The primary purpose of our winter break these past six years has been to escape some of our winter weather for a short while.  This trip accomplished that and not much else got done (other than work and reading) which explains the limited posts.  And returning to the same destination two years in a row also dictates fewer words and pictures.  But we did enjoy our time away as well as the time spent with our friends, Dale and Debbie Cummins from Liberty, Indiana and Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia.

But after a long discombobulated trip home that covered 28.5 hours from house to house, including an unexpected night in Chicago, we are back in Denver.  Time to plan for next year’s destination after a quick trip to New York City in a few days.

A few pictures to cover the last two weeks of our trip.

We spent Saturday at Smuggler’s Cove, a beach on the north side of Tortola about a mile from our rental house.  Upon returning from a snorkel, I entered an area filled with a giant school of smaller fish on which the pelicans were dining.  It caused me to ask myself, “what if I brought my camera into the water and stood here in the middle of the dining room?”  I did and below are some of my shots.  It was not easy to always properly focus on the subject given the water action on my arms as I held the camera at water level not to mention the obstacle of their speed and position relative to the sun.  But I thought these were almost good enough to share my experience.  Double click the thumbnail for a larger image.

We are taking a break from winter weather for the sixth year in a row with a return for the second time to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  We came here again because of the very peaceful nature of this island (no large hotels), the wonderful views from our rental house and its terrific owner.  There won't be many posts from here as we don't do a whole lot on this trip.  Mostly catching up on work, reading, enjoying the sun and surf and continuing Words with Friends contests.

We are joined this first of our four weeks by Debbie and Dale Cummins of Liberty, Indiana (my home town) for their fourth visit with us and will be joined at the end of the trip by our other four time guests, Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia though Lisa also has her childhood roots in Liberty.

We are staying at a place called Limeberry Villa which is owned by Jon and Katy Morley.  They are extremely accommodating landlords and last night they had us and the guests from their other rental property here to their home island of Little Thatch, a 54 acre island five minutes off the eastern side of Tortola that is owned by a British businessman.  It used to be a resort but he now has Katy and Jon manage it solely for his use (with the exception of its Seagrape Cottage which is still available for rental http://www.seagrapecottage.net/index.html).  Swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and self-made pizzas baked in their very own pizza oven.  It was a fantastic evening and we are grateful for their hospitality.

My daughter Kristin and her family are here from Phoenix visiting our house near Steamboat Springs for the week after Christmas day.  I am spending a couple of days with them to play in the snow with my grandchildren.  Today we spent the day on the slopes of the Steamboat ski area.  They need snow badly but it was a beautiful day as indicated by the pictures.

As you can see from the photos, the tag line that is currently displayed at the entrance to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom is “Let the Memories Begin.”  But for Benjamin and me, it is more like “Let the Memories Continue.”

During the first weekend in December 1986, I took my then 8 year old son to Walt Disney World for the first time.  A Florida business colleague had told me that the best time to visit WDW was between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And at that time he was right.  The place was nearly empty.  We had the run of the place including re-riding some attractions without having to exit because of the lack of patrons waiting in line.

And then there was the technology at Epcot which, in 1986, was able to be ahead of what was available to the general consumer and easily wowed both him and me.  We spent much time exploring the Epcot exhibitions.

That trip had an enormous impact on Benjamin.  We have returned many times but have made a particular point to go there on each five year anniversary of that first experience, sometimes even repeating photo opportunities that were first recorded in 1986.

So earlier in December, Konnie and I headed to Orlando to celebrate with Benjamin and Fernanda the 25th anniversary of that first visit.  Benjamin went to work at Disney (as a presenter in a technology exhibition at Epcot) in 1999.  He moved on to other entertainment areas at WDW until returning to Denver to finish college.  After receiving his degree, he and Fernanda moved to Orlando to pursue their dreams.  They both went to work for Disney.  Benjamin in areas such public relations, website development, social media and the like and Fernanda in Travel Marketing.  Benjamin started his own strategic development firm last year with Disney now one of his clients and Fernanda is now the Latin America Marketing Director for Disney Destinations.

I hope you enjoy some of the photos of our life connected to Disney over the past 25 years.

