Apr 2006

30-4-06
Like clockwork we rolled out on to the narrow Via Romana as the early morning bus approached, just in time to meet us at the stop. Nice to pay one euro each to get back to the station instead of eighteen for a taxi. We find the right platform and train and begin to retrace our way by rail to Nice.

With no direct train available, change at Genoa required, from the fast train down to the dirty and slow rolling stock familiar to us from our night time adventures. Time enough in Genoa to stroll past the Christopher Columbus statue near the rail station (love your work Chris, but sorry we can't fund your trip to the New World. Maybe someone else can chip in?) Procured coffee and cake in the only shop in the street with visible tables and chairs in the sunshine and returned to the station in time for our train to Nice.

All we want to do now, having decided to abandon Venice as a destination, is to get back to England with enough time in hand to squeeze in the sights we missed first time round: Stonehenge and Bath in particular. So, after deep discussions with a helpful ticket clerk at Nice, it was determined that the fast train under the English Channel would be the best option despite a supplementary charge of 75 euros each on top of our Eurail passes. The alternative would be a slow train to Calais, followed by paying our own way on the ferry with maybe a discounted fare, and further uncertain arrangements from Dover back to London.

Journey from Nice to Paris peaceful enough for us - seasoned enough to gather provisions before the journey, but in this case the dining car was in operation. One young American lady found she had failed to get off at Aix-en-Provence and instead found herself several hundred km away in Paris at midnight, perhaps as a result of her insisting she could speak French but clearly could not listen to French and extract any meaning from it.

I had booked a room at the Terminus de Lyon Hotel just near the Gare de Lyon station, so it only took ten minutes and our trusty compass to find our way there. Clean, adequate room, and we were soon asleep.

29-4-06
The rail booking system for intercountry travel was 'down' last night, when I tried to organise our next move. A fast train was available to get to Florence for the morning of the 29th, but as to making our way back through France, nothing could be confirmed until this morning. We had already decided that a further excursion to Venice would be stretching ourselves too far, and I had emailed the booked hotel in Venice already to cancel it. Hence, by about 8am I had returned to the railways booking office and at least could confirm passage back to Nice. From there we would have to take our chances on what was available.

The train journey from Rome to Florence was quick and smooth, zipping by forest covered hillsides with the mist trickling through the valleys. On arriving at Florence railway station, the usual battle to find the specifics of which way to go, and how far, to find the accommodation that had been booked long ago. First step, buy a local map - the hotel bookings office at the station having supplies in a range of languages at one euro each. Next, try to find anyone with a smattering of English to show the wanted address to and seek their advice. In practise at this point you usually run into a conveniently located publicist for the local taxi drivers who insists that it is far too far to walk. Eighteen euros, including six to carry our two modest suitcases, seemed a little steep for a three kilometre journey.

Nonetheless, we were faced with but one afternoon to achieve the goal of seeing Michaelangelo's David, so we set about this in a very focussed manner. After briefly glancing at the ancient room in the Annalena guest house allotted to us, we consulted our map and planned the most direct walking route to reach the gallery. Once in the street, we marched at high speed back across the river Arne and by-passed the Uffizi gallery, reaching the Galleria Del' Accademia within a half hour. Here we queued up with a thin band of shade to protect us from the hot sun while an accordion player worked the other side of the street, playing his heart out but raising little interest from the crowd. Though we had been warned of the potential for a long wait, it only took about twenty minutes for us to reach the entrance.

Inside, we first checked out a display of unusual and historic musical instruments from many different countries. Included were some very early guitars that looked singularly hard to tune. Best was the Chinese water bowl, whose handles after being dampened are rubbed to produce an eerie sound.

After a while longer perusing the 12th-15th century religious art, full of suffering saints being martyred in various painful ways, we moved on to see several of Micaelangelo's unfinished sculptures, their forms just emerging from the marble. Exciting to see the rough chisel marks of the master, so firm and assured compared to other works of the era, including one that had once been attributed to M-A but in its style is completely wrong.

David stands proud and tall and every bit as impressive as one would expect. Bathed in the diffuse light of his own skylight his veins stand out in a stunningly lifelike manner. Yet I can't help thinking those hands are a little too large. Still, a magnificent sculpture and quite a different experience to the two inch tall reproductions infesting the nearby shops.

Leaving the museum we wander through the streets and take refuge in a McDonalds. After ingesting some sustaining junk food, we researched the local bus routes, finding that it would be possible to bus our way to the station next morning. Later in the evening, the guy on reception at Annalena gesticulated wildly to emphasise I would have to get down to the tobacconist shop pronto so as to get some bus tickets. You can't just buy them on the bus! So we ventured down the road and after waiting for every local in town to buy their fags and lottery tickets we were equipped with tickets for the morning bus.

