Sunday was another big travel day for us as we moved from London, England,
to Dublin, Ireland. We arranged for two
cabs to pick us up from the hostel at 6:45 AM and take the seven of us and our
luggage to Euston Railway Station to catch our train because the tubes didn’t start
running early enough. We got breakfast and lunch at the station and boarded our first train only to discover it was very full and had very little space to store our luggage. We did eventually get it all stored and evicted other passengers from our reserved seats.
Train travel here is a bit different than in the USA in terms of seating. You buy a train ticket which means you can board the train, but does not guarantee you a seat. If you want that, you pay a bit more. We’re very thankful we paid the extra and had reserved seats because we were traveling the morning after a big rugby match and the trains were packed with fans headed home. About half way to Holyhead, Wales (where we caught a ferry), we transferred to a second train that took us the rest of the way. Unfortunately virtually everyone else transferred to the second train as well and luggage space was still an issue. One of our bags ended up sitting in the aisle the whole trip. On our train rides, we had the opportunity to see lots of contryside, including canal boats, the ruins of a castle, and cattle and sheep in fields.
We arrived at the Holyhead station, and discovered signage in both English and Welsh. After a brief wait were checked
in for the ferry. We were shuttled out
to the ferry on a coach. Unfortunately
virtually everyone from the train transferred to the ferry as well. At least we didn’t have to deal with our
luggage this time as it was checked. We
eventually found a couple of tables that we claimed as ours and everyone
settled in for the Irish Sea crossing.
All was uneventful; a nice smooth trip.
We arrived at the Dublin port and learned the ferry company was now
charging a small fee to ride their bus from the port to city centre. We paid up and were on our way once
again. We got off the bus, walked across
one of the many bridges that cross the River Liffey, turned left and walked
less than a block to the Abbey Court Hostel, our home for the next four
nights.
After checking in, we gathered and walked to the Brazen Head, as it was dinner time. Dating back to 1198, the Brazen Head is officially Ireland’s oldest pub. No, I didn’t type the year wrong, we’re talking 800 plus years old. We were able to find a table that would hold all of us and had some great food and drinks. I had a traditional Irish stew. As we were finishing up, a local Irish band started showing up one by one. As they arrived, they started practicing. They didn’t actually start playing until after we left, but we got to listen to little pieces of lots of songs for half an hour or so. Good stuff. After dinner, most of us headed back to the hostel for bed, while others headed other directions.
I’m looking forward to our first full day in Dublin tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment