We, Pim and Paul, have been on a few roadtrips ever since we’ve had a car available to us. These trips have brought us East (Wroclaw, Poland), North (Uppsala, Sweden) and South (Rome, Italy) and then in an epic travel, we ventured West. Originally we had though that going west from Amsterdam is kind of boring because you quickly get wet feet. But then we did our 2010 Road Trip NY to LA.
This website declares our understanding that, yes. there is a set of territories left of NL on the map, and we didn’t really actually have to fly all the way to the USA to do this trip. We pay homage to Great Britain, and also its happy neighbor Ireland.
Summer solstice For quite a few years already, summer solstice has been happening on either June 20th or June 21st (usually the 21st). In fact, it is believed that somewhere between 4000 and 5000 years ago people already knew about this event (see also our post about the Newgrange and Knowth visit, a couple of days ago). Not too long after Newgrange and Knowth were constructed, some ancient guys in prehistoric England built this other thing we now know as Stonehenge, to celebrate the longest day of the year.Read more...
The Big Pit Waking up in our separate Dragon Inn hotel rooms in Crickhowell is less of a silent blessing than we may have hoped. The snoring or showering noises are replaced with the clattering of another downpour and the local traffic. As agreed, we’re in the hotel restaurant at 8:30 for some breakfast. I sample the traditional Welsh breakfast (which includes ’laver bread’ and ‘glamorgan sausage’) and Pim has the traditional British breakfast (with black pudding).Read more...
Cymru There’s a funny thing about Welsh. It seems most words in this language have at least one of ‘c’, ‘w’, ‘y’ or ’ll’. Some words are just (seemingly) random permutations of these four options. And we figure the remaining words are borrowed from foreign languages or something. I mean, who comes up with a town name like ‘Mawddwy’ and how on earth do you pronounce that ? Or, worse still, ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ ?Read more...
Dubbin’ in Dublin Our last day on the Irish isle was planned to be spent in Dublin. However, since we missed Newgrange yesterday, we’ll try that again today. Sure, it means paying twice for all those toll roads and more driving around but what is a roadtrip if you’re not driving?
We get up around 9:00 and make our way down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Turns out, it’s not as good as we had hoped so after quickly stuffing down some bacon and eggs we check out and jump in the car.Read more...
Oh, I’m soooo elegant! This morning we woke up at our Radison Blu hotel in Cork, feeling somewhat .. strange. A feeling of shortspokenness came upon us. Our breakfast was consumed at high prices and low enjoyment value. Something was wrong, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. We felt somehow in-eloquent and this needed to be addressed. A sudden feeling of guilt and humility came over us. What were to happen in this state of mind?Read more...
The watery ring of Kerry Oh, Ireland. Such diverse weather! A slight drizzle, standard rain, rain with wind, heavy showers .. and this is just in one day! When we got up this morning, it was actually almost dry. After a bit of a disappointing breakfast we decide to visit the Ross Castle (Caisleán an Rois in Irish) on the shores of Lough Leane. We’re there before they open up, so we seek shelter from the rain while we wait the few minutes until the doors open up at 09:30 sharp.Read more...
Inisheer and pukie Our plan today was to go to the Aran Islands on a boat tour and take a good look at the Cliffs of Moher (preferably from the ocean-view, not from the land-view). That sort of, kind of succeeded, but not quite perfectly.
After breakfast which Mary from Summerville B&B lovingly prepared for us, we took a short drive down from Galway to Doolin. We found the harbor just fine, there were several boating agencies happy to push us a trip, but I had already booked us a duo-package (once to the first Aran Island, called Inis Oirr (Inisheer in English, and once from that island along the coast line of the Cliffs of Moher).Read more...
Rain, rain, go away! There’s something strange about Ireland. Yes, it rains, but this is a stereotype that I do not wish to enforce. Unfortunately, one does not always get what one wishes for.
This morning we left our happy Best Western hotel in Sligo (which we now know is pronounced “Sly-Go”, not “Slee-Go”). The same woman who checked us in now had the morning shift - Ania helped us a little bit also with the pronounciation of Achill (Ah-Kill) and did indeed make sure we understood the perils of the road ahead.Read more...