While waiting to arrange a wake up call, I flicked through a book in the lobby that gave the history of the guesthouse. It had started as a convent in the mid fifteenth century, then was in the hands of a gentleman and his wife, Annalena. The family fell on hard times and borrowed money from Cosimo, one of the powerful Medici family. Later, Medici foreclosed on the loan and took possession of the house, together with its beautiful garden, which still exists today behind a high fence.

At night we prowl the streets and pass through the ancient doors of the Porte Romana. We find our destined pizzas and local red wine and sleep, tired from our long walks today.

15-4-06
Up not too early to investigate the options for breakfast, not too keen on the offerings at the Holiday Inn. Soon found Holland runs on sugary offerings and little by way of fresh fruit or vegetables. Plenty of cafes but all offering substantially the same menu of pancakes, waffles, ham, baguettes all skewed heavily to a high meat diet. Good coffee also seems unreasonably hard to find. Stroll through the narrow and many directional lanes of the area across from the Centraal Station square, where already at ten am people are off their faces on either alcohol or other things. Sitting at tables on the street with big glasses of beer. The interesting thing to us was the indifference that the locals displayed to all the goings on of the mainly US and British and Spanish youth, as though normal life continues unaffected, the attitude being ‘let them have their fun, they will be buying some munchies in my shop any minute now.’

Anyway, the profusion of bad taste shops selling t-shirts, hippie paraphernalia, pseudo-rastafarian hats and so on soon becomes so boring that one decides quickly to seek out the fine artworks that have brought us to this town. Now as you start to try to go somewhere with a purpose, you discover that the streets run in odd directions, basically the main streets are like spokes on a wheel ( a wheel that a drunk has jumped on and bent at angles here and there) and between the spokes canals of various widths run between the mainly 17th century houses. These houses, the legacy of the wealthy merchant class who made their pile of gold during Holland’s golden age of trade, tend to be about four storeys high, with high peaked gable roofs, and some are so old that their foundations have sagged to one side so their walls are no longer straight. Some of these are so bent (like some of the visitors to the town) that they lean on their neighbours for support, and their floors are visibly out of square.

The Tourist Info office, which had been closed tight when we arrived in the darkness of the previous evening, sold me two Holland Passes, which promised prepaid entry to a number of the usual tourist attractions and discounts to others. Being keen to avoid wasting time in queues, I had taken up this offer, which cost 25 euros for each of us. Eventually with the constant guide of my trusty map, our tram stormed its way to the Rijksmuseum. This is indeed a monument to what must have been the peak of Dutch success in world trade and a resultant pride in celebrating their achievements. At the entrance sits a model ship, based on a design that was never made in the real world, but nevertheless shows the key means by which the Dutch traders ventured out into the East Indies and returned with riches based on any trade they could profitably participate in – never mind if the natives were subjugated and the trade included items like guns and opium.

Today those traders have a strange immortality as they gaze out, with all their facial oddities and blemishes captured by master artists such as Rembrandt and Vermeer. For we who have only known these works in art book reproductions, it was stunning to see the artistry of these great masters of the past, and in this museum it is possible to be very close to the works and study their brushwork at close quarters. Many of the works on view are stunningly detailed, and with their smooth, thickly varnished finish some have a more real effect than a modern colour photograph – because of the artists selection of what details to include, and the effect of the composition. Brilliant works, with Rembrandt probably the master to be revered above the others for consistently outstanding execution.

Apart from the paintings, the museum also had endless displays of fine silverware, Delft porcelain items, furniture with intricate inlays of exquisite timber, all the material goods that rich merchants could possibly use to show off their wealth to each other and to history. Too much to appreciate in a visit, or perhaps ever. All in all, a strange irony that in creating these works that will be retained and savoured as examples of the highest achievements of art, the finest works contain an implicit criticism of the smug self belief of those who have been portayed (having paid their subscription to be included in the group picture, such as “The Night Watch”). You didn’t just have to be part of the group in reality, you had to have the money to chip in or the artist would leave you out of the picture, or leave you for eternity with only a portion of your face showing, obscured by a pike or something.

By the time we had left the museum, the day was almost done and after scouting for half edible food we headed back to the hotel, with art works playing on our minds far into the night.

16-4-6
This morning we ventured on to the train system, as the RAI station was co-located with the tram terminus near our hotel. We soon found that the railways were faster and threw you around less than the tram, and it became our preferred means of getting in to Amsterdam central. We had already found that the Van Gogh museum was close to the Rijksmuseum so no time was wasted in getting there. Whereas with the Rijksmuseum our Holland Passes allowed us to skip the queue and go straight in (although I had to convince a guard-woman-bulldog-creature of the legitimacy of the scheme, it being only in place for a few days at this stage), with Van Gogh some patient waiting was required. Once inside, this was without doubt a highlight of the journey. To see the totality of Van Gogh’s life experience and his work from its early, self taught but undeniably unique first canvases, through his interaction with other artists and dabbling with their ideas of what painting is about, to the flowering of his genius and its tragic last few outpourings in his final canvases. By the time we reached “Wheatfield with crows” I was a blubbering emotional wreck. I have never been so moved by paintings in my life. For anyone who has suffered – and I guess that means anyone who has lived in this world – you must go to see the legacy of soul filled communication Vincent has left to us all. It will affect you. It touched me in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

