Enjoying our first few days in Ireland

Today is Monday, July 6. We have been touring Ireland for three days. The cooler temperatures have been a relief from the heat wave that we experienced the last couple of days in Germany.

We picked up our car on Saturday and drove through the Wicklow mountains on our way to Kilkenny. On our way we stopped at Glendalough. A monastery was founded on this site by St Kevin sometime around 550 AD. The site flourished until 1398 when it was plundered by English soldiers.

 The 11th and 12th century round tower is perfectly preserved and stands at 100ft.

 This is a ruin of the cathedral that dates from the 7th century.

This is St Kevin's chapel

The site is located in a valley with two lakes. After walking the trail down to the lakes, we continued our drive to Kilkenny.

Today is Friday. We finished our cycling tour on Wednesday and spent yesterday in Koblenz. Today is a travel day. We will take a train to Frankfurt airport and then a flight to Dublin. We didn't get much posted during our cycling trip. We had issues with WiFi access and when we did have access, we didn't have time.

Before I post some pictures, I have to give you some sense of riding the Moselle cycle path. Most of the people riding the trail are actually older than us. This is a relaxed place. People pedal along at a relaxed pace with a smile on their face stopping frequently at the many trail side cafes and restaurants. There are outdoor patios everywhere decorated with vines and beautiful flowers.The Moselle is all about white wine and enjoying life. There is mile after mile of vineyards and thousands of places to sample and buy wine. I had a preconception that German people would serious and reserved. What we found in the countryside and small villages is that the people were warm and friendly. We stayed at a number of small family-owned inns and were often served by two or three generations of the family. Family members sometimes ate on the outdoor patios and conversations were enthusiastic and punctuated with robust laughter.

Here are some photos from our first day.

The river with the vineyards on the hills. This is typical scenery. It is like this for miles and miles.

A cold drink at our first break.

Vineyards for miles and miles.

 Much of the trail is on paths beside the river and through fields of grape vines. However there are sections where the trail is beside the highway. I'm checking the map.

 Time to stop for a little break.

 Found someone to take our picture

This patio is at a vineyard. A place to stop and sample the local vine, which we did.

At our destination for the first night, our innkeeper suggested we walk up the hill on the opposite side of the river to have dinner at a restaurant perched on top of the hill. This is a view to the river and Trittenheim, where we are staying.

Another view from the hill.

Dinner on the patio at the top of the hill. Not a bad table eh? Worth the walk!

 Another view of the river and Trittenheim. It was a long walk to we took lots of pictures.

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Monday - from Zell

It is now Monday and we have three days of cycling behind us. The Moselle region is beautiful and the cycling path has been excellent.

Tonight we are at a hotel in Zell with WiFi, but is is late. We decided to go to a wine festival down by the river so there is no time to post any pictures. Pretty boring blog huh?...but a great vacation.

Hopefully tomorrow night we will have WiFi and a little time.

Our Trip Begins...

Finally at a hotel with WiFi. We are behind on our posts...

Thursday, June 25, 2015

We start a new European holiday today.

There are two distinct parts to the trip we have planned. We are starting a 5 day self-guided cycling holiday along the Moselle River Cycle path in Germany on Saturday. Then we fly to Ireland for a driving tour.

Today is a transportation day, or more precisely day-night-day. We fly to Frankfurt tonight, then take a train to Koblenz and then on to Trier. We should arrive in Trier on Friday afternoon. Trier is the starting point of our cycling tour. The travel books describe it as an ancient Roman city with some of the most impressive Roman ruins north of the Alps. I hope we will have the energy to have a look around on Friday, but I expect we will be very tired.

I am writing this on the plane en route to Frankfurt. Hopefully there will be an opportunity to post this in Frankfurt while we are waiting for our train.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Our trip to Trier on Friday went mostly OK with a few frustrations. The train ride from the Airport to Trier took almost 4 hours. I think the guy at the train station at the airport sent us on the milk run. Lots of stops and a one 7-minute frantic train change. When we got to Trier, the ‘three’ minute taxi ride to the hotel described in our guide, turned into half an hour due to construction and cost almost as much as our train ride. So by the time we got to the hotel we were very tired and hungry. We pulled ourselves together and found a bus to take us to the city center.

Trier was actually very nice and deserved more time than we had, We only had a few hours to explore before we had to get back to our hotel to sort out some stuff. We found the Porta Nigra which is apparently the best preserved Roman town gate north of the Alps. It was built in 180 AD.

