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UK 2002/03

France and Ireland |

Mum arrived at the crack of dawn on Sunday the 15th September, and Darrel, who was horribly sick, was an absolute angel and dragged himself out of bed to drive me to the airport to fetch her. It was absolutely amazing to see her, I have to say - I just miss her so much all the time that it was almost unreal!

Anyway, so as I had booked for us to fly straight out to Marseille, we only had a couple of hours in London and I decided to cook Mum a very yummy turkey roast, with vegetables and everything! She was suitably impressed, I think…

And then it was pretty much off to Stansted – and from there to Marseille. I have to say that this is the only time in all my travels that I have felt so blatantly ripped off by a taxi-driver, and even though we knew what we should be paying, and wanted to pay what was on the meter – in the end we just paid it for fear of being offed by this mafia-looking character. It still annoys me to think about it, although we asked the guy at the hotel, and he said that it wasn’t just tourists that got forced into paying more – he himself sometimes didn’t have a choice! So anyway... The hotel was very nice, and fantastically close to the harbour, so we were up bright and early to explore. Marseille has an absolutely beautiful harbour, with the entrance grandly guarded by Bas Fort St. Nicolas on the left and Fort St. Jean on the right. We decided to walk along the right (northern) side first, and passed the rather impressive Hôtel de Ville (old Town Hall), and up some stairs to this lovely little church called the St. Laurent, and then walked along the Espl. de la Tourette, with spectacular views over the newer harbour towards the Cathédrale de la Major, and then down some very dodgy side streets (with mum getting very nervous) back down toward the harbour, where we found the daily fish market. I think this is one of the things that really appealed to me about Marseille, the fact that it’s not really much of a tourist city at all, and the fish market is right there, and it’s where the locals and restaurant owners actually come to get their fish…

We decided to take a boat trip out to some of the islands, but discovered that the Château d’If was closed. This is the infamous island which featured in Le Conte de Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) and so we were a bit disappointed not to visit it, but we decided to get the boat anyway, past the Château d’If and out to an island called Îles du Frioul. It’s not the most interesting island, but it turned out to be quite pretty, and it was nice just to wander around. We mostly went for the boat-trip anyway – I so miss the sea, and was really craving a bit of time out there.

We then went back to Marseille, and had lunch at a little restaurant on the harbour. Mum had the local speciality, Bouillabaisse, which is kind of a fishy stew they do – and unfortunately I don’t think it was that great (because it had loads of bones in it) – and I was pleased to have had the sole. We then picked up out hire car and were on our way to Avignon, with mum bravely driving on the wrong side of the road!!!

Avignon was absolutely enchanting right from the start. The city is entirely surrounded and contained within the walls, and we quickly found our way to the Palais des Papes, and found ourselves a hotel quite close to it, on the Rue de la République. After dumping our stuff we had a couple of beers outside in a café, and then wandered about to explore and find a good place to have dinner – pizza, strangely enough, as we were both craving it! Trust the French to do a really great Pizza, though, and in the coolest restaurant (with friendly Frenchmen J)

Next day we had a wander round, and walked up to the Rocher des Doms, where there’s a lovely view out over the Pont St-Bénézet, which I have to admit didn’t mean all that much to me, but Mum was thrilled to see it as she knew the French nursery rhyme Pont d’Avignon, under which the people famously danced (although factually it would appear that the people danced on the bridge, not under it!) Overall we had a lovely time in Avignon, and it’s a place that I could easily go back to and spend some real time there.

From Avignon we drove down the coast, aiming for Carcassonne. We stopped off in Béziers on the way, and had a peek at it’s Cathedral, the Cathédral St. Nazaire, with absolutely massive towers and a really ‘imposing’ façade and a lovely 14th centaury rose window.

