Pont Canal

Further up the river we passed through Gien and arrived at the Pont Canal. This canal system links the Seine river which flows through Paris to the Loire Valley and eventually to Burgundy. The Pont Canal is a bridge which carrys the canal over the Loire. It was designed by Gustav Eiffel in the 19th century. The canal is still maintained and used for tourism. People rent boats and cruise the canals for a few days.

Crazy Tree

I took a picture of this tree because I thought the roots had broken through the wall and it had turned into a branch which grew out into the water. Upon closer inspection it was just a branch that had fallen off the tree into the water. I was disappointed.

Chateau Sully-sur-Loire

We visited a Chateau next to the Loire as well. It was very impressive despite being considered to be a "minor chateau"

Germigny des Pres

Saturday afternoon we headed West up the Loire Valley to see some sights. The first stop was Germigny des Pres which is home to the oldest church in France which dates back to the 9th century.

Orléans

On Saturday morning, Nadine and I headed into Orléans to go shopping. She showed me around the town a bit too. Orléans is famous for hosting Jean d'Arc while she was doing her thing. There is a big statue of her in the middle of town. There is also a big gothic cathedral in the city.
Nadine bought food at the big market in the center of town (les halles). It is a big indoor market with lots of vendors selling different kinds of foods. The French are known for being gourmands and it was easy to see why at this market. There was so much great food being sold it was amazing. This type of market is apparently quite common in larger towns in France.

The Loire Valley

I spent 4 days with Claude and Nadine in St. Jean de Braye. Each day we did little day trips to surrounding areas. It is so nice having a local tour guide to show you around.

Je parle français meilleur

My French is definitely improving. When I arrived in Roscof I had to get my Eurail pass validated, ask for a reservation for the train, find out that it was full and get a reservation for the next train all in French. I ordered food in Roscof at a boulangerie and in Morlaix at a café with ease. My big failure of the day was at the Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris when I went to get ice cream from a Ben and Jerry's stand. I went to order and realized I had no idea what the word for cone was. They just spoke English to me because I probably looked stupid just standing there thinking. Not bad for my first day returning to French soil.

Morlaix

I had 2 hours to kill in Morlaix in France. I just wandered around the town a bit. There is a huge railroad bridge that goes right through the middle of town. The worst part was that I had to climb back up to track level with all of my stuff. According to the scale in Roscof, my pack and daypack weighed 26kg (53lb). Quite a load.

My GPS is bigger than your GPS

I guess there is nothing for scale in this picture, but this GPS unit on the ship was probably 2-3 feet in diameter. I can't imagine it works that much better than a handheld one.

Right as we were leaving Rosslare this other ferry came in being escorted by the coast guard because it had begun taking on water. Not the thing you want to hear when you are setting out for an 18 hour voyage.

Ireland to France (the slow way)

This is going to be a long post beacuse I basically traveled non-stop for 2 days. I bought a 10 Day Eurail pass to save transportation costs during my trip. One of the benefits of having the pass is it allows for 50% off of the ferry journey from Ireland to France on Irish Ferries. I figured why not cross the English Channel on a ferry (If I had planned this trip well in advance I could have probably found a flight from Dublin to Paris for cheaper than the ferry). The ferry goes from Rosslare in Ireland to Roscof in France. I took a bus from Dublin to Rosslare (about 90 miles). In typical Irish fashion the bus was scheduled to make it to Rosslare in about 3 hours. Because of traffic it ran almost an hour late. I almost missed the ferry. 4 hours to go 90 miles seems ridiculous to me, but I guess that is just Ireland.
The ferry was a pretty big ship that carried cars and people. All of the crew on the "Irish Ferries" ship were Russians who spoke English and French. The ferry ride takes 18 hours to cross the English Channel to France. It is a long distance as you can see on the map. The interior of the ship is quite worn. It is really in need of refurbishment. Some parts smell pretty bad too. I hung out in a lounge for a few hours reading and watching the sea go by behind the ship. I felt like I was coming down with a cold and I had nothing else to do so I went to sleep early. The sleeping area for people who didn't pay for a cabin was just a bunch of airline style seats that reclined a lot. I ended up sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. Not too bad. It was a really hard floor though. In the morning it felt like my internal organs were bruised. I did get to sleep for 11 hours though which was nice.
The ferry arrived in France on time. I wanted to try to catch the train to Paris that left at 11h30 (11:30am) about 40 minutes after the ferry arrived. Plenty of time I thought. I was first in line to get off when they opened the pedestrian door on the side of the ship. Beacuse it was a really low tide however, they couldn't use the pedestrian bridge. I went down to the car decks to try to walk off the ship, but they wouldn't let me do that either. They told me I had to wait for all the cars to get off then a bus would come get us. An hour later we were just getting off the ship. Needless to say I had missed my train. The next train to Paris was 2 hours after the first, but it was sold out. The next was 2 hours later and I got a reservation for that one. I took a train from Roscof to Morlaix and then the TGV from Morlaix to Paris. That put me in Paris four hours later than I expected around 20h30 (8:30pm). Luckily there was still one train that evening that went from Paris to Orléans, my ultimate destination. I left paris around 22h (10pm) and got to Orléans at 23h (11pm) where I was met by Fabien's father Claude. This wouldn't be the last time on my trip where I caught the last possible train headed to my destination because of unforseen delays. I would not recommend this route to other travellers. I basically traveled non-stop for about a day and a half which is really too much. I could have flown the same distance in probably an hour to an hour and a half.

