Ring of Kerry

May 22, 2010 by Morgan Kan in Ireland, Trips

On our May long weekend (May 8-10th), Diane and I decided that it had been too long since our last trip, and since it was a long weekend it was an opportune moment to hop in the car and check out an area of the Irish countryside we hadn't yet gotten to. One of the main touristy areas we hadn't gotten to yet was the Ring of Kerry, in South-West Ireland.

So on Saturday morning, we hopped in our car and started down in the direction of Killarney. It's a pretty long drive! It probably took us well in excess of 4 hours to get there, and since we slept in and packed that morning we didn't actually get on the road until almost noon. The roads in Ireland are pretty high variance: there are now quite a few fancy new motorways available, but once you get off of those the road quality can quickly degrade into roads that you really can't drive very fast on. Most of the way out though, the roads were pretty good, so that was good.

We stopped to check in at our B&B - a little house a few minutes drive outside of Killarney. Our host kindly informed us that Killarney was particularly busy that weekend due to a motor rally happening nearby. Forewarned, we headed into town and took a quick pre-dinner walk into Killarney National park before heading off to find some food. Not sure where to eat, we consulted our handy Ireland lonely planet guide and it recommended a restaurant called Bricín which we were fortunate to get a table at since it was booked up later that evening. The food was absolutely delicious! A great way to start off our trip.

We returned to our B&B early since we wanted to get an early start on the next day. The day was a bit rainy and windy at the start, but after being on the road for a little bit the sun came out and the day was absolutely gorgeous. We started the day by stopping off at Muckross house which is part of Killarney national park. The house has some really nice gardens including an extensive arboretum which was quite pretty. Lots of mossy trees and flowering trees!

Our next stop along the ring of Kerry was the Torc waterfall, which conveniently enough is just a few minutes walk from the road. The waterfall is just part of a larger hike which we might need to go back and do at a later time. But we had a lot to see that day, so we didn't really have time to spend a couple hours hiking. So on we went, next taking a quick stop at "the ladies view" which is a nice viewpoint from the road over the hills and lakes. The place gets its name because of the "pleasure expressed by Queen Victoria's ladies in waiting on their visit in 1861 in that spot". It is indeed a very pretty view.

Not too far from there, we stopped at Molls' gap and the Avoca cafe stationed there for a small lunch. From there, it was a fairly short drive to Kenmare which the guidebook said had a stone circle to see, so we did! We also made stops at the Staigue Stone fort (an old ring fort overlooking some stunning scenery) and at the viewpoint at Coomakeesta pass which offers an absolutely incredible view from the road. The road is up high with green rolling hills dropping below us and spreading out dramatically right out to eh rugged coastline. For us, this was probably the highlight of the very scenic ring of kerry drive.

Our stop for the night was a town called Cahersiveen, which is a lovely little town. We got there pretty early so instead of going to dinner right away we wandered around the town a bit, finding not only the giant Daniel O' Connell memorial church but also an old abbey that had long since fallen into disrepair. So much so that there was a whole bunch of vines growing in and through the bricks. Pretty neat ... Dinner that night was at the seafood restaurant QC's. Another really good meal!

On the Sunday we decided to call and see if there was any space left on a boat headed to the Skelligs: two craggy rocky islands shooting out from the ocean off the coast of Ireland. Apparently, getting on one of the boats in the summer is pretty tough, but they were just getting going for the season so we got a spot. Nice! So on Monday morning we found ourselves on a boat at 10am heading on a 50 minute boat ride to Skellig Michael. The water was calm and lovely, and we were soon climbing the hundreds of steps up to the top.

The skellig's stairs were numerous and it took quite awhile to climb them. The view from the top was sure worth it though! Near the top there is some beehive style huts set up -- apparently there was a small group of people who used to live there a long time ago. I can't imagine it though.

After a couple of hours climbing around, we got back on the boat. The boat operator took us by the other skellig which no one is allowed to land on -- it is reserved as a bird sanctuary ... and my oh my there were a lot of birds!!! We didn't just see the birds though - there were also some spotted seals sunning themselves on the rocks! The waves were pretty choppy on the way back, so we were given yellow raincoats to prevent us from getting soaked.

Having made it back to port safely, we were now facing a multi-hour drive back to Dublin, so we started high tailing it back. We stopped in Limerick on the way for dinner at a pub recommended from our handy tour guide... and the food was pretty awesome for pub food.