Next stop was Carcassonne, which I will advise you here and now never to go near. I have never ever said this about anywhere else before, but my goodness was it dreadful! The guidebook said it was “tourist hell” but I assumed this to mean that it was packed with tourists, and the pictures are so beautiful that it stayed on my and mums’ list. The pictures are lovely because this town really is beautiful from a distance, but get within any real distance and this flimsy dust-cover falls right off and you’re left with nothing but crap. I don’t think that there is one tourist ploy that they’ve not exploited in the town, and this has resulted in the whole castle being characterless and just plain lifeless. It was disappointing, although we certainly made the best of it and had a couple of beers in one of the old medieval courtyards, and had a good supper in one of the themed restaurants – had a good giggle, I have to say! The pictures turned out well, anyway – the view of the castle with it’s fairy-tale spires is quite unique, and really quite spectacular!

So, then, without too much of a backward look, we got on our way bright and early, and tested my map-reading skills to their limit, trying to take the more ‘scenic’ roads to get to Perpignan. We stopped off on the way for some delicious croissants, and off-roaded to get to a spectacular old fortress called Peyrepertuse, which, “squatting high on a ridge with a drop of several hundred meters on each side, occupies one of the most dramatic sites of any castle anywhere” and it was one hell of a climb, but worth it! We also passed another fortress, called Quéribus, which looked quite fantastic, too.

And from there it was on to Perpignan, and a little drive through town before having to figure out how to use the petrol-pump, fill up and off to the airport!

So it was certainly an action-packed three days, but it was very nice to see mum, and do a bit of travelling with her too!

Back in London we headed straight for the hotel, where we met Gran – who, thank goodness, had managed to get there safe and sound thanks to her little angel, Aunty Anne. Darrel also came to join us, and we all went out to dinner together, which was lovely. It was so good to see Granny – we’ve always had a very special relationship, Gran and I, and it made me so happy to see her – and looking so well too! Gran’s always been a great traveller, and at the age of 85 she still seems to do it as well as when she was 20!

The next day we got all of the errand-y type things done, and then met Pippa for coffee at Starbucks on Oxford Street – and when we left mum’s purse got stolen straight out her bag!! It would seem that it’s not Joburg one should be worried about when you go shopping… Pips and I had the opportunity of discovering how to report small crimes on-line (which proved to be a very efficient service) and then we were all off to see Chicago, which was excellent!

Next morning we were all up bright and early, and off to Stansted for out flight to Cork. I have to say that I am continually thankful for the internet, as thanks to me booking our rental car for Ireland on-line, I’d already pre-entered all Mums’ Drivers’ Licence details onto Hertz’ system – because her licence was in her purse which got stolen we would have had no idea what the number was and would have been unable to hire the car – or had to have me drive (and I don’t know which is worse!!)

Our first stop was Blarney Castle, of course – can’t go to Ireland without acquiring the gift of the gab!! And then we made our way down to Kinsale, which is a little town right on the coast, and is meant to be the gourmet capital of Ireland… We found ourselves a very nice, scenic B&B and then headed off to explore the gourmet scene – with instructions to head for the White House, which turned out to be fantastic. I can’t really remember what I had, but it was fish and it was gorgeous!!

The next day we were off along the coast, toward and through Clonakilty, and then stopped for a beer and some seafood at Glendore, where we had a spectacular view over the water toward Union Hall. We then continued on toward Bantry, and stopped off at Bantry House for a walk around the grounds and some more great views over the water (and some great pictures with the house in the foreground, with the ocean behind it and some hills in the far distance – lovely!) We eventually stopped at Kenmare, and found a room above a pub on the main road, which was pretty cool.

Next day was a long one – we were just at the southern end of the Ring of Kerry, and we were expecting it to be spectacular – but I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s ok, but nothing truly worth getting excited about. The best bit was toward the end of the day, when we got to the Lakes of Killarney, which truly are beautiful. We took a rather precarious horse-cart ride past Muckross Abbey and along to Muckross House. I have to say that this was a real Pride and Prejudice experience, it feels absolutely surreal bumping along in a cart, along a road toward a beautiful manor-house – certainly an experience I’ll never forget. After a stroll through the gardens, and some of my best pictures of mum and particularly gran, we got back in our buggy for the trip back to the car – and if anything this was even more atmospheric. You know how in all those period movies they always show people leaving the grounds – looking back wistfully. This really felt like that, with the mist and dense trees adding extra atmosphere.

