Here’s a rundown of each of the places we’ve hit, or at the very least an idea of something we did in each place.
LONDON
Our stay in London was our longest yet for this crazy trip of ours – a whopping two weeks (perhaps that’s sarcasm, perhaps it’s not)! We managed to get lucky with the opening of Fars & Fan and an oh so timely vacancy on the floor there. We never got to post a review of F&F as they were too cheap to have a guest book, so taking the criteria from an appropriate source, here it is:
Character: 100% - really, they had a London themed pillow!!! How much more character could you ask for??
Security: 100% except for when the keys turn by themselves.
Location: 100% ideal for all you hipsters and ya faybans.
Staff: 100% free tours around Camden and Primrose Hill were pretty tops. They’ll even introduce you to Primark, and take you to super embarrassing trivia if you ask nicely.
Fun: 100% all the Crabbies you can handle.
Other comments: Whilst F&F ticked all the boxes above, this criteria leaves little room for criticism regarding the surcharges... Don’t be fooled into a comfortable stay unless you can afford hefty surcharges on each square of toilet paper, and every drop of water that comes from the filter jug (even though the water comes from the tap!) They’ll charge you for sneezing if you’re not careful! Outrageous! Crabbies, however... delicious!
What’d we get up to in London? Well after the gig drought that has been 2011 thus far (oh, the pain!), we landed in town and headed to the O2 on our very first night for Elbow. The O2 claims to be the world’s number one music venue (it’s where Michael Jackson would have killed himself through exhaustion if he didn’t die first), but to be frank it seems only as impressive as the next arena. Elbow, on the other hand, are world class. There’s nothing about this band you can’t like; and impressively, live they can actually sound spot on in a 20,000 capacity venue. Irish band, Villagers, played beforehand, and I can highly recommend them as well. We’ve been listening to their album a lot since the night.
Elbow performing at the O2
The other major event for us in London was going to see The Lion King. This was simply spectacular and if you haven’t seen it then we can only recommend it a thousand times! The puppetry was superb: the elephant was awesome and the cheetah and giraffes so cleverly done, as were the lion’s headpieces. Such ingenuity!!
Pure Joy: The Lion King
When we weren’t sightseeing or at a show/gig, we were probably either drinking Crabbies or coffees about the place. Here’re our top four coffee spots in London in case you’re ever in town and interested:
1. Wild & Wood – New Oxford Street
2. Melrose & Morgan – Primrose Hill
3. Primrose Bakery – Tabistock Street/Avenue
4. Hamstead Heath – Kenwood House (more for the surroundings)
Finally, Colin did a massive sightseeing tour of the city. And he had a photographer following him all the way. How many sights can you pick?
EDINBURGH
We left London and headed to The Burg. Excitement over the Scottish accent was somewhat shot down upon our arrival with a big lack of Scottish accents – an English voiceover on the bus (What!?) and a hostel with Aussie staff and way too many Frenchies about.
The idea I got from Edinburgh was that the Scots worship a dog and a rock. Don’t worry, I have nothing against Greyfriar’s Bobby – he sounds pretty awesome to me – and a dog outranking JK Rowling in terms of love is certainly a good thing. The fountain outside the Churchyard, under which he’s buried (dog’s aren’t allowed to be buried in Catholic cemeteries), doubles as a drinking fountain for humans and dogs. How thoughtful!
On the note of Greyfriar’s, I’d also like to comment of how mean JK Rowling is. Apparently, a whole load of Harry Potter is based on stuff Rowling discovered in Edinburgh (Hogwarts on George Heriots School, for instance). In the churchyard/cemetery, Rowling went around pinching first and surnames from different graves to assemble some of her character names. One name, Tom Riddell, she took directly from the stone. So poor old Mr Riddell has just had his name taken and associated with a super evil wizard overlord (he’s an overlord of some sort, isn’t he?) How rude!
Greyfriar’s Bobby statue and fountain
You’re correct is realising that this is not Greyfriar’s Bobby. There are other famous dogs in the world too, you know, and this one comes from California. Why do I like him so much to include his photo here? Because his name is Bum!
STIRLING
We found ourselves visiting Mog in Stirling next; eating haggis, visiting Monty Python castles and, er, dressing in drag. A hike around Stirling Uni in search of a Hairy Coo proved (very disappointingly) unsuccessful, though a bus trip to St Andrews meant we saw a whole bunch of them on the roadside: Very important Scottish sight ticked off the list.
Typical Scottish fare, care of Mog
Colin also had himself a wonderful top hat made by Mog, to which he grew immediately attached.