Not much else to say about our trip. We got back to Dublin pretty late and basically fell into bed after a good long weekend trip! We're going to have to do another one of these trips in the near future -- there's so much to see down there.

Morgan

Skiing in Austria Part II - Now with 50% more umlaut!

March 13, 2010 by dbbarker in Fun, Trips

Wednesday was particularly awesome because all of us went up Ahorn together.

Lemme backtrack for a sec though. Morgan wasn’t kidding about those first few days making you stiff and sore, so my Tuesday (or Day 3) was spent at my own pace on familiar Penken runs in the morning and in town with Bea in the afternoon. We strolled through the village, grabbed a snack - oh weißwurst, how I love you! – and read in the hotel solarium until it was time to soak, eat and bowl!

But Wednesday was good because the sun was shining (again!) and the Glüwien was flowing and Christine gave lessons to whoever wanted. (Pick me! Pick me!) And I got to see the ski-out, which had some very lovely scenery and more après-ski at the end. We caught a somewhat fortuitous/somewhat unfortunate bus, which left right away and passed very near our hotel, but which did not pass our way again after we missed our stop.

We ended up taking a taxi from the train station, where the bus route terminated. Then more sauna/swimming/steaming and more wonderful soup with supper. By this point the stiffness of the first days was leaving. Three cheers for the steam room and sauna!

Evening… lemme see… probably spent at Mo’s. That was the bar on the corner closest to our hotel. We discovered a few beers and mixes that were new to me at least. Would you believe I had my first Jäger bomb at Mo’s?

Thursday was a “ski-away day” at Hintertux, half an hour away. We got on a bus that wound it’s way past dwellings with stacks of firewood to the first of three gondolas that get you up to a snow-covered glacier. Included with this were three guided groups (slow, medium, fast) you could join. Morgan and most of the rest went down all the runs they could, including an absolutely epic T-bar (I saw a shorter one that disappeared into the distance) that they agreed led to their favorite run of the day. I joined the slow group and skied over the glacier in the morning, and then in the afternoon, took a tour under the snow and inside the ice itself. The layers and ice formations were quite pretty, and it was neat to see it from above and below. In the cafeteria, we discovered the tasty Tyrolean gröstl - pan-fried potatoes and onions and sausage with a fried egg on top.

As night fell we were to be found once again at Mo’s, where salsa night was going strong. It was a fairly early night for me, as we had one more day left and had to make the most of it on the hill. Morgan stayed up late to watch the women’s gold medal hockey game.

Friday came so fast. The last day. So sad! And yet so good because even though it was raining in town and visibility was a bit poor on the mountain in the morning, there was fresh snow just for us - what Christine calls “freshies”. In fact, it appeared that lots of people were dissuaded by the vis and came down early, leaving more mountain for those of us without hangovers. Morgan, Christine, Aaron, and Breece took down the “Hara-kiri” – advertised as a groomed run of 78 degree average pitch (I hear they use cables and winches to groom it.) – just to say they did. Apparently they didn’t find it terribly vertical, but the morning mist and snow made it less fun than it might have been. Just as well I met up with them at lunch. And lunch at the Schneekarhütte (top of the Shcneekar lift) was pretty posh. There was this bacon `n’ egg pizza with a super tasty hollandaise-esque sauce. Mmm! (We want to go back!) I spent the afternoon with Morgan and he showed me some runs he had enjoyed. All too soon we were on the last run home, but we were tired, it had been a good week, and it wasn’t too crowded on the gondola. We watched as we descended down through the mist, toward an invisible base.

One last dip in the pool, one more sauna session… I totally miss having steam rooms, pools, saunas, and plated dinners brought to me whenever I show up in the dining room. Friday’s dinner was just the two of us. So romantic! Everyone else fancied steak that night, so the dessert buffet was ours! We went to Mo’s with everyone for a few nightcaps and then we called it a night, though some of the lads stayed out über late. Well, I called it a night for a while. Morgan stayed up to watch semi-final Olympic men’s hockey (Canada v. Slovakia), and I woke up at the end of the first period of a game that could have gone either way and was really exciting. Plus, between the periods, there was coverage of speed skating events that worked out for a bunch of Kanadischens (that's us) as well. Totally worth not going to sleep until 4 or 5 or whatever it was. Kind of cool, actually, to watch the Olympics from an area that's hosted so many competitions and Olympic events.

