Travel Log - Day Seven 5/17

Our last day in Ireland, and many miles still to travel as we are on the West most Coast and need to sleep literally on the East most Coast tonight back in Dublin.

Started out the morning joining the other guests of our B & B over breakfast, an interesting exercise, as we were the only non-German-Touring-Bus members in the room. Seated at tables family-style (whether you know the other people or not) is usually quite fun, until you are literally faced with the knowledge that neither you or them can so much as ask to pass the tea from one side of the table to the other. It is at this point you think to yourself how completely useless those years of Spanish and French in High School are to you -- when the ONE time you actually go somewhere, all you meet are tons of non-latin-based speaking peoples.

…Enter in: charades. Best icebreaker ever. You know that once you get a giant German man chuckling over his sausages and his wife is drawing things in the air with her butter knife, it’ll at least make a good story when you get home.

Though broken English, clattering of German, and some exaggerated facial expressions, we swapped “where are you froms,” and managed to guess that they hailed from just south of Holland in a town whose name, no kidding, sounds like it’s spelt with 82 letters. They were both retired from years of civil service (facial expression denoting angst) and were happy to be free to roam about now, thank you very much (facial expression denoting relief.) They were enjoying their trip fine, (facial expression denoting pleasant contentment) but it did seem to be raining a lot (facial expression denoting surprise), they don’t get much at home, and by the way…how do you like your new President? (Facial expression denoting total blankness.)

(For this we did a double take to make sure we understood the mime and broken English correctly, as the transition was so exceedingly sudden.)

Our President? Well, only 100 days in…hard to say really. Doing fine we guessed.

…To which we then were moved onto our Congress, (facial expression denoting hilariousness) our Legislation, (facial expression denoting the ridiculous) our laws for immigrants (facial expression denoting bad ideas)…and were nearly squirming in our seats by breakfast’s completion (and final grilling.) Going from sign language to a liberal education in broken English (which we could only partly understand) on why we Americans suck at doing things (politically speaking): not the greatest way to start the day. But I will surprise perhaps all of you when I say, we parted ways with handshakes and smiles and no combatant comments on our end.

…After all…they had Hitler. I’m thinkin’ if you take THAT pot calling the kettle black seriously, you’re really just not having any fun in show business, people.

Next: Continued with the sights of Cong. Breakfast (and our morning politics) out of the way now, we moved onto Ashford Castle (built in 1228), a giant mother of a stone edifice complete with a moat (now grown in with lawn) and miles and miles of touring grounds which your ten Euro will allow.

Like most every huge property of any value, the estate traveled back and forth in ownership hands amongst the Normans and monied Irish families (including ye old Guinness’) until it was finally made a hotel in 1915 with fishing in the River Cong, tennis courts, falconry, Equestrian center, and clay pigeon and archery area. By 1951, John Ford’s “Quiet Man” stars were shacking up for their film shoot, (which would open Ashford’s commercial appeal considerably), until 1970, when changing hands again, the castle got a complete restoration and added a golf course, and lake cruiser clipper to the bargain… making it now, one of the Top 50 Resort Places in Europe.

…So yeah, the rooms are cheap. The low end starts at 138 Euro (that’s $193)…and the suites’ll set you back 425 ($595)… of course no one but paying guests of the five star hotel may peruse the inner halls, but the outer gardens are open to the poor bastards of you and me alike. And so, with a map in hand we were off to see the wizard…so to speak.

By this time a liberal dumping of rain was making us jealous of the locals in their wellies splunking about for their morning jaunts, because yes, the castle still has tenants living on it’s land.

The gardens of Ashford actually *do* necessitate a map to get around them, as miles of manicured lawns will turn this way to forest-like trails, and that way to walled gardens, or the archery fields or the horse paddocks and the last thing you want is to end up getting shot at or…you know…so yeah. We began with Mrs. Huggard’s walk (the Huggard having been one of many owners in the Castle history), by going *under* the rock walls of the castle and popping out the other side towards the sea. Traveling a blooming pathway we opened out into the Carpet Gardens: tons of sod in manicured little squares…well, like a carpet…bloomed out with flowers in a series of flat terraces with staircases leading sometimes up to one, and down to another. This continues for some time until you are thrust out to a rock wall and the Walled Gardens (I know, really original with the names, huh?) This was first thought to be a no-go for sightseeing as the tunnel leading in was totally flooded, but we found an ulterior rout going back up through a few of the Carpet Gardens which at the tallest terrace is actually the same height as the top of the walls of the Walled Gardens. This, wall (completely strudy, but only about 6 inches wide) I decided was a good idea to scale, for picture talking purposes…so there we are with views down into the Walled Gardens taken by an idiot on a stone balance beam about 15 feet in the air.

