Magrilless

(or a little give)

We spent an entire day weaving from little farm route to little farm route through little farm routes, from the bottom right corner of the country top the top left. The geometric patchwork of neatly hedged fields gradually gave way to stone-walled higgledy-piggledy enclosures in increasingly craggy, jagged, dare we say mountainous, environs.

Trails and rocks perfect for adventurous day hikes and impromptu scamperings and…

Oops. I stepped on a rock hiding in the tall grasses and sprained a ligament in my foot. So…

We found beaches where people could explore (including one with a 30% grade road down to it — never seen that sign before!).

(Like, immense beaches. Immense.)

And a castle (still intact) shrouded in scandals and mysteries and beauty. With gorgeous sprawling gardens and a cozy tea room for the rainy afternoon.

And a lake where people have been skipping rocks for hundreds of years (which is why I presume there weren’t any left for us).

Some convalescence also gave us a good excuse to try out a local establishment for some Guinness, orange squashes, and pub food over a World Cup game (the US won this match 13-0).

It wasn’t the trip we had planned for this week. But, gee, we made do. And my foot is getting better every day!

Now to Northern Ireland to begin our trip through the UK (our last country to visit!).

What do you think of when you hear “Ireland”? Rain rolling over distant fields of green dotted with white spots of sheep? Chimney smoke curling from whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs? Cheerful rosy-complexioned people offering tips about cooking potatoes? Crumbling stone castles standing sentinel on the horizon?

That’s exactly what we’ve found here. And, of course, much more.

We’ve started our time here in the southeast corner, an agricultural area sparsely towned and generously cowed and sheeped. Our little cottage (once the stables) has a coal-burning fireplace, a one-lane windy overgrown driveway, creaky floorboards, and a horseshoe above the front door. A haven.

It’s been a very different travel experience for us, having a car to drive and take care of. That one-lane driveway? The roads are not much different. (Why have 2 lanes if 50% of the time there’s only 1 car on the road?) We tried walking to Tintern Abbey from home one day and gave up within 5 minutes of tractors compelling us onto the “shoulder” of stinging nettle. So we’ve done day trips in the car to fascinating places.

First up, the seaside. Of course not everyone goes on holiday to Ireland for the beaches. But we did! We’ve had several days of simply playing in the sand, collecting shells, skipping rocks, and wandering along the ocean.

We also found the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the world at Hook Head. The current structure was built 800 years ago, and has remained intact since that time. The walls are immensely thick, containing the spiraling steps that go up all 3 stories from one vaulted room to another. The last keeper lived there until 1996 when it became automated; guess I missed being hired at my dream job.

Afterward we went down to the ocean looking for seals (we spotted one from the lighthouse) and rock-hopped until the rain drove us inland. We didn’t find seals, but lots of barnacles and seaweed and fossils and caves and slimy red pillowy thingies (sea life is weird).

And we went to a 12th century Cistercian abbey to get lost in their hedge maze. (Really, it was quite difficult to navigate. It took us 30 minutes to get to the middle, and the grownups weren’t taking it easy on the kids, either.)

Talk about an evocative setting. You can just feel centuries of life stories oozing from the cracks.

We also spent a day at an Irish cultural center which took us through different periods of the country’s history. We walked from site to site, on a personal tour (no one else showed up!) learning about how people lived from first inhabitants, to early Christian monks, to the Vikings, to the Normans. I’ve decided I want to live on a crannog, a man-made island with no access except by boat or secret submerged stepping stones.

Plus we went on a “hike.” It was only forest service roads with very little in the way of views, or topography, or wildlife, or anything else interesting. But we did manage to find a windswept rock outcropping to make ourselves feel like it was worth it!

Thus has begun our Irish adventure. More is yet to come!

We popped in to Amsterdam for a fast visit between Germany and the UK. (We visited in a quick way.) Knowing things would be very expensive and mostly geared toward a more mature visitor, we tried to adjust our expectations to an abbreviated schedule. And actually we left very satisfied with our time spent. Here’s what we did:

We popped off the train and walked zig-zaggy through streets and canals to the museum district. The van Gogh museum is particularly well-suited to keeping kids entertained. There was a fabulous scavenger hunt for Maggie and Tessa (that I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot through) while Bill lurked around the tour guides soaking up all their knowledge. 4 floors of amazing art — he was quite a prolific artist — and biographical information later, we are all van Gogh specialists (it says so on my, I mean Tessa’s, scavenger hunt).

The next morning we headed out early to the flower auction house, the world’s second largest building (by footprint). A huge number of flowers and plants are moved through this facility every day, being shipped in, purchased, packaged, and shipped out in a matter of hours. Little tractors buzz around tugging little carts full of flowers while lights blink on and off, horns beep, conveyer belts click along, and colors flash by. It is such a busy place — 5 lanes of tractor traffic — with seeming chaos melding into a semblance of order once you slow down to watch. And huge! We walked for 15 minutes just to get down the end of one warehouse! It smells lovely, everyone is friendly (when they can spare a glance up from traffic to wave), and so many shapes and colors make for a pleasant and fascinating visit.

Afterward we bussed into the old city to wander, as we do. Crossing canals, waving to boats, getting delightfully lost, giggling at the Dutch language, choosing houseboats to call, searching for the crookedest buildings — it was a full and fun afternoon!

Although it doesn’t seem like we did a whole bunch of activities, it felt like the right amount for us. We got a good taste. And it was a nice send-off for the Continental Europe portion of our year.

We are off to Ireland!

We spent our last week in Germany in Cologne, which is actually one of the biggest cities in Germany (who knew?). But you’d never know it, really, being there.

Well, there’s lots of attractions. Like Germany’s largest cathedral — Episcopal, not Catholic. And a zoo with an amazing elephant habitat. And an indoor water park with slides galore. (Remember that place we went in Prague? This was very similar, with one additional slide that scared the pants off me: You stand with your arms crossed over your chest, and then the floor drops out from under you. You fall until the slide actually goes back up to almost your original altitude, then shoot down toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Lucky to be alive, people, I am.) And a chocolate museum, and an Olympic museum. And the beautiful Rhine River, with amazing green space everywhere.

But it also feels safe and lived-in and easy to explore.

Now it’s time to keep exploring the world!