And the next day we got our sorry (yet vicariously victorious) selves up and breakfasted and checked out. Going home is always a bit sad, but it was mid-day on the way back to the airport, so we got to admire the mountain scenery. And be served another meal on good ol' Austrian Air even though it was only a few hours back to Dublin. We made sure to get together later that weekend and watch the men's gold medal hockey game. (I actually forgot about rugby while anticipating hockey, but we (we of Ireland now) were busy beating England on their home turf while I was occupied with pre-game snacks. I'm such a bad immigrant! I hear it was a great game too.) And now we are home! Morgan has a bit of a helmet tan still and I just feel great. Spring is allowed to begin now.

Diane

Skiing in Austria Part I

March 08, 2010 by Morgan Kan in Trips

A couple weeks ago, we joined a group of friends heading to Mayrhofen, Austria to go on a weeklong ski trip. The week was incredibly fun. We benefited from some awesome weather which certainly helped make our trip a success.

Our flight left Dublin on Saturday afternoon. The group of us included Diane and I, Aaron and Christine, Diarmuid and Bea, Jeremy, and Bryce. Half the group had the earlier flight, with Aaron and Christine being on the later flight with us. Our first surprise on the trip: our 2.5 hour flight to Innsbruck with Austrian Airlines included a meal! I don't think I had ever had a free meal on a sub 5 hour flight before. So it was a pretty pleasant flight over (although Aaron had an incident with a glass of red wine during the meal).

We arrived at Innsbruck airport, and met our tour operators who directed us to some buses taking us the hour or so drive to Mayrhofen. The procedure was swift and well organized which meant that we were soon at our hotel all settled in and being served our first multi-course meal of the week. Having purchased the package that we did, the flights, accommodation, breakfast, and dinner were all included leaving just lift tickets, rentals, and lunches as the necessary costs of the trip. So despite arriving at the hotel relatively late for dinner, we were promptly served a two-course "snack".

The next morning, we got up relatively early to get in the queue for ski rentals for the week. Our hotel had a ski rental shop next door so that was nice and convenient. Having got our gear, we joined the giant queue for the main gondola up to the Penken mountain. The queue formed a multi-level spiral which you had to shuffle along slowly. Not a very comfortable way to start the day, particularly in a pair of ski boots, but hey ... we're here to ski right? The Penkenbahn gondola is ridiculous. Between the start and end points, you gain 1200 meters of elevation, and between those two points, there are just two structural towers supporting the cables that carry the gondola cars up that far. The amazement didn't really leave me throughout, despite several rides in that gondola on the way up and down over the week. It was ... well ... ridiculous.

The sky was cloud-free and the sun shone down on us all day. It was a gorgeous first day for skiing. Apart from an hour or so stopping for lunch, we hit the slopes pretty hard - exploring various parts of the mountain. The area is pretty vast, but there were also a lot of people in the common areas, causing there to be some pretty massive queues at the numerous chairs around the hill. So in the afternoon, we ventured a little farther away which helped with the queues.

One thing that was pretty amazing about this hill. In Canada, the best chair lifts I've been on were the high speed quad chairs. For me, high speed quad was what they were -- but at this hill, there was a couple of quad chairs, but they mostly had 6 or 8-man high speed chairs. Woah! Not only that, a lot of the chairs had conveyer belts which helped get everyone to the line where the chair would pick people up. At first I thought it was weird, but the conveyer belts really helped ease the process of getting on the chair which meant less stoppages for people who failed to get on the chair properly. So all in all a pretty solid improvement.

One of the downsides to skiing on Penken is there isn't a skiout from the mountain to the Mayrhofen townsite. There are two skiouts to neighbouring towns, but this didn't seem like a palatable choice so at the end of the day we shuffled back into a giant queue for the gondola on the way back down. Of the things that went on that week, the lineup for the gondola on the way down was the most miserable. You don't really have much to do except deal with a bazillion other people in the line all shuffling along. At the end of a lengthy day of skiing, this wasn't all that fun. But if that's the worst part of the trip, that's a pretty good trip, I think!

Having made it back to our hotel, we returned back to the gondola area where we entered the "Ice Bar". The bar didn't really have anything to do with ice besides being next to the gondola, but it was a pretty hopping place. We tried our first mulled wine (or Glüwein) on the trip there while listening to catchy german songs -- many of which we had heard at Oktoberfest, and other singable well known songs. Partway through our visit, a guy dressed in a polar bear costume jumped up on one of the stands and started dancing. A few minutes later a girl jumped up on another one and started dancing as well. This was apparently one of the features of this particular establishment since on ensuing nights we would see various people dancing above the crowd of people in the bar.

