Falling behind again. I’ll try to do better. Last night I booked a room at the Evergreen B&B in Swords, near Dublin Airport, so we could be sure to get to the airport in good time to drop off the car, get to Terminal 2 and check in by about 11am for our flight to Bordeaux. I had paid for an extra day’s car hire to give us the flexibility to stay near Dublin and go to the airport tomorrow, rather than dropping off the car today at the airport, staying in Dublin, taking the bus back to the airport. As it is, we’ll have the car back without using any of the extra day, or the extra €10 for the GPS. Actually the GPS, whom we called Jane, because she had a plain English accent, not like Theresa’s, paid for herself by warning us of all the speed limit zones and speed cameras. Continue reading “Day 14, Thursday, Swords”
Day 13, Wednesday, Sligo
Today our mission was to find Brackagh, where my ancestors, the Glendinnings, lived for several generations and ran a flax mill. Anne, the historian in our family (Anne earned her PhD writing a biography of one of my maternal ancestors) had discovered a map of most of the flax mills in operation in Ireland during the 19th century, found one mill labelled Glendinning, matched its coordinates with Google maps and found a Loyal Orange Lodge on the corner of the unnamed lane off Lough Fea Rd. Brackagh, a single farm of 47 acres with a very old farmhouse (not the original one) and two modern houses, lay at the end of the lane. Starting at Cookstown, it was easier to find than the car rental return at Holyhead. Continue reading “Day 13, Wednesday, Sligo”
Day 12, Tuesday, Cookstown
After breakfast (just porridge, toast and coffee, which turned out to be rocket fuel), we headed for the Giant’s Causeway a few miles away to the west. It was run by the National Trust, and like Clovelly in North Cornwall in 2003, and Hadrian’s Wall in 2004, they charge quite a lot to park and see the visitors centre, and try to keep it secret that the attraction is actually free to all. The only thing they can enforce is the parking. Our B&B owner said that if we just have a coffee in the old hotel there we can get a voucher stamped and use the car park as hotel customers. Continue reading “Day 12, Tuesday, Cookstown”
Day 11, Monday, Ballycastle
Apple Pay on my phone worked perfectly to pay the £2O0 bill for the Tara Hotel. It has worked most times in the UK and Ireland so far. Alternative is signing for everything, as we have had to do on previous trips. I hope it works in France too.
Today we started by taking the advice of a guy we talked to outside Botanic Station, and drove around Strangford Lough, ferried across at Portaferry. Great views. Continue reading “Day 11, Monday, Ballycastle”