We then continued on to the Torc waterfall, and had a little walk – met a very friendly Irish man, who got mum going on “Ryan’s Daughter” and told her where she might be able to find a copy of the film. Have you watched it yet, Mommy? From there it was on to Ladies View, which really is a lovely view over the lakes (so spectacular that many years ago it made the ladies gasp!) and then we headed straight for Dingle, which is quite far west on the Dingle Peninsula. We found a lovely hotel and then got some advice on where to go for a nice meal, then headed into town and had a very good meal indeed! J

So, on Monday we drove a very scenic route along the Dingle Peninsula, and for anyone planning Ireland, I highly recommend this, rather than the Ring of Kerry. This is the part of Ireland that features in ‘Ryan’s Daughter’ and ‘Far and Away’. It’s absolutely lovely, and very green and rural in parts – making it feel much more like the Ireland I was expecting. We headed off along the Slea Head Drive, and first stop was Dunbeg fort, which is an ancient fort that’s been reasonably well recovered and was quite interesting. There’s a spectacular view of the Blasket Islands from Slea Head itself, and this apparently features somewhere in Ryan’s Daughter. We also stopped off at the Gallarus Oratory, which is a dry-stone oratory that’s shaped like an upturned boat and is still in almost perfect condition after 1200 years. We also saw the Kilmalkedar Church which dates from the 12th centaury. We then set off for County Clare, and took the road via Tralee. I was very proud of myself for finding a ferry crossing to get us across the Shannon Estuary, rather than having to go all the way around via Limerick… and when we got to the guest house in Ennis the owner asked where we came from and when we said the Dingle Peninsula she said “oooh, yu culd have saved a time coming over on ta ferry” and when we said that we had she was right impressed!! Clare is really famous for it’s music, and traditional Irish music is rumoured to have been born here. We headed out to the Old Grand Hotel for some grub, which was every bit as good as we expected. We then had a wander around town looking for somewhere to listen to some music and it seems that it’s harder than you think – even in this town which is famous for it – but in the end it turned out that Monday’s are always quiet, but that all we had to do was wit a bit, ‘cos nothing really happens until at least 11pm! So after a couple of pints the music started up, and we had a pretty good night.

For our last day we decided to head up to the Cliffs of Moher, which really are an awesome sight, and I got some really spectacular and unusual photos, with a mysterious air because of the misty atmosphere. After that it was off to Shannon Airport, driving through the almost bizarre Burren. It’s completely unique – an ancient limestone seabed that got forced up by geological forces and it’s been said to remind people of the face of the moon!

So, all in all, a really good trip and one that I’ll always remember – but mostly because it was a chance of being able to travel with two very special people. I was truly impressed at how well grannie did on it all – it was a busy trip, with lots of travelling and yet she made it all look easy! She even made Liverpool Street and travelling on the tubes in rush-hour look easy… which takes us all the way out to Chiddingfold in Surrey, where we went to spend the night with Aunty Anne. After some good company and a bit of relaxation we took mum and gran back off to Heathrow. It was so incredibly sad to say goodbye, but I’m really happy that they came!!

Well, now that this travelogue is finally done, I can move on to more recent ones – and will send you all the most updated information for my travels quite soon. It’s December and cold in London, and Christmas is drawing near. All my friends are setting off home, and it’s going to be a bit lonely here without them all, but I’ll be with Darrel, and I’m spending Christmas up in Staffordshire with his family, which should be nice.

Locations Visited: London, Marseilles, Avignon, Carcasonne, Perpignan, London, Cork, Blarney, Kinsale, Clonakilty, Bantry, Dingle, Tralee, Clare, Shannon, London, Chiddingfold, London

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