Ireland Travel Experience - Part 8

Northern Ireland - which is part of UK and north east of Ireland is one of our tourist spot when we were in Ireland. Belfast is the capital city. Currency is Pound Sterling. We reached Belfast by 9.00 am. Travelling around the coastal area, the tourist guide explained about how Ireland was split into Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland had civil war between Catholics and Protestants in 1912 till 1960. The protestants wanted some part of Ireland to be formed under part of England. So the country was split and 6 counties came under Northern Ireland and 26 counties for the rest. 

We passed the sleeping giant mountain near Belfast city main road which was the inspiration for Jonathan swift to write Gulliver's travels.. Then we passed over the north channel where we saw Scotland 10 miles away from the northern most point of Ireland. Sea farming is famous over the coastal regions..Lime stones and black stones were seen all over the coastal way which were formed due to volcanic eruption some million years ago. 

We stopped at rede rope bridge at 11. am. where entrance was 4.5 pounds per adult. And last admission ticket was before 2.45 pm.We had to do a 15-20 min walk to reach the bridge. Took some snaps and we dropped at white bay view point for some more quick snaps..

The tourist guide also mentioned a funny incident happened in the rede rope bridge. During the visit of this bridge, a lady was so much afraid to cross it. But somehow she crossed it and was not able to cross back again. Then she was accompanied back with the help of a helicopter :)

After we finished exploring the bridge, we started heading to our main tourist spot of the day. Let that tourist spot wait until my next post....

To be continued...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 7

                                       The next day trip which we planned was to Howth Harbour - Howth is a village located in the outer suburb of Dublin. We took the Dart service from Tara Street to Howth. The ticket costs around 5.20 euro. By 10:40 a.m we got the Dart and reached Howth by 11:10 a.m. Roamed around the harbour and took some scenic shots. Saw some mini ships sailing around as well across the sea. The weather was as usual - cold and windy. Finished our lunch by taking burgers and potato chips from Fish N Chips. There were so many sea gulls flying, walking and echoing around the Howth harbour. We fed some potato chips to few of the sea gulls and soon we were surrounded by so many. Then walked back to the Howth dart station @ 1:40 p.m and reached back Tara Street.

Then we went to the Trinity College - the place we always used to pass by while going for lunch during office hours. Though we have clicked some basic snaps inside Trinity College, this time we had gone inside to visit Book of Kells containing the four gospels of Christ from Bible. Book of Armagh, Book of Mulling, Book of Dimma were the other manuscripts displayed.

All alphabets forming words, sentences and languages were so different that time. Then we entered the long room inside the Trinity college library and was awestruck by the books aligned up and down as a treasure. Statues of all time great personalities like Socrates, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Plato were present beside the book shelves as two straight rows. After that we went to the National Library exhibition center to know more about W.B.Yeats and his collections of poems, articles and books. A list of poems read by famous friends of W.B.Yeats were shown in the audio visual room. Books are always our companions. It gives us more insight into different topics, thoughts and aspects of life. After visiting those libraries in Dublin, you will get interested in knowing more about Irish history, culture, art , language and places. Stay tuned to get more updates on my Northern Ireland tour as well...

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 6

                                                    We continued the day tour of Dublin by heading back to Phoenix Park - one of the largest city park in Europe. Our main aim was to cover Dublin Zoo here - but again we were disappointed as the last admission to the zoo was closed by 3 pm itself.

Though we were not able to visit the Zoo that day, we have seen the zoo another day - will explain more on that in the upcoming articles. But we did some more walking around the phoenix park exploring the green beauty of nature.

We were totally tired, exhausted and finally grabbed a taxi back to National Wax Museum to wrap up our day tour in Dublin. The wax museum was fully filled with wax figures of all celebrities, Hollywood stars, movie characters, political and historical figures etc. I particularly liked the wax figures of Smeagol or Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Yoda from Starwars. They were looking so real.

Other wax figures included Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw,Michael Jackson, Frankenstein, Dracula, Pierce Brosnan, Harry Potter & team and so on.. 

You would have already guessed that we would have stood beside these wax figures and completed our photo sessions. Yes you are right :)

By the end of day, we would have covered the major visitor attractions of Dublin. You can make use of all the major transport in Dublin if you are up to do a day tour. 

Other than walking, you can go in double deck Dublin bus, or tram (which is like a mini train between the roads) or dart (Dublin Area Rapid transit - It is same like the metro train between small stations). 

