Today was Dublin, (I was particularly keen to see this city after just having read ‘Ireland Awakening’ by Edward Rutherfurd) we stayed in a camping ground that the hop on/hop off tourist bus collects people from, very convenient. I got us two tickets for the bus soon after we arrived, later I regretted this because some Australians that were just leaving offered us their tickets for free (the tickets were valid for 2 days and, like us, they only stayed for one) – would have saved us 32 Euros (about $45) if I hadn’t been so organised, damn!
Our bus driver for the trip around the city was hilarious, I’m sure he could do stand-up comedy. He certainly did amazingly well considering he was also imparting information about the city and driving a double-decker bus through city traffic at the same time! I’ll attempt to tell one or two of his stories but you’ve got to understand it sounded much funnier with his accent and ‘gift of the blarney’.
This spire was erected for the millennium and was of course expected by 31st December 1999; it was therefore completed in February 2002. It cost 5 million Euro, so he felt they must have stuffed it with 4 million of that. No I was right, this doesn’t read funny at all, at all. He also said that the lion that roars on MGM was bred at Dublin Zoo. He said “Now you’ll never be able to get that out of your heads. Years from now you’ll be thinking ‘How do I know that, WHY do I know that, damn I’ve forgotten my PIN number’.” Ok I give up; I won’t make an Irish bus driver let alone a comedian...
One feature of Dublin you can’t help noticing as you wander the streets is the pubs – on every corner, at least one – they are all characterful (not sure that’s a word but you know what I mean). We heard on the radio that the Irish don’t like their reputation of having a drinking culture, well hello!
Our bus driver pointed out that Dublin has 3 cathedrals: St Patricks, Christ Church and the Guinness Brewery. This is certainly a huge industry – the founder, Arthur Guinness and his wife had 21 children, 21! There must be some magical properties in that stuff, think I’ll keep away from it... Another famous Dubliner is Jonathon Swift, who wrote Gulliver’s Travels. Apparently he had tinnitus (ringing in his ears) in later life. Unfortunately, as it was not a known condition then, he thought he was going mad, so funded a psychiatric hospital. Gus said he can identify with that! The final word on Dublin has to go to our bus driver – Irish whiskey from Jameson Distillery is distilled 3 times: to be sure, to be sure, to be sure. He said he had to get that in.
Our last day in Ireland was the drive from Dublin back down to Rosslare. We went via the Wicklow Mountains (small ones) and Sally Gap; this was a beautiful drive through wild moorland country, and a lovely cascade of water over rocks.
Today we’re on the ferry leaving Ireland – we’ve enjoyed Ireland but have been very fortunate with the weather apparently. We had 10 days in a row with no rain: we didn’t think the weather was anything to get excited about, often very overcast and blowing a gale, but according to the locals “lovely weather”, charming place but appalling climate. The roads leave something to be desired - all but the major ones are bumpy, narrow tracks that Gus reckons he’d be ashamed to have had a hand in! We still noticed a tension in some of the stories between the different factions, there was trouble in both Belfast and Dublin while we were there, not that we saw anything luckily. The people (and the countryside) are lovely though, charismatic and friendly.
Back in England – we stopped at Salisbury because the weather was so appalling when we were here last time we hadn’t seen Sarum at all, and any fan of Edward Rutherfurd just has to see Sarum! We ended up staying two nights so we had time to have a look around Sarum and Salisbury. Sarum is a hill with two extremely large moats in concentric circles. In the middle one is the ruins of a castle, just bits of walls but still evoke so much history – the moats alone must have taken forever to build with very limited tools.
Salisbury itself also has a beautiful cathedral which was built in about the 12th Century, it has a huge spire which collapsed soon after it was built and had to be rebuilt. They must have got it right the second time though because it is still there! The story of this is in ... and ‘World Without End’ by Ken Follett? (I’m still a librarian, Liam!) The town of Salisbury is also well worth looking around, one of those really lovely medieval villages, very like Canterbury.
Then today was our last real day of the campervan holiday before we have to get it cleaned up and sold and catch the train back to London. So we had a look at the map and I saw a motor museum – hmm. Anyway we had a look on the internet and it did look a good one so, on the absolute promise that we go to London Zoo while we’re there, we headed for Beaulieu Motor Museum.
I have to say that it was the best car museum I’ve ever been to. We started with the Top Gear section, I’ve had to sit through enough episodes of this over the years to remember what most of these cars were – they had the double decker cars, the indestructible Toyota Hilux, the ridiculously long limousines, the ‘amphibious’ cars, and even the ‘Cool Board’.
We then visited the ‘On Screen Cars’; this was great – they had Del Boy’s van from ‘Only Fools and Horses’, the De Loran from ‘Back to the Future’, Mr Bean’s mini and even Mr Weasley’s Flying Anglia from Harry Potter. Oh and of course Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Who knew there are actually some cars I like after all...
Gus was disappointed that the ‘James Bond’ section was closed; they were filming a promotion for a new DVD that’s coming out on all the Bond movies. They did have some Aston Martins lined up outside for the filming though so that kind of made up for it. They even started one up – you could see all the men watching just about unable to contain the thrill, it’s a boy thing!
Even the main National Motor Museum was very good – they had all sorts of cars you never see including very early ‘horseless carriages’, a ‘steam carriage’, and various Rolls Royce’s etc. I did get a little bored after a while though so decided to wander around the rest of the grounds and arranged to meet Gus in another hour – hopefully enough time for him to see all the cars in detail... (He and a friend once spent over 4 hours at Southwoods Car Museum in Paraparaumu!).
On my wander I was delighted to find that the main ‘Palace House’ is open to the public as well, I hadn’t expected it to be. So I had a really good wander around that and the ruined abbey that is right next to it. After I met up with Gus we were in time to have a tour of the private part of the house. It’s been in the Montagu family since 1538.
Part of the house dates back to the early 12th Century and formed part of the abbey. Henry VIII destroyed it when he named himself head of the church in the 16th Century – the present owner’s ancestor was a favoured friend of Henry VIII so was fortunate enough to be able to buy the estate off him, 11,000 acres for just over a 1000 pounds! The rest of the house was built around the abbey remains in the Victorian era. The current Lord Montagu is 85 and is in the House of Lords. He decided, when he inherited the estate in 1952; that he would need to open the house to the public to be able to hold onto and maintain the property. He also decided to bring 4 vintage cars he owned into the front hall as a display and an added interest for visitors. This was the beginning of the amazing museum that is now there.
Lord Montagu is a very keen jazz piano musician and over the years, they’ve hosted many famous guests in the house including Princess Anne, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Liberace, Shirley Bassey; and even Roger Moore called in for a cuppa just today.
Then when we got back to the museum on our way out they had finished filming and opened the James Bond exhibit – 50 cars from all the James Bond films, some complete with rockets and the like! Completed the day nicely. Gus couldn't quite remember whether this pose was from James Bond or Charlie's Angels ;-)
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