Colin’s SMASHING new hat
GLASGOW
All I can think of is that Muph & Plutonic song, Beautiful Ugly, because that is just how I would describe Glasgow. Walking into town in the morning, the place was dead. We’d chosen the wrong streets to head in on, and the place basically looked dull and abandoned. The centre made things more visually appealing, though, but the amount of vacant and/or rundown structures certainly gave the place a lot of misses amongst its hits.
Whilst in Glasgow we went to see Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed at a place called The Arches. If anyone heads there and gets the chance to see a gig at this venue, it’s worth a look in. Whilst as a music venue, an old brick arch train platform doesn’t really prove acoustically perfect; the atmosphere of the place is pretty awesome. Eli’s damn fun, too! Glasgow certainly has a cool live music scene – I’d probably say it is to the UK what Melbourne is to Australia in terms of this. There’s good stuff on pretty much every night, and whilst Belfast is taking a good crack at the top music city, Glasgow’s still well ahead of them.
Eli Paperboy Reed performing at The Arches
DUBLIN
To be sure, to be sure, to be sure. The land of Guinness at last! We headed to Dublin in a roundabout fashion, basically via the wrong airport. We assumed that given we had a cheap flight, we’d be flying out of Prestwick. In fact, I didn’t even know Glasgow had an international airport. (It’s the biggest city in Scotland... Really?) This was fun, because Ryanair are the only airline to fly from here and they don’t fly on Good Friday! Had Prestwick been correct, we would have had a healthy two to three hours to bum about (and probably write this long post); however, we made it to check-in with a not-so-healthy 5-10 minutes to spare. Phew.
Dublin was good fun. We met up with the Mole (of F&F fame above) and explored the Irish capital. We headed to the Guinness Storehouse, which was excellent in my opinion, and enjoyed the black stuff there (and elsewhere many times). My favourite part about the Storehouse was the advertising level. It’s amazing just how many great commercials and items of merchandise Guinness have created over the decades. It’s a shame the toucan isn’t around any longer.
Colin enjoyed a few pints, despite his pint size
Tayto: An absolute asset for Ireland
We also joined another free walking tour, which turned out to be the first of seven (I think) that we actually had problems with. It really came down to our guide, who was a little hungover, but mostly just an ass when it came to touring people who wanted to know about the city. This guy went into several rants about complete nonsense – the worst being his qualms over the film interpretation of Gulliver’s Travels and how he was making it his mission to end the career of Jack Black. He was basically an angry, angry man and a royal pain in the backside.
We also headed to Trinity College to check out the incredible Book of Kells and Long Room Library, which we learnt is the same place used in one of the Star Wars films (as the Jedi Library) without ever having been filmed on location. George Lucas’s crew apparently went in and photographed the place, then asked permission to film there – a request which was denied. Lucas went back and used the photographs instead to reproduce the place in CGI; and it’s supposedly bang on perfect. In the words of Pinky Beecroft: for once George Lucas got it right. The Long Room is one hell of a sight, though, and well worth the fee from travellers like us who try to avoid paying for anything.
BELFAST & STROKECITY
I’m calling [Derry/Londonderry] Strokecity from now on, because the murals around Belfast don’t exactly paint a positive picture for anyone making the wrong choice of words in Northern Ireland. Belfast was an interesting place; obviously not as threatening as it once was but appearing like it could be (ok, school holidays freeing the teenagers can do this to a place).
Actually our first sight upon departing the bus in Belfast
One of Belfast’s few finer features
Out of Belfast we headed out on a day trip with Paddy Wagon Tours, who I’d happily recommend. Our guide was Troy, who was one funny guy – happy to tell jokes and basically not stop taking for 90% of the 8 hour day. Our tour took us first to Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which isn’t nearly as high as we’d thought it might be, but certainly still quite cool. From there we went to the Giant’s Causeway, a trip with a story that only seemed to prove the Scottish are both smarter and stronger than the Irish. See, the Giant’s of the story include the key Irish protagonist who falls in love but is not strong enough to fight for it and not smart enough to figure out his own plan, and two Scottish ones: the lady interest to concocts the big idea to win, and the brute that would have kicked the crap out of the Irish had they ever actually come to conflict. Ah well, the Irish’ll still tell it.
The legend (taken from Wiki) goes something like this:
Legend has it that the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. One version of the legend tells that Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. In a variation, Fionn fled after seeing Benandonner's great bulk, and asked his wife to disguise him as the baby. In both versions, when Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn.
Carrick-a-Rede: Spot Tess
From the Causeway we headed to Strokecity. It’s called this by some because Derry is offensive to the Protestants, and Londonderry is offensive to the Catholics. On signs it’s often written as “London/Derry”, hence the name Strokecity popping up and avoiding all offence entirely. Here we went on a very underwhelming tour of the city (Troy ditched us for this one), on which dates were blurted out and little info of any memorable substance was given. Our guide wasn’t interested on questions despite asking for them, and when asked about the “New IRA”, he denied, without a doubt, that they could ever possibly exist. If you go to Strokecity, do not bother with the tour office’s tour.