Also there are Hop on Hop Off buses, Dublin tour buses, Viking bus / splash tour, Dublin Ghost bus tour etc. 
Though we have not taken all these transport there, I guess the viking splash tour is fun and adventurous. 
As I have seen the visitors feeling the Viking effect by putting on the Viking helmet and roaring with enthusiasm all the way from road to water. 

OK, I will explain on our next day trip with a different location in my next part of the article.


-- To be Continued.....

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 5

                                                Tourist offices in Dublin offer a Dublin pass which is very helpful to cover the major attractions in the same day avoiding the rush in getting entry tickets. We took that pass for 35 euro per head from the tourist office in the old stone church in Dublin. They gave a tour package guide and maps for visitor's attractions. By 10:30 a.m in the morning, we we went to Christ church cathedral - unfortunately it was closed due to some security tightening schedules. So it is better to plan your day tour by checking the timings - opening  and closing hours of the sights you are going to visit. 

Then we entered into the DUBLINIA and started taking snaps with the historical and medieval Ireland culture, people and environment. It was a fun ride to get the viking and medieval exhibition experience @ Dublinia. You get a feel like you are visiting a viking warrior by wearing those viking armors and holding the weapons.By 11:00 a.m we went to St. Patrick's cathedral and spent half an hour there exploring the history of cathedral and Saint Patrick.

After that we were headed up to the Guinness Store house where we saw a big queue lined up. After waiting in the same queue for about 10 minutes, we came to know that for the guys who had Dublin pass, there was no need to stand in the queue. Then we rushed inside soon and reached the first floor. Taking few snaps, we started exploring the store house built by Arthur Guinness. Every where it was Guinness only - Guinness T-shirts, Guinness cups, barrels and then Guinness beer. We were able to see the process of making a beer - brewing, meshing, fermentation etc.

Source was mainly barley and yeast. There were tasting rooms for whoever wish to taste 1 pint of Guinness beer.Then we were moving on to the next floor by escalator as it had 7 floors in total. Once we reached the top floor, there was a gravity bar which gives 360 degree view of the entire Dublin city. We did a lot of walking on the same day to reach Kilmainham Gaol - it is an old prison in Dublin. But as we went after the closing hours of visiting the jail, we were not able to enter it. The day tour is not yet finished here...

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 4

                                              After finishing 2 tours , it was time for us to know more about the city we stayed -Dublin - capital city of Republic of Ireland. Almost all the major places in Dublin gives us a treasure of Ireland history, knowledge, culture and so on... To list the places we have visited in Dublin are: National Gallery of Ireland, National Library, National Art , History and Animals Museums, Stephen's Green, Phoenix Park, Dublin Zoo, Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, The Naughton Institute science gallery, Trinity College - Book of Kells, Dublinia, St. Patrick's cathedral, Howth Harbour, Temple Bar and Guinness Store House. I will just start explaining in the order I visited these places.

National Museum of Ireland is divided into 3 categories - Animals, Birds and Art or History museums. 

When I was visiting the museums full of birds and animals, I felt like watching all animals and birds staring at you at the same time. They were looking so real.Then we entered into the art museum which was categorized into Ancient Egypt, Chinese, Prehistoric, Medieval and Modern Ireland. During prehistoric times of Ireland, Latin was the most spoken language.In National Gallery of Ireland, it was full of 18th and 19th century paintings and sculptures. It was also filled with European and Irish paintings.

Stephen's green shopping center is one of the beautiful shopping mall in Dublin. Here you will find a collection of all major shops. It is a good choice for shopping dress materials from TKMaxx and Dunne's stores, perfume from The Perfume Shop, and showcase and Irish gifts from Caroll's.

More interesting information about Dublin to follow in my next article.. Soon I will update with more and more Irish beauty in the form of photography from my website.

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 3

                               Though you can get more information on the history of cork from internet, I will just explain here what the tourist guide explained to us during my second tour to Cork city and Blarney Castle.  Cork which means a "marsh land" was set up as a monastery in the beginning of the 5th to 6th century by St. Finbarr. 

This monastery was built on the hill beside a river. Some cathedrals were also built beside the monastery in the medieval times. The monks will ring the bell and were involved in different activities. They believed creating objects of worship is the real worship in God. Vikings started to arrive in Ireland to trade the objects of worship in monasteries from the monks. They setup trading settlements with local tribes. English in 1100's pushed the vikings out. Both English and Irish markets are present in the Cork city. Along with the history explained by the tourist guide, we reached the city @ 11:50 am. The accent is different in Cork. They used to add a boy/girl at the end of the sentence. E.g: How is it going boy ? Where you want to go girl?

