.

Last night we stayed in a restored Coach House that was attached to a Castle back in the 1800s. The Castle is now in ruins and was within a stones throw of the house. The Coach House was perfectly restored and the grounds had atmosphere in spades. We could still see the ruins of the stables and other farm sheds.

On the way to the Coach House near Waterford, we went through the village where the 1995 movie "Circle of Friends" starring Minni Driver was filmed. The village, Inistioge, was absolutely quaint and delightful, seeing it in person makes us want to come back and watch the movie all over again. Here is a picture of the bridge that featured in the movie.



This picture was taken in the rain, we are staying in the village next Saturday night with Jessica and hope to get a sunny picture then. Driving in Ireland takes a bit of getting used to, the country roads are very narrow with hedges snug up against the road, so there are no places at all to pull over. However, it is green, beautiful and nearly every corner you go around takes your breath away, we love Ireland.

On the way to Waterford, we went down to a place called Hook where they have what is thought to be the oldest working lighthouse in the world, it has been there for 800 years. The town of Crook lies across the bay, this is where the origins of the saying "By Hook or by Crook" comes from, evidently when Cromwell was going to invade and plunder Ireland, famously he said "I'll get there by Hook or by Crook" as he was planning to land in one of these two towns.

To be sure... to be sure: off to Ireland

Tonight is our last night in Germany. Tomorrow we head off to Ireland for 2 weeks.

The stay in Germany has been great for Tony from the perspective of catching up with relatives and his heritage. He has reunited with relatives and met cousins here for the first time ever. Tomorrow morning we are off to the Zoo in Frankfurt to see if we can find some more "distant" relatives to be reunited with!

What made Germany special for us....

Delightful time with loved ones
Stunning scenery
Great architecture
Lots of forests
Very affordable place to holiday (once you get here)
Beer
More beer
Efficient transport
Even more beer
Lovely mild weather (only 3 of 10 days with rain, rest were warm / sunny and / or mild)

What we expect that will make Ireland special for us....

Do I hear the word beer???

Castles, Sauerkraut and Hofbrauhaus

We´ve just had the perfect time in Germany, got to see folk dancing in Dinkelbuhl and the amazing Neuschwanstein castle in Fussen, this is the castle that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Disneyland and having seen it we can sure see why. I even found it unbelievable that such a magical castle exists. We also climbed the world´s tallest cathedral spire in Ulm, it was 768 steps and worth every ache and pain we felt the next day.

Here is King Ludwig's fairy tale castle



Below is the cathedral from Ulm, we climbed to the very very top




We have spent the last two days with Tony´s Aunt Doris, Uncle Christoph, brother Klaus and niece Shana in Munich and met cousins Bruni and Deitgar who I´ve never met before. Deitgar is the oldest of my cousins and Bruni is one of the most talkative! :-)

Next picture in this post is the folk dancers in their traditional costumes. When we saw the dancing, it reminded us very much of how my (tony) parents would dance.



Our final Munich experience was the famous Hofbrauhaus and it was a real highlight. The place has heaps of atmosphere and we had a group of young guys seeing who could outdrink each other, it was getting pretty rowdy and it wasn't even near the evening. Quite entertaining. The beer was great as well, the standard size is a one litre jug.



Now it's your shout! (hic... :-D )