We are winging our way back to the USA as this is written. It has been a good trip other than the initial delay in receiving our baggage and the very expensive lesson, which I re-emphasize to anyone reading this, to avoid ever flying Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus’ hidden and costly baggage policies are not only very expensive for the consumer, they also contribute to Ireland’s struggling economy as was confirmed to us by an Aer Lingus employee upon our checking in to fly to London. She said not only are people not visiting Ireland as they used to (which was also mentioned by our taxi driver) but when they do visit, they don’t purchase things to take home because of the baggage restrictions. I took a second suitcase that was virtually empty with the intent of transporting such purchases but, at nearly $8 a POUND to take it on their airplane, we purchased nothing instead. Too bad for Ireland.

After our wonderful day of seeing Trinity College and the Chester Beatty Library, the remainder of our time in Dublin was spent visiting Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Stephan’s Green and a few other sites around central Dublin. I need to mention that we did find two reasonably priced nice restaurants with food we would go back for if we were to return to Dublin. At Il Vicoletto, the no cheese salmon stuffed pasta was excellent (we ate there twice) and the spicy curries at the Nepalese Monty’s of Kathmandu (both in the Temple Bar area) also hit the spot. These two fine restaurants (along with the menus of other restaurants we explored in Dublin) also demonstrated how significantly overpriced (as in 40 to 50 percent) the food was in Waterford as I mentioned in my “Uneventful Day” blogpost.

Since we had a whole evening to blow on the way home by arriving at Heathrow airport the afternoon before leaving for Chicago, we took the Underground into the city and wrapped up this trip with yet another visit to Patara in Knightsbridge. Still our all time favorite after eleven visits.

Another twenty three day trip in the books. This was supposed to be a trip to Barcelona but we could not find an apartment location available for the entire time we planned to be there (just tonight we learned listening to the news in the taxi that was probably because of the last bullfights being held in Barcelona this week as it has now been outlawed there).

So we switched gears and decided to see Scotland and Ireland. Some simplistic conclusions: I like rail travel over air, I like Scotland better than Ireland and London is feeling like a second home. Too bad it is so expensive for Americans.

Thanks for following us. Our next major trip is back to Tortola in January for four weeks, primarily to escape that month in the northern hemisphere so there won’t be much new from there. Below are a few shots of our last day in Dublin and photos of some miscellaneous things I found interesting during the trip.

Who?  Yeah, me too.  More about Mr. Beatty in a minute.  Our expectation for our first full day in Dublin was to see Trinity College and its treasures, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and the Irish version of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and some other strolling around.  But our day did not go quite as we expected.

We did start at Trinity College and when we were there it was the crazy first day of the new school year (i.e. women’s restroom lines at the student center) as indicated by the “Welcome Freshers” banner.  But why are we here?  Well to see the Book of Kells of course.  You, like me (or perhaps you got a better education than I did), might ask “What is the Book of Kells?”  My first lesson of the day.  The Book of Kells was a very beautiful work of monks before the 9th century consisting of the four Christian gospels written in Latin.  But you can see those anywhere and who knows if they even copied the text correctly.  This work is spectacular as a work of art for the incredible calligraphy and graphics these fellows used to put this document together.  You could just sense the intense level of writers’ cramp that must have gone on to produce this book. 

http://www.tcd.ie/Library/bookofkells/book-of-kells/

So that was an outstanding find.  But before leaving this campus that dates to the late 16th century, we also visited the library, or more specifically the Long Room of the library.  It is over 200 feet long and two stories tall with over 200,000 antique books and other antiquities.  These previously unknown to us discoveries plus a campus tour could have made the day a success on their own.  http://www.tcd.ie/Library/bookofkells/old-library/

But on to Dublin Castle.  Not a big deal because the only part of the original 13th century castle remaining is the Record Tower from 1226.  There is a nice chapel with beautiful organ pipes but that is a mere 197 years old which barely makes the guidebooks for this part of the world.

But a lovely area behind the castle takes us back to Mr. Beatty.  There is his Chester Beatty Library which alone justifies a trip to Dublin.  We spent the entire afternoon visiting this man’s collection.  Collection of what?  To quote the brochure: “Its rich collection of manuscripts, prints, icons, paintings, early printed books and objects d’art from countries across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe dating to 2700 BCE offers visitors a visual feast.  Egyptian papyrus texts, beautifully illuminated copies of the Qur’an, the Bible, medieval and renaissance manuscripts…” and on and on.  For example, he has pages of the oldest found versions of the Christian Bible.  We arrived after lunch and got kicked out at closing time.