After that, we were emotionally drained and in need of a coffee. In my usual frugal style, I thought I would take up the offer on the stubs of the Rijksmuseum tickets, for a discount at the Cobra café located in the Museum Square. Here, the offhanded manner in which our waitress declared there was no menu, you could have mushroom soup or a baguette and coffee, was followed by twenty five minutes of watching other patrons whose orders were filled while we sat with increasing hunger and decreasing patience. Coffee came eventually, but in the end I fronted the counter and told them I would pay for the coffee but wouldn’t wait any longer for service. The business was clearly about selling booze to the tourists, as I commented to Miriam, the danger with a cobra is that one bite can be so costly.

That night it was again difficult to sleep, our minds swirling with the hundreds of images, so many familiar but yet so much more powerful in their true appearance. The room unbearably stuffy and no possibility of fresh air except by travelling seven floors down and walking on the streets with the resident schizo who constantly approached passers-by soliciting money. I went for a long walk in search of milk to make some coffee in our room, and felt like I had walked half way across Holland before finding a shop still open at 9.30pm. Be advised: out of the city centre everything shuts early. Find the local supermarket and stock up on what you will need for the night, or feel like a prisoner in your poky little hotel room.

17-4-6

This morning we concluded we had had quite enough of Amsterdam and would have been happy to move on, but the room had been booked already so no escape possible. We found that walking was a good way to get to see more of the city and make sense of its layout, so set off on what we knew would be a fairly length stroll, towards the Hortus, the botanical gardens. Surely we made a comical sight, me with my head in a map half the time, straining to find the street signs or recognisable landmarks, Miriam constantly rescuing me from dangerous traffic or from bumping pedestrians with my backpack as I turned this way and that. At last we rounded a corner and glimpsed some greenery, and after completely circumnavigating the perimeter, found the entrance to the gardens.

This long established garden, originally the place where medicinal plants were grown and doctors taught in their usage – and we are talking about powerful plants that can kill if the dosage and use is not well understood – was somewhat of a curiosity. An ambitious greenhouse arrangement provided three different climatic conditions, one of which provided a suitable environment for a number of Australian plants, such as the Eucalyptus Ficifolia, Ericas, Grevilleas, Queensland Bottle Trees (with no bottle formation likely in the next twenty years by the look of it) as well as such Ozzie cottage favourites as Pelargonium and Geraniums! Elsewhere, we searched in vain for a Gingko Biloba, but among the conifers section, pride of place was given to a small Wollemi Pine protected by a steel fence, one of the small original release to botanists worldwide of the rare Australian tree. All in all, I must say that our front yard contains a plant collection that is broader and in better condition than this pride of Dutch horticulture, and we don’t charge 6 euros for admission to the public!

Again, this was a case of having to explain the Holland Pass system to the guy on the desk, but he didn’t seem at all fussed about it.

It was a different story in the afternoon, when we decided to get one last scrap of value from our passes by visiting, of all things, the Bible Museum. As a recovering lapsed Catholic, Miriam has an interest in the historical aspects of biblical times, and I was also keen to see some of the antiquities there. Already tired from the day’s walk so far, we became somewhat lost, being far from the areas to which we had become accustomed around Centraal Station. As we pondered our maps, a classic Dutchman, complete with broad smile, funny hat and bicycle, appeared before us and obviously wanted to help us. Even more so when we mentioned we were looking for the Bible museum, he clearly took us as pilgrims earnestly seeking a holy site. He proceeded to give a fifteen minute or more exposition in an amalgam of Dutch and something that might have been English, or perhaps not. We were to go “oder da bridge and oder da bridge and oder the bridge” (that cross the little canals) one doo drei and dat way (waving to the left). Then to make sure we understood, he repeated the performance with more hand signals and heavy stress on the number of bridges and which way NOT to turn. And perhaps he was some kind of Dutch angel after all, because we followed his directions as best we could and on the edge of exhaustion, found ourselves outside the Bible Museum after all.

This museum had some interesting Egyptian artefacts that the original owner of the house had collected, his model of the Tabernacle, and displays of models various loonies had made over the centuries of the Temple of Solomon based on measurement derived from the Bible. It was a convincing demonstration of how a list of specifications can be interpreted in absolutely different ways by people, depending on their own mind set. The best part of the house, I thought, was the oval shaped staircase that runs down through the house, and off which the various rooms of the museum are reached through doors of different colours. As the steps widen towards the base, the levels go a little crazy and you are advised to hold the railings to not lose your footing.

