Happy travels overseas

The last of the Daddy-Daughter triad of trips was completed last month. This time, with Meaghan selecting the destination, we journeyed to Ireland and Scotland. The previous trips were with Emily to Germany, France and England (2010), and with Abigail to Italy (2014). Every trip was enjoyable, and the time spent alone with each daughter was the most memorable aspect of the trips.

Meaghan and I flew out of Boston to go to Dublin. Last year, with Abigail going to Italy, we flew on Aer Lingus, through Dublin and on to Rome. I decided to use an American-based airline this time, and opted to fly on Delta. We boarded the aircraft as scheduled, but then were delayed by nearly an hour from taking off. Now, we did apparently leave the gate at the appropriate time, so I am sure in the airline-statistics world, it was considered an “on-time” departure. It gets better.

Our flight (it was the most reasonable fare) took us to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York before the transoceanic crossing to Dublin. When we arrived at JFK, no gate was available, so we continued to sit in the aircraft for another 30 minutes of so before finally disembarking. We had ample time to get to the appropriate terminal and gate, and again boarded at the scheduled time.

As in Boston, we pulled away from the gate and then sat in the plane long enough to watch an entire movie (nearly two hours) before actually taking off. Apparently, a key part wasn’t working correctly, and the initial diagnosis was that perhaps if a different component was changed, the key part would function properly. Didn’t work. The pilot apologized and said that the key part would itself be changed. After a lengthy wait, the pilot (with very much apparent frustration) indicated that because the part was very expensive, a corporate bean-counter nixed the replacement and ordered another related part changed to see if that corrected the problem. Nope. So the expensive part was eventually changed, and, as I said, we left two hours late. We did get a complimentary bottle of water, though. While the aircrew was professional and understanding, from an operations perspective, Aer Lingus outperformed Delta.

The pilot made up about an hour over the Atlantic, so we got to Dublin around noon on a Sunday. We then picked up our rental car. I expected driving on the opposite side of the road to be challenging enough, so I had selected an automatic transmission so as to not get more confused with left-handed shifting. We set off to find our Dublin hotel.

The left-side driving was never an issue. Meaghan had more trouble riding on the left side of the car as a passenger. The only aspect of Ireland driving that took a while to get used to was looking up and to the left for the rearview mirror rather than the right as we do here. The frequent traffic circles (rotaries) flowed easily in a clockwise direction. From a traffic flow perspective, I like the concept of rotaries — it speeds things along. All in all, we had no driving issues in Ireland (while I was driving, that is, except for perhaps the brief time I drove on the trolley tracks — no harm, no foul).

We found Dublin to be a fun city. We wandered through the town for the balance of the afternoon and had dinner at a typical Dublin pub — music, singing, beer and stew. It was a great introduction. The following morning, we hopped on a sightseeing bus to get a broader perspective of the city. I plan all of these trips myself, selecting the hotels and tours without the use of organized tours. I believe that we then get to operate on our schedule and do what we want to do. On all of the trips, I would recommend every single hotel in which we stayed — some were small European chains, but most were simply little inns.

 After lunch, we packed up and headed toward Cork, in southwestern Ireland, approximately a two-hour drive away from Dublin. Traffic was pretty much non-existent and the roads and highway (the “dual carriage motorway”) moved at speeds similar to here (slow lane on the left). We found out that the traffic was light that day because it was a bank holiday, somewhat like our holidays of Labor Day and Columbus Day — a good reason for a long weekend. So, when we got to Cork in the late afternoon, things were pretty well shut down for the day. It was difficult even finding a restaurant in which to have dinner. The reason for staying in Cork, though, was to visit the Blarney Castle on the following day.

Blarney lies less than 10 miles from Cork, and the day was bright and sunny. We easily found the castle grounds and made our way to the castle. We met our first other Megan at the ticket office. My ex-wife and I spelled our Meaghan, in Meaghan’s words, “with all the letters” of the traditional Gaelic spelling. She gets frustrated because rarely do any souvenirs or similar items ever use all the letters. So, the first truly Gaelic Megan we meet has dropped a few letters. I heard about that as we made our way to the castle.

Visitors are forewarned that the interior of the castle is difficult to negotiate due to the narrow and twisting stairs. That advice should be noted — no elevators in a real (ruined) castle — it’s about 200 steps to reach the top of the castle and kiss the famous Stone. The views from the castle and of the grounds were fabulous, with all of the Irish green on beautiful display all the way to the horizon. We didn’t go into the Blarney House, but it was an impressive sight to walk around.

Our next destination was Glenbeigh, and a planned trip around the Ring of Kerry. To be continued.

Dale Martin is the town manager of Winsted.