Having polished off our Glüwein, we returned back to our hotel where we enjoyed its rooftop pool (an event that would be a nightly occurrence all week). The hot tub there would've been awesome if it was actually hot ... but the pool was pretty nice and warm, and having a rooftop pool with the mountains all around was a pretty awesome experience!

A fairly late dinner followed the pool. The food at our hotel was pretty good in general. There was a few misses, but there was some pretty darn good food -- and the soup every night was fantastic.

The next day we got started a little later without the need to beat the lineup at the rental store. The queue at the Penken gondola was still ridiculous, but after making it up that, we got started skiing. I've always found that the second day skiing was really rough. My knees take a beating when skiing, and after one full day of skiing my muscles really have a hard time getting going. But we were there to ski, so I pushed pretty hard to keep going. It wasn't easy though!

That night, the Crystal Ski tour operator put on a pub crawl touring some of the bars in Mayrhofen. So we started at the "Movie Bar" and proceeded to visit half a dozen or so bars. Each was a bit more hopping than the last, and after a shot of (terrible) Schnaps at the first 3 bars and a few rounds of beer ... well lets just say we were pretty buzzed. Before leaving from the airport in Dublin, a set of funny Irish hats were purchased, and they made their appearance on the pub crawl. They were pretty popular, and got a fair amount of attention! Some of our party even went so far as to start doing the leprechaun heel click. At one of the bars, we even got the security guard to do a heel click!

The next morning we were in no great shape to get up early. Diane and I were the only ones to make it to breakfast, and it wasn't until after noon before we made it to the gondola. On this particular day, we decided to go check out a neighbouring mountain called Ahorn accessible by another ridiculous gondola. This particular one was much newer and only had two cars: each holding between 120 and 160 people! Ahorn is a pretty friendly mountain for beginner skiers with a beautiful long-ish gradual slope heading down to an octachair. There's a bit more advanced skiing from there, but not a huge amount of it and its basically all serviced by a single double chair.

It's a good mountain though. One of the cool features of it is the White Lounge at the top which is a big igloo with a bar inside. On that particular day, it was absolutely gorgeous out and we spend a fair amount of time at the top lounging on beach chairs/bean bags enjoying the sunshine with a beer. We did a little bit of skiing, but there was a lot of time spent relaxing in the sunshine too. The other cool feature of Ahorn is that there is a ski run right back into town. It was a bit icy in spots, but it made for an excellent way to get back to the town without waiting in a lineup for the gondola.

That was our first three full days in Mayrhofen, Austria. Hopefully I'll get around to posting about our last three days soon.

Morgan

Barcelona Day 6

January 02, 2010 by dbbarker in Trips

On Boxing/Stephen’s Day, we stopped in to two churches, La Seu (Barcelona's catherdral), and Santa Maria del Mar. The cathedral is large and formal, with lots of arches, gold and gated chapels inside. It’s kind of cool that the crypt is visible from the main floor. I’m pretty sure I saw a black madonna in one of the chapels that looked pretty familiar as we had just seen the Virgin of Montserrat at the monastery. Of the two we liked the feel of the smaller Maria del Mar, with its simple columns and open alcoves. Mass was due to begin, so we had a quick look around and escaped back into the streets.

We had previously found the aquarium and taken silly pictures outside it, and we succumbed to advertizing and went to see the captive creatures of the sea. There were fish in the marina beside the aquarium, so we got to see a preview before we got our tix and had our picture taken, cruise-style, as we entered. It was actually pretty cool, very kid-oriented and family friendly as well. After viewing the bulk of the exhibition tanks (which includes the obligatory “Nemo” tank), there are more kid-sized tanks and interactive play places that we enjoyed too. Because we’re big kids. We always love the sea horses, who look so mopey as they look around for edible tidbits. Tiny Eeyores all. There were also sea dragons whose leafy appendages made them look like different kelps. One of the most mesmerizing little fellows for me was what I now call a “nose fish” (spotted unicorn fish, actually) – it looks very cartoonish, just like you’d draw if you anthropomorphized a fish – y’know, like I draw after years of biology. I should explain that, sophisticated lady that I am, I spent most of my visit making fun of everyone else – the rays with their eyes above and smilie-faces beneath, the unfortunate looks of the frogfishes, the way snails steadily nom…nom…nom, crabs wearing other people’s shells. We watched feeding time in one tank. At first it was just lazy swimming and the anemones swaying their tentacles; eels were hiding in plain sight. Then the first bits of food dropped – mussels and bits of other fish, I want to say? – and it was a feeding frenzy! Anyway, it was good to get out of the rain and see those who might otherwise eat me if I were to go where they live, or who I can’t visit because it’s a little deep and cold for me. The main tank has lots of viewing space and a glass tunnel so you can watch sharks and stingrays swim overhead. I got a little obsessed trying to take pictures with the battle-scarred sunfish.