My Goodness my Guinness

I think this gate appears in a lot of Guinness advertising.

Guinness

Before leaving Dublin on Thursday morning I made a visit to the Guinness Brewery at St. James's Gate. It is a working Brewery, but there is also a visitor's center and museum inside the original brewery building. The self-guided tour was alright. Learned a few things about the history of Guinness. There were a few exhibits that showcased all of the print and tv advertising that Guinness has had over the years. That was cool to see. They have lots of great commercials. The highlight of the tour was definitely the roof top bar. It is on the 7th floor and is a big cylindrical room with floor to ceiling glass windows looking out over the city of Dublin. A great place to hoist a pint at 10 in the morning.

What happened to the rest of the tour?

The sights on the tour were nice, but I was a little underwhelmed by the tour itself. We rode around in these cramped little mini buses. The tour guide was this Irish dude with a really thick accent who was pretty funny. I found the tour through a little brochure which described what the tour would entail in a little blurb. Of the dozen things mentioned we probably only did half of them. It promised "complimentary coffee," but that didn't happen. We were supposed to see "film locations for Ballykissangel" and "luscious waterfalls" both of which didn't show up on the tour. The best was "Lunch at the famous Lynham's Pub, where James Bond has been seen to down a pint!." I don't know what happened to that, but we certainly didn't stop for lunch at a pub. I was a little disappointed. The tour took all day, but it seems like we didn't really cover all that much ground. Oh well.

The remnants of an old monastery in Glandalough.

Glendalough National Park

Another beautiful vista on the tour.

Wicklow and Glendalough

Wednesday I took a bus tour out into the Irish countryside. I discovered why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. The tour went to Wicklow Co. South of Dublin. This is a glacial lake near the Sally Gap.

The Porterhouse Brewing Company

Wednesday night I had dinner at The Porterhouse in Dublin. This restaurant/brewery claims to be the largest genuine Irish brewery (Guniness is owned by a belgian company, and other well know "irish" beers are also foreign owned.) They had the best beer menu I have ever seen. Even better than the Yardhouse in San Diego. It was really cool. I even bought a copy of the menu as a souvenir (and collecting souveniers was a rarity on my trip). Their own brews were excellent and the food was good too.

EU Money at Work

I have never seen so many tower cranes on a skyline as I saw South East of the center of Dublin. Apparently when Ireland joined the EU their economy was quite primitive and had a lot of room for growth. The EU has been pumping money in which promotes growth like this. The same goes for updating the Irish highway infrastructure. All of this money has made Ireland very prosperous recently and it brings in tons of immigrants from other parts of Europe looking for jobs as well. Interesting to see how the EU works.

Potato Famine Memorial

The figures in this memorial are hauntingly tall and thin in their proportions.

Sean O'Casey Bridge

Another moving (physically, not emotionally) bridge which pivots on its two piers to let ships through. Couldn't have a more Irish name either.

Ha'penny Bridge

The Ha'penny bridge over the river Liffey. When this bridge opened in 1816, the toll was half a penny.

Dublin Spire

Some big spire in town.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Tuesday was my day to tour Dublin. I walked around the city most of the day and saw many of the sights. This is St. Patrick's Cathedral behind me. Nothing really super exciting in the city of Dublin.
There is a distinct lack of street signs though. The street signs are usually mounted on buildings. For a two street intersection where it would be helpful to have eight signs in total, so no matter which corner you looked at you could figure out where you were, often there would be between zero and two signs. This resulted in quite a bit of getting lost and walking several blocks down some street not knowing what it was. I was later informed that the Irish don't use street names for directions, instead they use pubs since they are so common. They say "go a few blocks and turn right at the pub with the yellow door." I had difficulty dealing with this concept.
Another thing that I found odd occurred when I went to buy lunch in a supermarket. I bought some pasta, a sandwich and a drink. After paying I asked for a plastic bag and was informed that a bag costs 15c. At the time I thought this was outrageous. I hoped they were doing this for environmental reasons. (After researching this on the Internet, Ireland instituted the plastic bag tax in 2002 and it led to a 90% reduction in plastic bag use. Not a bad idea at all).

Ashfield House - Dublin

I stayed at the Ashfield House Hostel in Dublin which is located near O'Connell St and the Temple Bar area.
+ good location
+ good kitchen facilities
+ safes that could be rented
+ had a 12 person dorm for something like 14€ a night
- stupid reservation system. I showed up on a Monday and got a room without a reservation in a 6 person dorm room. It was 22€. They told me they had no availability the next two nights. I said okay. At an internet cafe later that evening I checked and online it not only showed rooms available for the next two nights, but they were cheaper than my current room. I just booked online and it was all good. Kind of weird though to have inconsistent information.
- poor bathrooms and showers
+- free breakfast, but it wasn't all you could eat.

Temple Bar

After arriving in Dublin I went out to the Temple Bar section of town which is full of traditional Irish pubs. In Ireland, smoking was recently banned in pubs and it makes such a huge difference. I was just beginning to get used to the smoky bars in the UK. Being in Ireland was so much nicer. I think I take it for granted having lived in California where smoking is banned pretty much everywhere. The bars in Temple Bar are considered to be more touristy. They are still fun though. One of the ones I went to had live musicians playing traditional Irish music. They were just kind of sitting in the bar having a jam session. It was cool. I was shocked however to see in each bar I went into that in addition to having Guinness on tap, they all had Budweiser, MGD and Coors Light on tap as well. And people were drinking those. It was ridiculous.

Glasgow to Dublin

Mid morning I began my journey from Glasgow to Dublin which involved many transfers and several forms of transportation. I first took a bus from Glasgow to Stranraer. From Stranraer in Scotland I took a ferry to Belfast in Northern Ireland. The ferry was a huge catamaran ferry which was really fast. In Belfast I took a bus from the harbor to the bus station. I tried to spend all of my british money in Belfast before catching a Dublin bound bus across the border into Ireland. I was surprised that there is really no continuous highway that connects Belfast and Dublin. I realize that Northern Ireland and Ireland were at war until fairly recently, but it seemed like the bus was taking two lane roads most of the time. It took more than 3 hours to go about 100 miles.

Modern Art?

Monday morning when I was walking through Glasgow I came upon this statue with a cone on its head in front of the Gallery of Modern Art. It was pretty funny looking. I wasn't quite sure if it was a piece of modern art or if it was a prank. It really could have been either. I did a bit of research on the internet when I returned home and I found that it is in fact a long standing prank that Glasgow is famous for, although it may not last for long. Another article.

Euro Hostel Glasgow

This hostel was in a big high rise building and everything was on a much larger scale than any other place I stayed on my trip.
+ Nice common areas
+ Free breakfast
- Some dumbass pulled the fire alarm at 2am and everyone had to evacuate the building and wait for the fire department to show up to turn it off. I woke up and figured that it wasn't a real fire and fortunately took the time to put on my pants and shoes and grab my backpack full of valuables. There were some people out in the street wearing almost nothing. I was amazed that even 5-10 minutes after the alarm started going off there were still a few people trickling out of the building.

Some creek in Glasgow. I thought this picture was cool.

Euro Playgrounds

The playstructures at playgrounds that I saw throughout Europe were so much cooler than what we currently have in the U.S. Lots of high exposed climbing and places to fall. Just like the good old days when I was growing up. There must be fewer lawyers there or something like that.

Glasgow

I just wandered around Glasgow for the afternoon. It was a nice city, but nothing too notable. The shopping district downtown was really bustling on Sunday afternoon. In Scotland, street musicians play bag pipes which is cool. This is Glasgow university. There were some nice parks in this area.

Edinburgh to Glasgow

The next and final stop in Scotland was Glasgow. It was a quick bus ride between the cities.

Holyroodhouse

Above is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is the Queen's residence in Scotland. Below is her backyard. Can you imagine cutting a lawn that big?

Arthur's Seat

Great views from the top of Arthur's Seat (822ft). Not quite up to Colorado standards in difficulty, but that didn't stop me from slipping and falling twice on the trail down and getting two nice cuts on my hand. In all of the mountaineering I did in Colorado in June, I didn't even have a single minor injury. Go figure.

Scottish Mountaineering

Sunday morning I woke up early and set out to climb Arthur's Seat, a little mountain adjacent to the main part of Edinburgh.