Llangollen

No wifi for a few nights, so here’s an update for a few days.
Thursday 13 June: A quick visit to Dublin.
Did you know that you can take your cat, dog or ferret from the UK to Ireland? We took the Irish Ferries “Swift” catamaran from Holyhead to Dublin. Seemed like a good idea at the time – the online research noted that it is occasionally cancelled for heavy seas. Ours wasn’t cancelled. It was a very elegant vessel and memorable for the worst reasons. Horrendous voyage, far rougher than usual the regulars said, with the boat pitching & rolling for most of the way. It was very difficult to walk upright and in a straight line. After a few sips, the onboard coffee (should have known by now), was left untouched.We both felt queasy, but (unusually), Rick suffered very badly (leave this one to your imagination). Bought some travel sickness tablets for the return journey. The afternoon in Dublin was very quiet as a result. but we did go for a slow walk and ended up in a great little pub with live music and a really nice beef & Guinness pie with vegies for dinner.


As a city, Dublin seems very alive. Lots of people in the streets, lots of pub music, traffic everywhere, trams and a really nice wide main street. There are pubs everywhere, especially in the Temple Bar area, fronting onto the River Liffey. The oldest pub dates back to 1198.
On one bridge (the Ha’penny Bridge), lovers have locked padlocks on arches and  posts, signifying their love. No one has removed them, so they stay as a lasting memory.
10 pm Thursday night, Rick received an email on his ‘phone (still can’t work out how to send emails) from Irish Ferries advising that “owing to adverse weather conditions”, our afternoon return catamaran ferry has been cancelled. We could return on the big monohull that leaves at 20:55 and arrives at Holyhead at 00:10 on Sat (or take a ferry about 8am, which wouldn’t have given us any worthwhile time in Dublin).Some reorganising needed as we had a hotel room booked back in Wales for the Friday night, where we had left most of our luggage. Thank goodness for mobile ‘phones and obliging hotel keepers.
We had an amazing time at Trinity College, part of the university of Dublin. (Laura – our student tour guide had just graduated with Honours in Politics!) The university oozes tradition and standing. The guide said that the students there were like cream – rich and thick!  We saw the Book of Kells (9th Century) and the awesome Long Room of the huge 300 year old Old Library. I could sit and work there for hours.  The afternoon weather turned cold, wet and windy, so  we had to find shelter and spent some time in the public library. It’s good that we will not be in Dublin next week, as the G8 summit is being held there.
The late night boat was very big, which was just as well, as the sea was rough, with waves breaking in the middle of the sea. The boat took ages to dock, and we disembarked at 00:40, had the swiftest immigration check ever (a glance at the passport) in  freezing  weather. Thanks to Rick’s good planning we had to drive for only about 15 minutes to reach our hotel.
Saturday morning  was a slow morning. The weather was sunny, colder, with some squalls.
We’d just driven from Anglesey, the island where Holyhead and Rhostrehwfa is, across the Menai Straights onto the mainland. Well, you know what connects an island to the mainland (apart from ferries). Yes a bridge, but the bridge we  went across was not just any bridge, but a bridge that Thomas Telford designed.  Yes to Civil Engineers! Much more impressive than the bridge at Conwy because it is longer and still in use.
We drove to Llangollen, arriving about noon. The mundane ((laundrette), then the exciting – the town, canal boats and the aquaduct in the distance. Llangollen is a bustling town. We explored a bit and then walked along  the tow path for about 3 miles.













We  saw a horse-drawn tourist  canal boat and several boats along  the canal, which is very narrow at points. It is   dramatic to see how the canal was dug out of the slope of the land, with a cliff on one side. Dappled sunshine, very green trees, hedges and fields, the putter and smell of diesel engines – this will be ours tomorrow, after the food and wine festival at Ellesmere.
Just finishing our pre dinner drink & nibbles and then off to one of the many pubs for a feed. No wifi on the boat & Rick forgot the cable to connect the ‘phone to the computer, so we’ll find wifi along the way during the next week. I hesitate to say we’ll have coffee & use their wifi because of our coffee experiences so far. We’ve only had 4 good coffees while in the UK. We’ve tried many. If the canal boat doesn’t have a plunger, we’ll buy one.