On Sunday afternoon, we were keen to see the Oude Kerk (Old Church), Amsterdam’s oldest building, which was consecrated in 1306. The fact that it is situated slap bang in the middle of the red light district added a certain…
Touring Amsterdam
A bright Saturday afternoon and it seems the whole of Amsterdam is out socialising. Sitting at canal-side cafes or on boats. And on bikes, bikes and more bikes. Doesn’t it just make you want to paint it all? As part…
Food in Amsterdam
Just to try something different, we booked a 4-hour walk with Eating Amsterdam Tours, so this is a somewhat unusual post, taken up almost entirely with the cuisine of Amsterdam. Although they normally have a maximum of 12 people per…
Amsterdam canals
We recently spent a long weekend in Amsterdam, arriving at 4:30 on the Friday afternoon and by 8pm we were out cruising the canals, not wanting to miss a moment of the short time available to us on this trip.…
Bray to Greystones
These two towns are on the coast south of Dublin and there is a popular walking track along the cliffs between them which we walked on Saturday. To get to Bray is relatively simple – we walked from our apartment…
St Mel’s Cathedral
Well, we have a Mel in our family. Is she a saint? Ummm, can I get back to you? St Mel’s cathedral in Longford was accidentally destroyed by fire on Christmas Day 2009. It was opened recently after a €30…
Babysitting
We had almost a week of time with grandsons Angus and Dominic in Hove while their parents took a well-earned break in Iceland. A fairly full-on time but we did manage to get out and about once or twice when…
Killarney
We have been to Killarney a couple of times before, mostly just passing through on the way to somewhere else, so this time, after our two nights at Macroom we booked a B & B in Killarney for one night…
Clonakilty
Clonakilty is a medium-sized town in West Cork famous for its black pudding and other gourmet foods. We had planned to catch up with Alison and Brian, a couple of Kiwi expats from Hamilton who have lived here for many…
Skibbereen
While still in Skibbereen we visited the Heritage Centre which is a memorial to those who died in the potato famine of the 1840s. They have a moving series of audio-visual displays which go into much detail about the famine…