Retracing our steps oder der bridge and oder the bridge et cetera, we found our way back to Central Station, and emboldened by our Biblical adventures, and unable to find where to buy tickets, we rode the train freely as the street urchins of Amsterdam back to the transatlantic blandness of our Holiday Inn.

18-4-6
Time to get the hell out of this city ringed by water, dirty water befouled by take away containers, scraps of plastic, pigeons and Canal Cruising Captains raking in 11 euro a head for a brief tour of key localities you can walk between within an hour anyway. Training in to Centraal Station for one last time, I ventured to the ticket counter to have our Eurail Select passes endorsed for validity, the necessary step before you can use them out on the rails. Tickets were issued to get us to Brussels, where we would have to change trains to continue on via the Thalys Fast Train to Paris. There is always a time of anxiety when travelling in a land where you don’t have a scrap of the language, is this the right platform, is this the right station, can we go in this carriage….. But once on board, all was well, though the inspector glared at me as I hadn’t written today’s date in the Eurail pass, a big no-no. The second leg, the smooth sleek thalys high speed train, zipped by almost like travelling on a plane, but at ground level. The scenery zips by with a dream like quality, by the time you point something out you are way passed it and there is something else briefly coming into view. Arriving in Paris in the late afternoon, it was necessary to use the Metro to find our way to the hotel, and we found that quite smelly, dirty and intimidating, the air filled with the stench of Parisien Pissing. Steep steps, me cursing the weight of Miriams suitcase and wondering why she has brought so many bricks with her. While I pondered the map after coming up from the Metro she looked around and pointed out the hotel just behind me. The Campanile Hotel…. Tiny room, plastic cups, the electic jug permanently mounted on the wall, lots of street noise suppressed by double glazing. A room for sleeping not one you want to stay in.

Here I pass authorial control to Miriam who will provide some commentary on the delights of Paris, by special request of her sister Esther. She will also give a few comments on England and elsewhere, perhaps. Here goes:

To quote Paul Simon, there are angels in the architecture, and it’s the first time I’ve understood the statement. Not sure if he was referring to Paris but there are angels in the architecture there. The city is humbling, beautiful and so historic. On ground level the stench of urine is everywhere not limited to the gaffers who sleep around the churches and riverbanks in little cardboard shelters, and small tents provided by Doctors Without Limits. The contrast is the smell of some beautiful perfumes of women walking passed. The women are tastefully dressed but not expensively – they are not overdone, just tasteful. None of them have big bums. I conclude I have no French blood. The children are happy and black children seem to have equality here that was not evident in London and Amsterdam and especially Ireland. In France the races are irrelevant, the only crime is to have milk in your coffee.

It truly is a country where democracy rules but contradictions are everywhere. A lot of crazies on the streets but a charitable attitude is shown to them by society. Even to go into the churches you have step across foul puddles and fumes of human and animal excrement. You can’t take your eyes off the architecture; it’s wonderful with gold leaf renewed on public buildings and statues shining in the sun, lots of pigeons. Outside our hotel a heating vent gave out warm air from the Metro beneath, where a crowd of pigeons would warm themselves before nesting for the night. In the morning, we found a crowd of Algerian looking youth rolling around with the pigeons on their dung and happily feeding crumbs to the pigeons like some ritual.

The highlights for me of Paris and Amsterdam was seeing in 3d the pictorial icons of my youth, the Eiffel Tower good but disappointing. In my childhood it was a marvel of engineering but has been outdone by many other projects since. After viewing the world from the plane the Eiffel Tower seems not so high at all. More quaint, yet to contrast Notre Dame breathes history and makes one feel insignificant in history. An archaeological dig beneath Notre Dame explains and puts in context the Celts who first inhabited the site around 300-500 BC only to be driven out by the Gauls who were driven out by the Romans. The island on which the cathedral stands was the site of the original settlement, chosen for its defensive qualities. And the people are still eating the same things that were found in archaeological evidence… beef, mutton, fowl pork and oysters a favourite. Don’t know about snails. Can’t come at them. Even after wine.

The church magnificent, stained glass windows dead bishops organ music permeating the air, Shane went to try to climb the bell tower but too late to get in, I went around relighting peoples prayer candles that had gone out. Couldn’t resist it. On this very site the real St Vincent started his charity in about 1623, still going strong. Part of the archaeology, not part of the church PR machine.

The wealth of art in this city between the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay astonishing, and there were dozen of other museums we couldn’t get to see…just arted out, brain full, couldn’t take in another image, and it’s true that the Mona Lisa’s eyes follow you around the room no matter where you stand, I tested it and it is absolutely true!
I even squatted on the ground, the guards thought I was nutty, but I had to test it. The guards spent their whole time saying “PAS DE PHOTOS!” but arrogant tourists seem to think their endless flashlights have no effect on the precious artworks, both in Paris and Amsterdam. More Van Gogh in Paris, mainly from the psychotic phase, very powerful…. More sunflowers in London but didn’t get to see them there. Hoping to get back there. We saw a Cezanne and Pisarro exhibition, tit for tat, both painting the same scene side by side as painting buddies and influencing each other. Fantastic art.

