Ireland 1

Leaving Europoort (Rotterdam)

Well, I'm sitting here in this beautiful hotel in Dublin (the Clarion Liffey Valley: four stars!) and don't you know it: free internet if you bring your own laptop! And what do I own (birthday present to myself) but a small laptop. And I even brought it along...

I can tell you, leaving on my birthday wasn't the funnest thing, but in the end I treated myself to two (free) ice creams and two new books. Finding out that I would have to stretch time today, because the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin wouldn't be sailing until a quarter past five in the afternoon and us getting from the ferry in Hull at half past eight in the morning, wasn't the best thing however! Anyone familiar with the geography of England/Wales will know that that is only 350 km (around 230 miles). Which I can cover in about 4 hours. So, not too pleased. But, as always a back-up plan was soon made and we did a little detour via Llangollen (pronounced in a way that induces vomiting), had a little stop there and then drove on through Snowdonia. Beautiful! In one word.

Llangollen Trainstation

We made it to Holyhead on time and we didn't have to wait long to board and we were off across the Irish Sea. As long as I was standing on the deck I was fine, the minute I moved indoors (it was very windy), I started feeling very sick. So, I found myself a nice little place to sit and even had a little nap. From Dublin Port it was only 15 km (10 miles) but that still took us the better part of an hour! Dinner was good, the company is good and tomorrow it's a whole day in Dublin itself.