Here is the kicker for me.  This man was an American.  Born in New York in 1875, educated as a mining engineer at Columbia, worked the mines in Colorado for five years and became a millionaire there, spent most of his career in England beginning around 1911 and then moved to Dublin in 1950.  He collected these things all of his life and the volume of fascinating items is incredulous.  Ignorant me never heard of him until today.  He gave it all to the Irish people when he died.

Put the Chester Beatty Library on your bucket list.  www.cbl.ie

After spending a quiet Friday in Adare, we headed to the Cliffs of Moher with an intermediate stop at the Bunratty Castle on the way and a late lunch stop in Ennistimon on our return.  It was the nicest weather day of our time in Ireland with predominately blue sky for much of the day and no precipitation.

Bunratty Castle, dating to the early 15th century, was worth the visit as it does not occupy much horizontal space but has a lot going on vertically with many small rooms and the classic very narrow enclosed spiral staircases.  Unfortunately (at least for the way we like to visit sites) it is also attached to the Bunratty Folk Park so it has an admission fee that is about two and a half times the normal fee and, worst of all, no senior rate at age 60 or 62 which all the publicly owned sites do have.

The Cliffs of Moher speaks for itself.  Dating to about the early 3,200,000th century BCE, it is Ireland's most visited natural attraction with a magical vista that is viewed from 700 feet above the ocean.  Of course it is very windy as you can see in the pictures (I promised Konnie that flying hair disclaimer) but the views are spectacular.  We are happy that we took the trip to that part of the country because it is the only area so far where we saw a lot of the geography book Irish landscape that we were expecting to see more often than we have.

Off to Dublin on Sunday for our last stop as we wrap up twenty three days in the British Isles on Thursday.

I have done about 75 posts since I started blogging about my travel fifteen months ago and I have mentioned a lot of restaurants we have found and like.  But this post is dedicated to one in Adare, County Limerick, Ireland.  I grew up in a town of about 2,000 people in Indiana and know that towns that size, with tourism or not, are not typically home to fine dining establishments.

On our first night in Adare we checked out all of the restaurants here and Konnie picked The White Sage Restaurant.  That was a great decision.  Those who read this blog know we do not hesitate to be repeat visitors to restaurants that we like.  White Sage is outstanding and we ate there all three nights we were in Adare.  With Tony Schwarz directing the food operation and Bobbie Schwarz running the front of the house at this intimate spot, the food and service don’t get any better than this place.  The menu changes depending what is available by season so it doesn’t make sense to write about what we had to eat there.  Everything was outstanding.  It is not Irish but more Continental in theme.

If you find yourself in this part of the world you will do yourself a favor by eating here.  Outstanding food and reasonably priced given the quality.

www.whitesagerestaurant.com

On Thursday morning we left our wonderful digs at Mount Juliet in one of Ireland’s Thomastowns (there are at least two we have been to already) and headed to Adare in the County Limerick.  Our stops during the day included Ormond Castle in Carrick-on-Suir, Cahir Castle in Cahir in the county of Tipperary, lunch at The Lazy Bean Cafe there (I love those Irish cajun chicken sandwiches!), the Rock of Cashel in Cashel, the Hore Abbey just down the hill from The Rock and then on to Adare.

All of the small towns in this part of the country have been quite lovely.  Adare, with a mere 2,000 residents, is considered by some to be Ireland’s prettiest village.  Our guidebook says “Cynics call it the prettiest “English” village since its manicured perfection is at odds with normal notions of national beauty.”  But since we love English villages, we are happy here.

I have spent part of five summers in the past decade assisting archaeologists in Belize excavate Mayan ruins so I obviously like old/ancient things.  Konnie does also but working in Belize with scorpions, spiders, snakes, no electricity in the cabana and no hot water is not where she wants to hang out looking at old stuff.  So Europe seems to be a great common ground for us.  But, given much of this trip has consisted of pictures of beautiful old stone buildings, I am cutting back on posting pictures of what looks like the same places over and over to those who weren’t there.  So from here on it will be three pictures max of any one old stone building or ruin site.

We found a great restaurant in this little village last night called White Sage (www.whitesagerestaurant.com).  If you are ever here, try it.  We will hit it again on Saturday night.

Until Sunday morning, we will be hanging out in County Limerick.