Dublin to London

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Monday, June 23
Dublin-John/Dianne arrive

I am writing this blog late. It is now Thursday, 26 June. This is the longest period that I have gotten behind. But, since Dianne and John arrived in Ireland, we’ve not had a moment to write and upload the blog.
Also, if you are keeping up with the blogs, you would know that we should be flying back at this time. Only, we are not on our way. In fact, after a long day at the airport, we have just checked in to a nearby hotel. You will hear a lot about this day and all the others if you just read ahead.
June 23 (Dublin)
We planned to meet Dianne and John on Monday morning. They were flying directly in from Atlanta. Their flight was to arrive at 9:30am. We drove from the hotel in Dublin to the airport. It was a little surprising how close in the airport is to downtown.
We spotted Dianne and John as the exited the security area. They were excited to finally arrive in Ireland and catch up with us.
We drove them to the hotel and dropped off their luggage. Dianne, Jackie and I went for a walk about town while John rested from the flight. We walked from our hotel across the O’Connell bridge into the Temple Bar area. We discovered a Hard Rock Café on Fleet Street. Nearby was The Oliver St. John Gogarty, a famous pub in the Temple Bar area. In fact, it was the starting location of the pub crawl that we planned for the evening.
After Dianne bought a souvenir from the HRC, we walked over to the Dublin Castle. It is an interesting site which has British roots. We found the description of the castle in our RS guidebook. It draws attention to the statute of justice on the top of the building wall. It is surprising that she is without a blindfold and she is admiring her sword. The Irish see insult in that they always felt that the statute represented the unfairness of British rule. I’m beginning to think that Rick Steves has Irish blood, too.
Then we returned to the hotel to check on John. On the way, I took an interesting photo of the Dublin Spire. After a couple of days, I have grown to like the strange pole. It grows on you.
That evening we walked back to the Gogarty Pub for the Musical Pub Crawl. It was great. We did about 45 minutes in Gogarty and then went to another two pubs. The last were about one hour each. Our group had about 30-35 people from all over, including many from the USA. As usual, Dianne made friends with some of the fringe group. The performers explained Irish music and played many different tunes. We all enjoyed the music and the drinks.
Just by chance, the last pub was near our hotel on the north of the River Liffey. So, we had a short walk back after the crawl was over. Since our plans for Tuesday were to leave Ireland on a ferry back to the UK, we decided to go to bed early to get some sleep. So, that’s it for Monday.
Tuesday, 24 June (travel day)
We were up early and missed breakfast at the hotel. We were told to be at the ferry terminal before 7:30am. Not knowing what kind of traffic that we would encounter, we left the hotel about 7:00 and arrived early at the terminal. All went smoothly as we entered the huge ferry and parked the car. We went upstairs to the passenger deck and picked a nice location for the 3 ½ hour journey across. There was a decent restaurant on board where we ate breakfast.
The crossing went well. Our next task was to decide where we would stop for the night. My friend, Peter, had recommended that we drive to the village of Betws-y-Coed, Wales. We did and we loved it. It is in the Snowdonia National Park. We had lunch there and decided to drive as far as Birmingham for the night.
The drive through the National Park was fantastic. We made many photo stops. As we drove we continued to think of options for the night. We ultimately decided on Strafford-upon-Avon, home of Shakespeare. At about six in the afternoon, we found a nice hotel near the center of town and soon found out that the entire city was sold out. We checked another and soon decided that we needed to drive farther out of town. We checked with Bonnie and found a hotel about five miles away. Dianne and John got a chance to see Bonnie in action. She has an affinity for small, farm roads. We drove down a few and ultimately found the nice, old hotel (more than 200 years). It had once been a girl’s school run by nuns.
We booked two rooms, for the same price, and I allowed Dianne to take the room on the ‘first floor.’ As it turns out, it was actually up some steps but the room was nice and she was happy. Our room was on the second floor. It required a difficult climb up some narrow steps. Fortunately, John helped us carry up some of our luggage. Once we entered the room, Jackie said, “No way.” The room was small, warm, dark, without a normal window, and a horrible bathroom. Well, there was no use in arguing with Jackie on this one. We were paying the same as Dianne with about half the value. So, we marched back to the desk and complained. We then were sent to the Sir Walter Raleigh room. Now, we were happy.
We were all tired from the long day. We had a very nice dinner at the hotel and once again, went to bed early. The plan for Wednesday was to drive to London and find a nice hotel near Gatwick Airport. So, that ended the evening.
Wednesday, 25 June (another travel day)
