Well, I’m finally getting time to sit down and write. Brussels is not for the faint of heart or the really tired. We have been exhausted since our plane landed at 8:00 a.m. on Friday. We left our bags at the hotel and headed out to the Grand Place. The Grand Place is one of the most beautiful collections of architecture I have ever seen. Since the weather has been alternating between drizzly and bursts of golden sunshine we have been able to see these beautiful buildings with skies right out of renaissance paintings. We visited the Museum de la Ville de Bruxelles which has large scale models of Brussels town in the 1500’s and lots of history about the city. It also houses dozens of costumes for Manneken Pis, the cute little statue that for ... read more

Well, we are finishing our last day in Dublin. Before I start, I would like to say thank you to all of your who sent comments and messages. I really loved reading them. On this return visit, we stayed at the Clarence Hotel (Bono’s place) in Temple Bar. The only two things on our list were the National Museum of Archeology and a return visit to Christ Church. The Museum was as interesting as we expected. It was amazing to see the hoards of ancient Irish weapons and gold jewelry and decoration found in bogs. Some of the torqs (neck rings) were huge which made it hard to imagine them being worn. We also viewed several well preserved if somewhat incomplete bog men, flattened from years under the weight of the bog. They were really kind ... read more

The rest of the pictures... read more

Well, we picked up the car and headed out of the Dublin Airport on Thursday. I would recommend doing that since the traffic in Dublin is crazy and so is anyone who attempts to drive in it. This way we were outside of the city. Even so, the first thing Jim did was turn the wrong way on a one way street leaving the car hire lot. As with all firsts, the rest of the day was a bit stressful for me since Jim insisted upon driving a wee bit too far to the left and kept scraping our tires on the curb. No beer or wine on this trip. We needed all our faculties. Jim to drive, and me to yell at Jim when I was terrified. No navigation necessary since we had “Garmen” telling ... read more

Well, I am finally getting a chance to do my blog for the first time since we have been in Ireland. It’s much more difficult than I thought it would be since we are exhausted at the end of the day and all we want to do is fall into bed. So here I am with my glass of wine and my computer while Jim is already sleeping. On Monday we arrived and checked into the beautiful Shellbourne Hotel. It’s an oasis of comfort and luxury. Rather than being prudent and taking a nap when we arrived, we wandered dazed and tired through the streets of Dublin where I as navigator got us completely lost. Fortunately we finally asked a lovely man unloading a produce van to direct us. which he did in a very friendly ... read more