Also walking along beside the Seine, passed the bridge where Resistance clandestine meetings were held during the war, leading to many shootings by the Nazis, moving memorial plaque there.

Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam was a very emotional day and his works are truly inspired though flawed in part, probably by his mental state. The museum claimed his condition was epilepsy but I would dispute that. The canals though filthy were just as Bill Berkelmans, Antoinette’s father, described to me as a child. The youth of Amsterdam made me feel old. The old people my age and older hanging around with the youth just looked pathetic. Didn’t see anyone with a finger in a dyke.
But lots of the old lift up bridges you see in some of Van Gogh’s paintings across the canals.

Back to Ireland for a minute….. the Ring of Kerry is as good as if not better than the Great Ocean Road but the weather was too rainy to see it at its best. Ireland full of familes with at least four girls and sometimes one boy at the end, often no male progeny, very attentive fathers. People of Ireland on the streets very helpful but service in commerce quite shockingly bad. Indifferent, rude, do as little as they can get away with. Filth in the streets of Dublin, can’t understand. Non Irish treated as second class citizens. Hothouse atmosphere of a union meeting, everyone on the verge of being in a bad temper in the media. Sinn Fein up in arms about the sale of the Irish National Anthem words and treasured documents coinciding with the anniversary of the 1916 uprising but not offering to put up the money to buy them. Just whingeing that someone should do something.

And as for England……where I got sick, struck down by the cold of the place. And detoxing from cigarettes, I admit. It was like visiting Grandpa’s birthplace. The place where he decided to come to Australia (Lyme Regis, they just call it Lyme ) full of history but the cliff he walked on has slid into the sea in the last few years. Fossils are the big business of Charmouth not to mention our encounter with Sybil Fawlty. I think Shane described her.

Moving on to our visit to Iris at Braunston, near Northampton, she was just lovely. Shane couldn’t get over the resemblance in the way she sat at a table and the fall of her hair, the family traits of the Whites were definitely there. Iris claims I am very “White” and look very much like one of her aunts. She did discuss Jessie’s bargepole delicacy, describing her and Peter just appearing stepping over the building rubble without notice while she was busy with renovations. Some interesting family stuff but more of that on our return. The canal was where I got really sick, couldn’t get warm and kind of lost three days. Fortunately Shane bonded really well with Iris. Anyhow, Esther, this is my input for now, more later hopefully and sorry to hear you have been ill, don’t blame me I wasn’t there to give it to you. Love from Miriam. PS Please keep an eye on Sean after Liam’s departure just till we’re back.

Back to Shane now……

21-4-6
By day three I had grown fed up with Paris, the daily grind of searching for something to eat that didn’t contain ox tongue, or pate, or cow’s head or other bizarre things, where is the fresh salad and vegetables , what’s so hard about turning on a bit of that?
We had seriously overdosed on the best art in the world, possibly. A full day in the Louvre, with works ranging from Egyption antiquities through Greece, Rome and all the best of Europe upto the mid nineteenth century. Then the following day an even more determined visit to the Museum D’Orsay, full to the brim with every great impressionist work you have ever seen in an art book, topped off with an excellent Cezanne and Pisarro exhibition. And then when I complained that I hadn’t seen any Delacroix, Miriam found some for me within minutes. It was a feast that made the brain hurt and the heart ache. To see the peak of achievement of so many different approaches to art was really something, and at the heart of what I wanted to get out of this trip.

We discussed what to do next, with a room booked for the town of Perpignan for tomorrow (Saturday), where to go, what to do…. I plumped for a quick dash down to Avignon, for no better reason than that I like the sound of the town, and couldn’t get the childrens song out of my head. “sur le pont d’avignon, la la la la, la la la la”. Again a fast train, the TGV that cris cross France very efficiently, gorgeous scenery straight out of Cezanne’s canvasses, sweet villages with ruined medieval towers perched on green distant hills. Avignon was a Rome away from Rome for Popes seven hundred years ago who didn’t want to leave France, so they moved the papacy here for a while. Things are just so old here, the clock tower was last restored during the reign of Napoleon the Third; I think that’s about 1830 or so. And it’s still ticking away….
It is actually a walled city; the medieval stone wall is visible through the bathroom window (which also has the first bidet we have seen, don’t think I’ll be experimenting with that). The streets are in parts so narrow you can almost stretch out and touch either side, cars squeeze by and still there are homeless drinkers in the streets. You could easily make a computer game out of this town, it’s just like a Hero’s Quest kind of town. We enjoyed a pleasant meal at the Pi 3.14 Brasserie, where my French seems to be improving enough to almost hold a conversation with the proprietor. They certainly appreciate it when you make the effort. Man, don’t know how I’ll do in Barcelona, don’t have any idea of how Spanish grammar and syntax work.