THE IRISH ROADTRIP
From Belfast, it was back to Dublin Airport, where we picked up our Reno and set off on our week-long road trip.
Our Reno! I want one of these now – fuel efficiency is incredible!!
Our first stop was Kilkenny, a town that smelt entirely of beer thanks to its Smithwicks brewery. Here we easily toured the town in a day as it is quite small, and got to enjoy some great Irish music in Andrew Ryan’s Pub (highly recommended), as well as some hilarious antics from an old American dude: we now refer to him as “wiggle bum”.
From Kilkenny we spent a good day driving west to stop in Doolin. From here we travelled to the Cliffs of Moher, which were absolutely spectacular. The warnings were kind of funny, as everyone simply ignored the end barrier and climbed over to see the actual cliff edge. There were puffins about, PUFFINS, of which I did actually spot a couple!! (albeit wayyy off in the distance). Also from Doolin we explored The Burren; a vast national park made of rocky terrain that was quite a sight, as well as many towns that were hardly a sight at all. What I learnt from these latter mentioned towns is that Colin Farrell is a hypocrite. As an Irish man, how can he possibly call Bruges a “f_*ing hole” when there are SO MANY such places where he comes from. (It’s okay, this is not so serious... but seriously Ireland, up your game :P)
The sounds at Andrew Ryan’s
More Irish than a Guinness in the pub: Mr Tumnus (a Tracey family favourite) performing a jig at the Cliffs of Modor
The Burren National Park
Tess enjoying an Irish coffee at McDermitt’s Pub in Doolin
From the west coast we drove south to stay in Killarney, where we got to explore a little of the National Park there as well. This place is superb! I was really quite jealous of our roommate, who was heading out when we left to spend two whole weeks hiking in the mountains in the Ring of Kerry – his tent and fishing rod were all he needed.
Ross Castle in Killarney National Park
From Killarney we drove along the Dingle Peninsula, stopping to laugh at the surfing companies set up in the miserable cold on what we named “Jobbie Beach” (it really smelt quite bad). Twas a nice drive, even if there were no wild goats as falsely advertised, grrr.
Jobbie Beach: Beautiful, but oh so smelly
Our goat experience was made up for upon visiting Killorglin, where we found the King Puck statue. There’s no point writing any more than a mere copy of what the plaques at that statue say:
The first day of the Puck Fair is known as “Gathering Day”. The Puck Goat is enthroned on a stand in the town square and the great horse fair is held. The middle day is known as “Fair Day”. This is the day of the cattle fair and general festivities. The last day is known as “Scattering Day,” when the brief reign of Ireland’s only King is ended and the Puck Goat is returned once more to his mountain home.
For hundreds of years, a male mountain goat has been enthroned as King of Puck Fair in Killorglin town. The Puck Goat reigns over the fair held on August 10th, 11th, and 12th of each year. King Puck is a symbol of a vast tradition whose origins are lost in the mists of time.
This sculpture was unveiled on the 5th day of August, 2001 in commemoration of the enduring Killoglin tradition of “Puck Fair” and its central figure King Puck.
“Kings may come and Kings may go, But King Puck goes on forever.”
Says it all, doesn’t it.
It turns out it is a long way to Tipperary, which is where we headed next. Not only that, it’s a long way to go for another hole! Haha. Our stay wasn’t long enough to justify that comment, but still. We headed 40km north to a town called Borrisoleigh, where we somehow scored on a booking via hostelworld and ended up staying on a farmhouse with this awesome guy, Michael, and all his animals! If you are ever in the middle of Ireland and need a place to stay (or even just fancy saying hello to Britny the enormous pig and Indian Runner ducks that’ll follow you around), please go to the Fairy Fort Farm House. There’s a jumping castle, too!
These guys followed us around the farm – so funny!
Guess who this might be...
From Borrisoleigh, it was back to Dublin to give back our car and end our UK/Ireland jaunt. Amazingly, we’d managed to travel all the above places from 29 March to the 4 May with – get this – only two days of miserable weather: TWO of 37! That’s got to be some kind of freak event for this part of the world, doesn’t it?
Anyway, on to Spain... Yippee!!
Hope this read hasn’t been too painful for you. If you’ve made it to this last sentence then thanks for reading :)
Over and out for now
Li
P.S. I realise at the beginning of this I said about “25 words”... I may have omitted a couple of zeros from that figure.
excluding the intro saying "in about 25 words" and the little PS note at the end... you wrote 2967 words... I feel jibbed I do...JIBBED!
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