Next: Visitation of a cork tree…and yes it does look like cork…the bark I mean, and moving onto the Ireland School of Falconry and to a few more location shoots for “The Quiet Man.” The main houses used in the shoot, lived in still today, hold placemarkers of note as you walk on down the road a bit further, and by taking a wrong turn, pop out inside the Walled Gardens (apparently from the back side.) Another country road, more stone terraces, and eventually we found our way back to the castle.

Taking a back road back into Cong, we viewed another movie landmark: Parish of St. Mary, and bob back to say a last goodbye to what turned out to be one of our favorite places visited in all of Ireland.

A happy coincidence in our last drive through town, found the Quiet Man Museum now open, so we dove in through the rain, an rambled the thatched cottage and all it’s goodnesses before finally beginning the long roadtrip east.

Passing along these roads now, brought I to some of the oldest “country” we had seen to date. Road signs were no longer given in both language, only the Irish, and by Dan Iver we seeing the ancient rock walled pastures that everyone thinks about when they think of Ireland. (Incidentally, they are used to rest ground with their herds…you keep your stock in a block now, when time to let the land rest, literally make a walkway through the wall by opening it rock-by-rock and once the animals have moved, put the wall back together again.)

Moving then through Cornamond, Lough Corrib, Maum, and Maam’s Cross, we hit the peat bogs, with slices literally cut out in chunks here and there, because yes, this far old-country, they still use it to stoke their fires. Just beyond this, we found the final place marker of “The Quiet Man”: a small rock bridge (officially “Leam Bridge”) used in the film, completing our film-nerd-happiness, before launching off again through Oughterart, where we stopped at the tourist center for maps and a bite to eat, then a long pull through Roscahill, Moycullen, Oranmore, Craughwell, Loughrea, Kilreelkil, and Aughrim. Took some pictures of Clonfert Cathedral (founded in 563) and St. Michael’s Church (1858) in Ballinisloe, then pushed on through Athlonem, Fardrum, and Kinnegad before reaching Dublin, early evening.

Dublin. Our first sight on Irish soil, surely the most tourist-based we had frequented and only a few spare hours to cram as much as possible in. By now, the Museums were closed, so this would be a drive-n-walk-by kinda tour, with the still totally confusing signless streets and one-way markers switching lanes for no particular reason throughout.

So to: The Dublin City Gallery, House of Sir John Pentland, and Charles Throp, the James Joyce Center, and Gate Theatre, The Dublin Spire (nicknamed “The Spike,”) The General Post Office, Daniel O’Connell Monument, James Joyce Monument, The Irish Times building, Ashfield House Hotel, the Custom House, Talbot Memorial Bridge, the O’Connell Bridge, Trinity College, and there on the corner…Oscar Wilde’s House.

Now owned by the American Collage of Dublin (sic), the house is no longer a touring Museum as the rooms are all being used in study…a thing I am sure Oscar would rather have than people poking their noses in all the time, but seriously less fun in the interim. Across from this: Archbishop Park. In fact Oscar’s house joines a foursided line-up of posh residences facing the park on all sides, and in this park (facing Oscar’s house) is Oscar himself: lifesized, in marble, reclining on a huge piece *of* marble, being…well…fabulous. At first turning the corner toward it, the thing actually scares the hell out of you at first, being lifes-sized, totally blended into the flowers and trees and just *there*…smarmy smile, pinky ring and all. I touched his shoe for luck. I don’t know if this does anything, but why the hell not?

Next: Rounding back to our parked car, past the Maternity Hospital (the oldest one *in* Ireland), we wound our way back “home” to the Ardmore (Hotel), and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

…This is the point where you look at the ticker on the car (and the odometer on the phone) and realize: we have “done” Ireland probably like no one has before or will since. In only seven days we have driven over 860 miles and walked 41, seeing over 100 towns, 18 churches, 5 castles 3 manor houses and 5 major gardens. 1,158 pictures later, we’ve got a pocketful of memories and I hope, will go back soon!

Enter: London.