OK, gotta get ready for bed now, as tomorrow has come all too soon. It takes as long to write about what you have seen as to see it, it seems….. good night to all. Even if you are just waking up for the day, as the sun rises in your part of the globe.

12-4-6
Emboldened by the ease with which we had walked into reasonable acccommodaton at Killarney, we simply packed up the car and headed east. It became a long, long drive in terms of time at least, as the roadworks that seemed to afflict every main road in Ireland had brought the city of Cork and twenty miles either side of it to a standstill. I’ve been in some traffic jams, but this one was from the sixth circle of hell or thereabouts. In damp and darkness we hauled our hungry bodies into the town of New Ross, with nowhere to stay and shops visibly closing down around us. A hotel clerk tipped us that there was an Italian restaurant at the far end of a dark lane that could have had a doorway to a Thieves Guild or something equally shady. However, the restaurant was there, open, and putting something resembling food – but not very good Italian food – before us. So it was with a heavy gut that we humbly asked at the hotel if they could give us a room. Inspection showed it to be clean and with plasma screen tv mounted on the wall – quite unexpected from the appearance of the old fashioned pub downstairs.

13-4-6
Breakfast the next day was notable for the attitude of the serving girl at breakfast , who dished out poached eggs that were stomach turningly undercooked. It’s the first time in history I’ve had to send eggs back to the kitchen. Indeed, for all friendliness and willingness to help that the people in the streets show here, the service attitudes of shop assistants has been disappointing, with a few cases of us just up and leaving after waiting excessively long for attention. Enough griping for now, the car must be taken the last hour’s drive to Wexford before I start incurring more charges beyond the excess milage.

After dropping off the hire car at Wexford, just over the bridge where fifty seven odd rebels had been executed in the eighteenth century, I rejoined Miriam who was waiting at the station /bus stop guarding our baggage. A slow bus ride up along the east coast and inland took us through the streets of Arklow , the rolling green hills of county Wicklow, and at last into the fair city of Dublin. Tired from another long afternoon of sitting still, we decided to grab a cab to the Mespil Hotel, where I had managed to book a room via internet from Killarney. After settling in briefly we headed out for a walk along the Grand Canal opposite the hotel, where a statue of local poet and character Patrick Kavanagh sits on a bench waiting for people to sit alongside and have a yarn in spirit at least. Through St Stephens Green, where James Joyce walked and wrote of , and where a bust of the writer looks out on the lovers of this generation as they court upon the damp but sun tinged grass.

The streets of Dublin are lined with rubbish and papers that blow around wildly, catching in the spikes of fences and festooning the many building sites. A few old men with long handled tools pick ineffectually at the flotsam, resplendent in their high visibility vests, a fashion item that has been all the rage right across England and now Ireland as well. Stepped into a huge church with many fine pews labelled with the long dead who had paid for the privilege. Massive dome arcing above, and beautiful marblework everywhere. Once we had driven our feet to the edge of pain, a great famine descended on us. This was duly resolved at an American style diner with burgers, chili for me and the standard vegeburger for M. Delicious onion rings and a thick, thick shake to sluice it down.

Fitful sleep after little but Irish TV or the CNBC exposing maltreatment by the Chinese authorities in land seizures in the cities. Early to bed with a plan to rise and see the town some more.

14-4-6 Good Friday

In the morning a brisk walk through the centre of Dublin, hello to Oscar Wilde reclining on a large boulder in the park, a busker grey and immobile jerking into a convulsive dance if given coins, a small boy startled running to his Dad for comfort, and coming back with another coin for more thrills.

Researched the way out of here – a five minute walk to a stop where the airport bus comes by every fifteen minutes. Throw the bags in the luggage bay and off we go, as always when driving to the airport of cities everywhere you glimpse the seedier, dilapidated side of the city, then wind on to a blank motorway with nondescript half dead plantings struggling for life among the fumes.

On reaching Dublin Airport, we played queuing games for an hour or so, first lining up at a RyanAir counter but that was only for the flight to Stanstead, next counter, wrong flight showing on the monitor, at last a Host unhooks a barrier and marshals various would be passengers into a newly formed queue in the correct location. It was a bit like being a bee in an unknown hive, where the energy flow eventually pushed you into the required behaviour.

Onto the flight, 737-800 just like Virgin and Qantas use back home, but this one decked out in the gaudy yellow and blue of RyanAir. And they delivered us safely and on time despite late departure to Eindhoven airport.

Eindhoven airport is relatively new, with a sparse modernist architecture and no kiosk or shops hat could be found. Bus connections to Amsterdam though are no problem, and cost no more than Heathrow to London. As evening descended we rolled across the flat land of Holland, cris crossed by canals, and glimpsed a few old windmills and more contemporary wind generation mills, rotating gracefully and without ruining the aesthetics of the landscape.