We also saw the beautiful Dom (Cathedral) which, according to the guide books is the oldest Christian church north of the Alps. The original church was built on this site by Constantine in 330 AD. The current building is much new dating from 1035.

We also had time to walk to the ruins of Roman imperial bathes. This site was closed to the public however the ruins were still impressive from the outside.

Friday, July 12. Transylvania

This is the final day of our tour. The next two days are travelling days as we make our way home.

Friday we travelled to the city of Bran. This is another bus ride on mountain roads.

Upon arrival to Bran, our group transferred to two smaller vans for drive up a more primitive mountain road to a chalet. After the a nice snack at the chalet, we start hiking back down the mountain. This is where we had our snack before starting the hike in the Transylvanian Alps.






The landscape was beautiful, our best hike of the whole trip.



This guy is real. He was just sitting there keeping a eye on a flock of sheep.












After lunch we visited Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's castle. This, of course, is one of the "must see" destinations in Transylvania. It's a bit like Anne of Green Gables house. There is a bit of a tenuous link to Dracula, but everybody goes there.

We had a fun tour of the castle. The guide at the castle was hilarious. He should be doing stand up.







Cathy wanted to get a picture with a Downhome Magazine in an exotic location. Dracula's castle in Transylvania seemed to fit the bill.



As we all got back on the bus after the castle visit, we realized that our vacation was mostly over.

We have had a great trip. We saw a lot of interesting things and met some nice people. But, now I'm looking forward to getting home.




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Thursday, July 11. Brasov

On Thursday, we left Bucharest for two nights in Brasov. Our route took us through the Carpathian Mountains. These are good-sized mountains. We stopped at the Peles Castle, residence of the last Romanian monarch. This may be one of the most beautiful castles I've seen.



Here is a picture of the interior courtyard.



The interior is incredible. Unfortunately we were not permitted to take any pictures inside. The decoration, woodwork, paintings and furniture were remarkable. You will have to come and see for yourself.

We continued on to Brasov. This is a mid-sized Germanic city. Our guide lead us on a walking tour of Brasov. (The first two pictures were taken on Friday).










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Wednesday, July 10. Bucharest, Romania

We crossed the Danube into Romania on Tuesday at Vidin on a new bridge that just opened two weeks ago. We had to clear customs. The Romanian customs officer came on to the bus looking serious and collected all the passports. We waited. After a while the officer returned to the bus and there was a conversation with our Romanian guide. Then officer called out in a gruff voice "Elizabeth Nifort. Please come to the front of the bus." Elizabeth stood up and started haltingly to move to down the aisle. Then someone at the front shouted 'Happy Birthday' and started singing happy birthday to her. It seems that the officer had noticed on her passport that it was her birthday and decided to have some fun!

Romania seemed a little less poor than Bulgaria. It was a long drive to Bucharest. On the way we passed a number of fairly large cities. Sunflowers, grown for their oil, is a common crop.




On Wednesday morning, our Romanian guide lead us for a walking tour of Bucharest.

Across from our hotel is a square in front of a government building. The balcony of this building was often used by Nicolae Ceaucescu, Romania's communist dictator, to give speeches.



It was here in that in 1989, people gathered and demanded that he leave. He went out on the balcony to tell the people to leave, but the people resisted. There was some shots exchanged. Eventually Ceaucescu escaped in a helicopter, but the pilot pretended that he had engine trouble and landed. Ceaucescu and his wife left the helicopter. The most powerful and hated man in Romania started to hitchhike. He offered the man who picked him up a fortune to drive him to an army base, but the man drove him to a police station where Ceaucescu was arrested. He and his wife were given a brief trial and they were taken to a courtyard and executed by firing squad. That was the end of communism in Romania.

We asked our guide if he had been there. Yes he had been in the square during the protests. He said he left when the shooting started. He had a daughter who was only a few months old.

Bucharest is a city with great wide tree lined boulevards. It has many beautiful old buildings. This is the opera house, on the next block to where the square where history was made.



On of Ceaucescu's great projects was to build a huge government building. It is the second largest government building in the world after the Pentagon. Many blocks of historic buildings were destroyed to make space fort the building. The building makes no sense for a country the size of Romania.








Like most of the cities we visited, Bucharest has a nice old town much of which is a pedestrian area full of outdoor cafes and bars.




Our tour had our dinner at an 1879 beer hall. It is a beautiful building and they served a delicious schnitzel the size of a frisbee.





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