Eire Yesterday morning, we got up really (really) early. Way too early, if you ask me. If you ask Pim too. Even if you ask Stena Line: when we got to the dock, we had to wait for 45 minutes before we could board. Luckily, boarding went a lot easier than on the chunnel - a lot more room for maneuvering. We parked the car and went to the on board restaurant for some much needed breakfast.Read more...
Polenta! While walking through Oban, I remembered what that dish was that Pim got with his sea bass during dinner last night: Polenta! Just thought I’d share that with you really quickly while we drive from Oban to Cairnryan…
Posted by Paul de Weerd at 9:03 AM
Ain’t that quaint Well, well, ain’t that quaint. There’s something about bed and breakfasts that creeps me out. I’m not accustomed to going to a “hotel” to find the door locked and a sign saying to ring the bell of the door of the house behind the building, but I get ahead of myself.Read more...
Glenmorangie and Nessie Our departure from Livingston was smooth. We got up at around 8am, and after the customary showering ritual, we went to the Mall to handle some errands - specifically we needed some more fruit and good stuff for the road ahead of us, and I wanted to top up the SIM card I borrowed from Todd, so that we could Inter the Nets en route.
So we went to this mall (the same one we were at yesterday night in search of a letterbox).Read more...
Scotland at last On to Scotland!
So, Doncaster is nice and all, there’s uhm .. “food”, sort of a bed, uhm. Yeah. Let’s get rollin’! Onwards, to Scotland! We get up around 8, I hit the shower (careful not to bump my head against the showerhead) and go for some breakfast. We’ve already lowered our expectations, so we’ll be OK. With some calories down the hatch, we quickly jump in the car and program the car for Scotland.Read more...
Four (or Six, depending on who you ask) Countries! We’ve pretty much closed out our first Real Day[tm] of travels. This beautiful Sunday morning we left Almere NL at 9:19am, a car packed full of goodies (food and otherwise), and we were destined for Doncaster UK. The first part of the trip was to Calais FR. Getting there was okay except for a weird 45min complete stand-still near Jabbeke BE. There were construction works on the road there, and I think maybe a car had broken down on the one-lane passthrough, so folks had to manouvre around it, or push the car suitably far into the shoulder for the other traffic to pass.Read more...
Day One - Almere NL, prep work On Friday June 7th the road trip started, but Paul was unaware. I drove from my house in Zurich Switzerland to the picturesque town of Tengen Germany where I have a weekend retreat camping site and a happy RV unit full of RC units to play with. At around 9:15pm I left and at some 10:15pm I arrived at a rather calm campingsite.Read more...
It has begun! It’s Friday June 7th and about 10:30pm. I just made my way from Bruttisellen, Switzerland to the beautiful and entirely unknown village of Tengen, Southern Germany. In fact it’s so far south that I still have 4 bars of Swisscom 3G reception, as the border is probably about 550 meters from where I am sitting.
I decided to start the journey today so that I can avoid the rather horrible traffic situation around Zurich (yes, also on Saturdays), and make good time to get to Almere, The Netherlands, by mid day when the sun is still warm and bright.Read more...
The idea for Ireland - Arrive in Belfast on June 13. Leave Dublin on June 18th.
Marker A: Belfast Marker B: Giant’s Causeway Marker C: Achill Marker D: Cliffs of Moher (and the Aran Islands) Marker E: Killarney Marker F: Blarney Castle (and kiss the Stone) Marker G: Newgrange Marker H: Dublin Posted by Pim van Pelt at 7:23 AMRead more...
Under- and over-water bookings Well well, preparations are well underway. Paul and I spent some quality online time prepping some of the details of our trip. When we did our road trip from New York to Los Angeles (see http://2010roadtripnyla.blogspot.com) we were not too fussed about getting a good plan up front. We basically rented a car, booked flights, and winged it. Now, England, as we understand, is less frivolous and wingable.Read more...