The bus deposited we few passengers – just us and a small group of youngsters out for a lark in the freedom of Amsterdam – at the Centraal Station. In the darkness of Good Friday night, it took us a little while to find the right tram to get to our hotel. IN the end it was a short ride of 20 minutes to the RAI station precinct, where a large convention centre and theatre provides a venue for businesses to meet. The Holiday Inn was visible from the tram stop, and after a quick meal we crashed, exhausted, into bed. Holiday Inn like similar American hotel chains everywhere, you could be in Geelong and it would look the same, but the toilet is bizarre and difficult to flush.
Have nicknamed it the Hitler toilet it is almost sexually macabre.

This travelling lark can take it out of you when it goes on and on. Memo: factor in more substantial rest breaks in the future. More later……

8-4-6
Up early to grab a quick bit of toast and farewell to Iris who has been so kind to us, helping me to look after Miriam who is now starting to feel a little better but still not breathing as freely as one would like. Iris dropped us at the Daventry bus station in time to catch the local double decker bus back to Northampton. Again, having organised tickets for the next leg of National Express travel by SMS, only needed to flash my I-mate handheld at the driver to gain admittance to the Northampton to Birmingham leg.
At Birmingham, site of the dark satanic mills of the industrial revolution, the mood of hopelessness in the people’s faces lives on even as they stuff their faces with more chips. Even the Halal food shops at the Bullring (Birmingham’s market area) serve up every dish with an ample lashing of chips. England must take a goodly portion of the world’s potato crops as a constant thing. Guards in the shopping centres move people on who stand still for more than a minute – making window shopping a more on the go affair than in Australia.
After a couple of hours exploring around the market area – where medieval cathedral, sculpture of crusading knight up on high., jostles space age design shopping centre- we returned to the grimy bus station and boarded the coach for a lengthy leg down and to the west, into south Wales. This trip allowed us a lengthy and leisurely view of the varied and wondrous Welsh scenery, starting with the rolling Malvern Hills, glimpses of strong flowing rivers such as the Wye that accompanied the road part of the way, ancient castles intact and ruined, coal mining machinery perched atop green hills, and finally bringing us into Pembroke, past Pembroke castle’s high and imposing walls. I asked the bus driver if he went as far as the ferry terminal, and confusingly he said no. For as he called out “Pembroke” nobody much wanted to get out of the bus, and it then appeared there was another stop to go. So, at last we were dropped in the darkness outside the compulsory Tesco supermarket. Grabbing a yoghurt or two against the possibility the hotel kitchen would be closed, we froze on the streets until after a couple of phone calls to local cabbies we were able to get one and the taciturn driver charged us only 2.40 pound to go about a half mile up the hill. At least he knew where he was going, and with M’s breathing it would have been a difficult task to find the hotel.

The hotel itself was overrun with drunken Welsh Guards (retired long, long ago by the looks of them) , and they brought with them a faint smell of old urine. The décor was not so much retro 1960s as still actual 1960s, with Chartreuse walls in the stuffy hallways, and curtain and bedspread patterns that have surely not been updated since around 1970. However, clean enough, and the staff friendly and helpful enough and at a fair price.

9/04/2006

Consulted the PC and suddenly noticed that the ferry booking confirmation indicated NEXT Sunday, not today….. problem! Resolved to get down to the ferry terminal as early as possible to try to sort it out. Very cold walk through a Dylan Thomas Welsh village scene, with shop windows full of old ratty knick knacks one can’t imagine anyone buying. Light lunch at the Maypole Diner, taking up the offer of the only options without chips, baked beans or spaghetti on toast.

Thence to the ferry terminal, a wait until 11am when the ticket office opened, and fired up the computer to show the woman the details I had, explaining that the guy who took the booking over the phone had stuffed it up. After a few minutes exploring her computer system she was willing to understand the position and wrote up a paper ticket (the printer being down) and we were allowed to take up places on the Irish Ferry.

The Ferry large and not at all crowded, so we were able to catch a quick nap lying on the lounges. Passengers feeding constantly, like chip powered sharks, and the shipping company gouging them with prices almost double those on shore. Memo to travellers: buy up a sandwich or two and a drink before you board. The crossing smooth and untroubled from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare harbour taking about four hours and only 42 pounds one way for the both of us.

Once ashore, found there was still one local bus heading towards the hotel I had booked a room at for the night. Bought tickets from the bus counter and hung around bored for almost an hour. As the appointed hour approached, we went outside and a drunk staggered up and asked a nonsensical question, and after finding we were from Oz , just had to tell us all about his relations in Cronulla and the text messages he had received about it and so on. Before we realised, the bus that had been sitting in the car park area suddenly slammed its door and took off – just as the penny dropped that that was our bus. Despite dashing after it, it sailed off into the distance. Immediately a cold Irish rainstorm burst around us, and we toiled up a steep hill dragging our bags behind us, not in the best of moods.