We wandered back across the Rambla del Mar and Passeig de Colom with Columbus atop his pillar pointing out to sea, and back on to La Rambla once again. By this time it had really become our familiar street. It was still spitting, but there were covered market tables set up, and we browsed the stalls and discovered a new wallet for Morgan and all kinds of baubles and bags and handicrafts. The buskers were setting up for the rush, and we passed our painting guy as we made our way along. I definitely <3 our little picture of la rambla!

Back at Hotel Principal, we formulated our plan of attack and headed back to Maria del Mar’s hood to check out a tapas place some friends had been. But we were too lazy to stand at the bar or around high tables to drink and chat as everyone was doing, so we went to dine in the fancy back restaurant. If you just want good food, you’ll get better value at Carmelita’s or Los Caracoles, but I must say the service here was the finest I’ve experienced anywhere in recollection. The wine list looked really tantalizing, and they served cider from a spigot that was run through a huge decorative cask set into the wall. That looked really good too. Our serving gal was good at pouring the cider from a long way away and making it look artistic.

By the time we were released back into the wild, it was the end of our trip. The next morning we got up early and grabbed the first croissants and juice of the day, checked out and caught the train, as Spanish-less and Catalan-less as we came.

Barcelona Day 5

January 02, 2010 by Morgan Kan in Trips

Our 5th day in Barcelona was Christmas day, and since not a lot was going to be open, we decided to sleep in a bit. After a bit of breakfast at the hotel, we wandered out in to the ... sunshine! Yup, the clouds finally broke for us and we had a chance to wander around in the sunshine for once. Our plan for the day was to head over to Montjüic, which is a large hill overlooking the city and is the site of several of the venues from the 1992 summer olympics.

The first part of that plan was trying to find the funicular station to take us up, but we missed that which ended up being a good thing since the walk up wasn't really that taxing, and if we had taken the funicular up we probably would've missed some of the views we did get. So as we climbed up, the city fell below us and we got a pretty good look at the city itself -- primarily white and beige coloured buildings stretching out before us. Our wandering took us to one end of the closed-for-the-holidays cable car that takes people across the harbour for what I'm sure would be very nice views.

After wandering around a bit more, we took a gondola up to the very top of the mountain where there is a fortress called "Castell de Montjuïc". This fortress offered some great views of the surrounding countryside, and conveniently for us had a restaurant in the fortress courtyard that was actually open for Christmas day. So we stopped for some food before continuing our exploration and picture taking from the top of the fortress.

Instead of taking the gondola back down, we decided to walk down through some of the olympic venues. This turned out to get us a little lost since there wasn't a simple route back to the main road so we wandered in between the Stadi Olímpic and the Palau Sant Jordi before finally finding our way out to in front of the Palau Nacional which overlooks a large stairway heading back down into the city. There was quite a few people out on that beautiful day to enjoy the weather.

We headed back to our hotel via metro to have a nap and figure out where a good place to go for dinner was. Once again consulting wikitravel, we eventually ended up at Los Caracoles, which translates to "The Snails" -- which also happens to be the restaurant's signature dish. The restaurant's exterior features a window where chickens are being roasted on spits, and when you walk into the restaurant, you first walk through the bar to the front desk where you ask for your table. From there you walk through the kitchen to the dining area. Our table was right next to the kitchen so we could see the cooks working away and the delicious dishes being whisked into the extensive dining area behind us. The inside of the restaurant was extensively decorated and felt quite comfortable. To add to the snail theme, not only were there some decorative snails everywhere, but the bread that came with our dinner was curled up to look like a snail! The food was excellent, and it turned out to be a great place to have our Christmas day dinner.

Our last day in Barcelona is up next ...

Morgan