After finishing our lunch in the cork city, we headed to Blarney Castle - one of my favorite castle in Ireland. Those who kiss the Blarney stone in the castle, will gain the eloquence and persuasiveness - in short they will get the gift of the gab. The castle was really unique and I felt like I am there in the same historical time period when the castle was built (600 years ago).All the steps inside were spiral to reach different levels of the castle - courtroom, family room, priest room, kitchen and the blarney stone at the top. 

Though we missed to watch the Blarney house and fern garden there, we were proud that we kissed the blarney stone - hope there is an improvement in the eloquence of my speech now ;) Also we spent some time watching the poison garden, caves etc. Gaelic and Irish languages are spoken in some parts of Ireland with English being spoken the most. The county championship for players is arranged by GAL - Gaelic Athletic Association. We were wrapping up our second tour @ 3:55 pm and headed back to Dublin and reached home by 6:30 to 7 pm.

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 2

                                 As far as my stay in Dublin, the weather ranged from 0 to 15 degrees Celsius with wind, rain, breeze, fog and snow divided over different days, weeks and months. Also I saw snow fall for the first time in Dublin, but it lasted only for a few hours on that day. Coming back to my second tour, it happened the second day itself after our first tour. This time it is Cork city - south west region of Ireland.

Started @ 7:00 a.m in the morning - seems like sun rise is by 8 to 8:30 a.m and sun set is by 4:30 - 5:00 pm in the winter seasons of Ireland. It was kind of long dark nights and short bright days. Had a break at one of the service station when cork city was 150 km away. It was drizzling rain and chill wind in the morning. Our first stop was Rock of Cashel  at 9:10 a.m.

Took some photo shots and attended a audio visual session for about 20 minutes describing the history of Rock of Cashel from12th to 16th century. St.Patrick's Rock and St.Dominick's Abbey were the major attractions. Then while heading to the cork city, it was full of snowy mountains and evergreen grasses with lambs and cows seen at some of the lanes.

The tourist guide or driver was a lady who was talking non stop like an RJ 24/7 explaining about the history of Cork city, castles, counties and flags of Ireland. There were 3 major counties and all counties have a nickname. Cork is the Rebel county. They owe their plantation / rebels. County Cork is near to the limerick county. Roads were all straight and clean through out the city. We entered the county cork by 11:10 a.m. Some call Cork as the true capital of Ireland.

Cuban revolution war book has more information about the Irish counties, women, culture etc. Entering into the Cork (30 km away), the roads were covered with fog and snow at both sides. The leaves on trees and grasses (herbs and shrubs) were almost yellow and orange in color all the way. More history on Cork city and rest of my second tour will be continued in Part 3 :)

To be continued...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 1

                     When you are away from your home land to a different land or island, you would have captured more moments and visions in the form of experience. I thought of sharing some of those excited moments when I was in that wonderful island - Ireland.

I would better start off with the tours which I went while I was there in Dublin - Capital city of Republic of Ireland. My first tour was to the Cliffs Of Moher  - which is located in the south west part of Ireland. We have lot of tour packages available in Dublin - We have collected all the tour information from the Tourist office located in the Old stone church, Dublin. Departed from the tourist office at around 6:50 am in a tourist bus with the tourist guide and driver being the same person. Had stops @ service stations for break fast and rest rooms. Then stopped @ our first sight seeing spot - King John's Castle and grabbed some snaps around the castle. 

Then the bus started off through Limerick city to reach one of the 7 wonders of Ireland - Cliffs Of Moher. The weather was exactly in favor for us to catch the magnificent beauty of the cliffs.

We would have spent one and half hour @ the cliffs and had some photo sessions. Once we started walking to get different view of all the cliffs, we were not feeling cold though cold air was hitting us from the sea.

After cliffs, we headed to the Doolin village for lunch - had vegetable soup, garlic bread and sandwich. Then we were off to Limerick county along the seashore to catch a glimpse of the lime stones.

Then we started wrapping our day tour on the way back to Dublin via Galway county pausing for a glance on the Dunguaire castle near Kinvara. Reached back Dublin by 7 p.m. So from my first tour itself, readers would have understood about the major sight seeing places in Ireland - castles, churches, coastal cities and natural mountains enriched with historical information.

To be continued ...