Seeking a way to move on, tried thumbing a ride – ludicrous for our age group of course, with bags atow. Then tried to ring a cab with a number supplied by the petrol station girl – no answer, leave a voice mail. Eventually ducked into a hotel and asked for another taxi number at reception, who explained “ Oh that number, I know for a fact he’s not working today.” Got an answer on the alternative number and within 15 mins a large van , no taxi light atop, rolled up, and we bundled our dampened selves within. “You’re not in a hurry, are you?” says the driver, and so he stopped off and waited for fifteen minutes while some dart players finished their drinks having been plaything in some local darts championship. Then we rushed through darkened rural lanes to what appeared to be the next stage of the dart players’ pub-crawl.

That done, and having had the whole lifestory of his kids and his Australian connections, we were dropped at the Quality Hotel 20 minutes after the kitchen had shut, so unable to get any supper. A packet of cheese and onion crisps for Miriam and a pint of guiness for me. Dog tired by this stage, the air cold and wet, into a comfortable bed but terribly overheated room making sleep elusive for a while.

10-4-6
Next morning in a dining room over run by children managed a giant Irish breakfast in preparation for our first day of seeing the land of some of our forefathers. Decided to organise a hire car as public transport thin and rare in this land. Thanks to the mobile able to line up an Opal Corsa in the town of Wexford, which reception told me was “exactly two miles, straight up the hill and keep going”. What I didn’t know was that the car hire firm, the local Opal distributor was actually on the far side of town, so it took more like and hour or more of walking, plus half an hour of form filling and waiting for the car to be cleaned from the last hirer, before I could take it. Rang the Quality Hotel, who put ;me through to Miriam so I could get her to pack up and await my return with the car without infringing the required check out time.

At last we were away and spent a pleasant day motoring around the south east, pausing in Dungraven for a very pleasant meal at a Pakistani restaurant of all things, overlooking an inlet that was remarkably reminiscent of Port Fairy. By then, darkness was beginning to fall and the need for finding a roof for the night was upon us. Figured we would try a B & B of which the roads hold an endless number. Without much forethought I saw one called “Maple Leaf” and though that sounded OK. Rang the doorbell, was greeted by an elderly lady who asked 65 euros for the night for a room with ensuite. Sounded OK to me. Once inside though, the décor was somewhat scary, filled with knick knacks , old crystal, china bulls, a glass table held up by four rearing brass horses, and various other items calculated to give you the willys. Beautiful view from the bedroom window of the shore arcing away in the distance, and the lights of Dungraven spread out below like fallen stars. Insufficient compensation, however, for we had made our bed….. and it was a worn out and somewhat smelly one at that, with a heavy old eiderdown that may or may not have been laundered in the last century.

Worse, I was now going down hard with the same respiratory bug that had attacked Miriam and spent the night in a hot and cold sweat. The shower eccentric – triggered by pulling a string switch in the roof – and the whole arrangement cramped and lacking in privacy. Lesson: don’t say yes till you’ve had a look at the room.

11-4-6
After a fitful night of troubled dreams, tossing and turning, we rose and found that our host had done her best to make a good breakfast, with little bowls of freshly cut fruit, more eggs than we could possibly eat, and looked hurt when we couldn’t finish it. We got the hell out of there as soon as we could, and drove to
Cork in search of some warmer clothes as both of definitely feeling under equipped for the very changeable weather, warm and sunny one moment, freezing rain finding its way down your neck the next. Miriam found a cardigan she liked in one shop, and the shop lady explained how to find Marks & Spencer, where we found another couple of garments that would keep us warm enough.

Continuing on out of Cork to the west, without the benefit of a map I found the way to Killarney, as the terrain became more hilly, the peaks barren of vegetation and more scenic by the mile. This time we selected accommodation with care, rejecting the first place we looked at, that wanted 140 euros for the night, and that I afterwards noticed had started its life as a Presentation Monastery, no wonder it had an unfriendly feel. Almost next door, Murphy’s Hotel offered us a room at 90 euros the night with breakfast, and after viewing the room and confirming its cleanliness, accepted it. Both of us feel in need of a peaceful night’s sleep without having to deal with people.

Dined at the bar forming part of the hotel, standard pub grub but quite acceptable. TV mostly in Irish in the hotel rooms but who cares, the bed is huge and comfortable and reception turned on the heating in the room remotely when I asked how it worked..
Plan for tomorrow is to drive the Ring of Kerry which is reputed to be the most scenic in Ireland and full of a rich array of archaeological sites.

I’ll try and upload the details of these last few days to the blog but not much Net access this way, quite pricy compared to say London. This will have to wait till morning when the Internet cafes open again.