We started out this morning with a slight glitch. I was mistakenly booked onto the wrong day trip and didn’t notice until it was too late to try and change it (there are benefits to waiting until you get to London to book these tours instead of booking them online through a third party…lesson learned). Instead of a “Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath” trip, we ended up on a “Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Oxford” trip, which probably wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t already been to Oxford. I tried (and failed) to get onto the other tour [View Full Entry]

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Today was our day trip to Leeds Castle, White Cliffs of Dover, and Canterbury Cathedral. After breakfast we walked to Victoria Coach Station to catch our tour bus (Evans’ Tours). The bus left at 9am and we headed first to Leeds Castle, driving through parts of London we hadn’t seen yet (including Elephant and Castle, birthplace of Charlie Chaplin). Our tour guide, Debbie, was BRILLIANT. So funny and interesting…this was the first tour that I wasn’t dosing off within the first 15 minutes on the road. On the way to Leeds Castle we passed through Greenwich and the Prim [View Full Entry]

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Today we left Brighton and took the train back to London. We took the 10:55am Southern train and arrived at London Victoria at 12:06pm. The Underground ticket machine wouldn’t read the card we were trying to use (Travel tip: Use cash to buy tube tickets! It’s so much quicker!) so we waited in the long queue instead to buy our one-day travel cards. After taking care of that, we took the tube from Victoria Station to Pimlico, where our hotel is located (Blades Hotel, same one we stayed at when we started our trip). We checked in, dropped off our bags, [View Full Entry]

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It was pouring rain in Cardiff when we woke up (what happened to summer, UK??) so we were a little worried about what the weather would be like when we got to Briighton. After breakfast we caught a taxi to the train station and then the 8:55am train to London Paddington Station. We got to Paddington at 11:02am and had 42 minutes to get the tube from there to Farringdon Station. The tubes run quite frequently so we only had to wait about 4 minutes for the Hammersmith & City (pink) line, and we arrived at the train station by about [View Full Entry]

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This morning after an early breakfast we caught a taxi to Chester Station and then the 8:22am train to Cardiff. One thing I’ve learned about the trains here in the UK, just because you make a seat reservation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually got a reserved seat. We had seats reserved on Coach B but when the train arrived, there WAS NO COACH B on the train. This is the second or third time this has happened since we’ve been traveling. Luckily we were at the first stop so the train was empty and we had no trouble finding seats and [View Full Entry]

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This morning after an early breakfast, we caught a taxi to Dublin Ferry Port for our 8:45am ferry (Irish Ferries) to Holyhead, Wales. The port is about 10 minutes ride from the city center but cost about 16 euro (expensive, like everything else in Ireland). We checked in checked our luggage, and were on our way right on time. The ferry isn’t quite as nice as the Stena Line and it was quite crowded so we had to share a table with another man. They had a currency exchange on board so we exchanged all of our remaining euros for British [View Full Entry]

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I could hear the wind and rain pounding on our bedroom window throughout the night, but this morning when I woke up, it looked to have calmed down a bit. You know It’s been raining hard in Ireland when even the locals comment on how bad the weather is. When we left our B&B and started driving toward Dublin the sun was even starting to shine (!), so we were quite happy about that. We took the N18 to Limerick and then the N7 to Dublin. The roads here are funny…in the states, when you switch from one “highway” to the [View Full Entry]

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Today was day two in a row of non-stop Irish rain. After a lovely breakfast at the castle (definitely the nicest place we’ve stayed at this whole trip) and a bit of playing with the resident castle dog,( who liked to fetch rocks!!), we drove up the N69 to the N67 (and crossed the Shannon Ferry) to ward the Cliffs of Moher. To say that it was wet outside is a bit of an understatement. I’d guess that It’s generally quite windy at the cliffs anyway, but during a downpour..…well, I’ll let you use your imagination. My umbrella was twisting in [View Full Entry]

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It was raining when we got up this morning, and continued to rain as we had our breakfast and packed up our car to set out for the Ring of Kerry. (It rained during the ENTIRE drive, about 120km worth) The Ring of Kerry starts just down the road from where our B&B was so we left right after breakfast to get started (in hopes of avoiding the tour bus traffic coming in the opposite direction). We drove about 17km and took a 4km side route to Staigue Fort. The fort, one of the largest stone forts in Ireland, was likely [View Full Entry]

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Today was definitely an adoenture, for lack of a better word. We started out after breakfast from Kilkenny to the Rock of Cashel. The drive from one to the other is pretty easy (I still hadn’t done any of the driving at this point). The Rock of Cashel is a group of medieval limestone buildings that gained prominence during the 4th and 5th centuries as the seat of the kings of Munster. If you visit Cashel, get there as early as possible as tour crowds start filing in at about 11am Also, make sure you use the toilets by the parking [View Full Entry]

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