We had a nice sleep and good breakfast at the hotel. Then we went back to the car for another day of driving. The plan was to drive to the Gatwick area and find a good hotel near the airport. After finding and checking in, we would then drive to the designated drop point for returning the rental car. This drop point was also the point where my car would be hauled so that it could be shipped to the USA.
The drive was uneventful. I don’t even remember it now. But I do remember what happens later.
We used Bonnie to help find the hotel and she did a good job. We stayed at the Copthorne Hotel, about five miles from the airport. It was a large nice hotel. They were having a bar-b-que that evening and we booked it. Now it was time to drive the rental car to the drop point.
Dianne and John stayed at the hotel and we set out. We had written the BMW representative and explained that we would be there about 3:30pm. Plus, we explained that we had a rental, not my BMW. So, everything was set up for a smooth turnaround.
Bonnie said we had about a 40-mile drive to the drop location, adjacent to the Heathrow Airport. We had just drove past Heathrow a couple of hours earlier coming from the north towards Gatwick, which is south of London. We noted that there was lots of traffic going south but not much in the other direction.
So, we did not anticipate any trouble. Our plan was to check again with Bonnie when we neared the airport to find the Renaissance Hotel, the designated drop point. The directions that we had said the hotel was in a town named Hounslow, in Middlesex. So, as we moved up the M25, we started seeing airport signs and also the name Hounslow. Jackie was checking on Bonnie to find the Renaissance Hotel without success.
The exit for Hounslow was approaching and we decided to exit and enter the town still looking for the hotel. This was the first mistake.
As I drove to the first roundabout, I thought I heard Bonnie say, “Take the second exit.” But she must have said something else because as I took it we discovered that we were headed in the wrong direction. Bonnie said that she was recalculating. Now we were headed down another major road that led to M3, headed for downtown London. Bonnie sent us on some crazy route. Then Jackie found the Renaissance Hotel on the list and plugged it into the GPS. We ultimately, got off the M3 and headed into Hounslow. Traffic was terrible. Now it was 3:30 and we had five miles to go.
I called the number for the drop location to make sure that they would not leave if we arrived late. No one was there and I got a recording telling me that the office hours were 8:00 to 4:00pm. This was not good. We were stopped in heavy traffic and no one was there to answer the phone. Our concern was what would we do if we could neither turn in the rental car or drop off my new car on Wednesday. We were booked to fly out early on Thursday. We did not want to do this all over again the next day.
We finally arrived at 3:45pm. I ran into the hotel to ensure that I would catch anyone in the office before they closed for the day. When I found the designated room, it was closed! No one was around. I was not happy. I went back to see Jackie and to get a number to call our friendly Scottish agent, John Wood, in Glasgow. He said that he would see what he could do. He thought that my BMW had just arrived at the same location.
Finally, a bellman from the hotel came out to see what the problem was. We explained and he asked us to follow him in to see the concierge. He was a nice guy with a big smile and said, “Gosh, you should have asked me a minute ago. The guy you are looking for was just here.”
We were beginning to feel better. He tried to call him in his office, without success, and then reached him on his cellular. He said he had to carry his nephew home and would be back at the hotel in 30 minutes. The concierge asked me to move the rental car to the hotel parking lot. So, Jackie and I went out to do so. As we drove around the lot we spotted our BMW on a flatbed hauling vehicle. It was parked and was attended only by a young boy. Soon, his father walked up and explained that he was there to deliver it to me.
So, we had finally been reunited. The car looked great. I forgot to take my camera so I cannot show you it again.
We drove my car then to join the rental car in the lot. Soon, the paperwork was complete and we were finished. Now for the first time since Munich we were without a car. Now it was time to find our way back to the hotel at Gatwick.
We got some advice from the BMW guy to avoid the hotel shuttle which costs 2.5 euros/each and walked to the bus stop for a free ride to Gatwick.
I have run out of time writing. We are in the airport on Thursday evening. I want to upload what we have so this blog will be continued later.
We hope to fly back tomorrow, Friday, but who knows. Stand by for more; it may be after we reach the USA.

Love, Tom and Jackie

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Photos

Dublin Spire
390 ft.

Welcome to Ireland
John & Di arrive

Tom and Di
This was great pub.

Lady Injustice
There's the statute without a blindfold.

Dianne meets her match
Dianne knows no strangers.

The Fiddler
She was great.

Goodbye Ireland
We will return.

Wales
This is Snowdonia National Park....beautiful.

Warwick Castle
We saw this along the way.