Santiago de Compostela

The flight out of Dublin went without hitch. We said goodbye to the kids who our now off on their European adventure. It was brilliant spending the week with them, the circumstances were ideal. We all got a taste of our weird, wild roots; the music, the Guiness, the never ending wedding (4pm till dawn bar service and the guests don't have to leave) and the spectacular natural beauty. Life long memories.

With Annie and David joining us we picked up our car in Santiago airport and Dave took first driving duty. He did superbly negotiating the car park, then drive into the city. Our hotel is a pousada, a hotel incorporated into an historic building, this one being a Jesuit monastery from the seventeenth century. A really gorgeous place. 

Our first afternoon was spent exploring the alley ways surrounding the magnificent cathedral as the town slowly came to life.

 This town is the final destination for the thousands of pilgrims who walk The Camino, the ancient pilgrimage to the resting place of the bones of St James. The legend is that a shepherd followed a constellation of stars to this town, guiding him to the place where James bones lie, prompting him to insist they build a cathedral. Voila. Then someone came up with the idea of walking 500 miles to get here, stopping at villages along the way and Spanish tourism was born. But what a magic place it is.

Delicious Tapas arrives gratis with every drink in the bars, which are dirt cheap, the plazas and streets are full of interesting eateries and the architecture is majestic. Our first meal Michele claims as the best she has had so far, I had a bad case of food envy. Her veal chop looked like a dinosaur rib. And the bill was very tiny.

Sunday morning up with the lark after a good brekky and a whip around the cake shops, we went down to the cathedral for the pilgrim mass. 

Now, the story is that Annie knew all about the Botafumeiro incense burner, but was a little bit cagey and did not make a fuss. 

The cathedral was packed to the rafters but, being in the know about the botafumairo incense burner, she found a position near the transept of the cathedral. The mass was co celebrated by about twenty priests so I felt something was brewing. As well as this the security man was ushering people away from a complicated rope and pulley device that held a huge thurible dangling aloft in front of the altar. 

The aforementioned Botafumeiro incense burner. After communion everything literally swung into action.

Oh my Lord, unbelievable. It weighs .....and swings in an sixty metre arc on twenty five metres of rope, across the front of the altar and reaches an angle of almost ninety degrees. The little old men in velvet maroon jump suits, the tiraboleiros, race out stage left like The Flying Cadenzas, do their bit then disappear. We were told not to use phones or cameras....are they kidding? Take note of the priest in the film clip (far left). [VIDEO TO COME - SILLY HOTEL WIFI WON'T LET ME UPLOAD VIDEO]

In the meantime, here is a clip from YouTube in case you have NO idea of what I am talking about...

The Botafumeiro incense burner doesn't swing every week, after all. The reason this thurible is such a monster is that after their pilgrimage, the smelly faithful would herd into the church accompanied by their livestock and the pong required some heavy duty purifying. Serious!

We spent a glorious day on a high. We could not stop talking about the botafumairo moment. Insane.

I couldn't get over this fantastic town. The wasted pilgrims feel like they have reached heaven when they get here. Every one of them we spoke to said the same thing. Santiago Di Compostela has been a huge highlight of the tour.

Kenmare/ring of Kerry

Kenmare is a beautiful little town between the ring of Kerry and the Ring of Beara with great little pubs and shops. We had a top night with the kiddies on the Guiness and into the diddly diddly. We got a reasonably early start and drove to pretty Sneem for a coffee and Bratwurst from the little stall run by a nice little German man who left home so he could "unschool" his children in Ireland. Humorous German coach driver engages the boys and me in conversation and tells some lively yarns...who says they have no sense of humour? 

Then I drove the extraordinary, mind boggling Ring of Kerry.  

Hours of winding hair pins overlooking ocean bluffs, magnificent waterways, green mountains and gorgeous beaches. The manual car kept me on my toes, but scenery does not get any better than this. Explored the abandoned castle of Ballykilty or some such name. The kids became ten year olds again and climbed all over it, pretending it was Game of Thrones.

Hamburger lunch, through to Killarney and back through our home base of Kenmare, where we saw Trish and Tony and Riz dining in the Main Street, we pulled over and shared a cup of tea. They had done the ring of Beara so we compared rings. It was late so we had a few quiet ones in the apartment.

On our way to Cork the next day we stopped in at Kinsale - a quaint little town.

We then spent three days with the family celebrating John and Cath's wedding.

An Australo Celtic extravaganza that just went on and on and on and on.

Aussie flag flying outside the Church.

Farewell Portugal, hello Ireland.

The tour was great. A lot of people may think that tours are NOT the way to go, but when you visit a country for the first time, its great to have someone take you to not only the main sights but all of the wonderful, out of the way gems that we experienced. Fabulous. If we ever go back to Portugal, we know where to go. We were also very lucky with th group we had - lovely, interesting people. A great 11 days.

The early start to the airport was unavoidable but the flight, when we finally boarded, was pretty good. We booked business class for a little extra which gave us a few niceties like exit row  and priority boarding (that's another story. 

Our cab driver in Dublin didn't know where we wanted to go but I just happened to look at the map the previous night and managed to direct him to our apartment block. It was a great apartment just on the edge of the city - 20 mins walk to everywhere. We had a quick lunch in town then bought a few supplies for when the kids arrived - wine, beer, nibbles. They arrived around 10pm and we were very excited to see them. Afew drinks then off we went - at 10pm still daylight.

We had a great time at the oldest pub in Dublin (12th century!!).

The next day we visited the outside of a couple of churches (not allowed in unless we stayed for the WHOLE confimation mass - 90 mins). 

Visited Trinity college after a lovely lunch in the main pedestrian street in Dublin filled with fabulous buskers.

We then headed off and had the first decent coffee since leaving home the on to the famous Temple bar. What an amazing afternoon. The music doesn't get any better than what we experienced - guitar, tin whistle an 2 Irish acordians. We were spoilt. 

A quick stop at he unit before a walk back into town for dinner and a few drinks. We left the kids in town to party on.

Today Jim and I headed off on foot for 30 mins to collect our car. I meant to book an automatic but made a mistake and we ended up with a manual - poor Jim had to re-aquaint himself with the joys of a manual whilst negotiating unfamiliar territory.

The drive to Kenmare was fairly straightforward until we entered the national park and Jim had to  share narrow roads and sharp corners with tour buses. The scenery was spectacular.

We arrived in lovely Kenmare and settled into our townhouse quickly before walking the 4 minutes into town for what was basically a pub crawl.

There was quite a bit of live music about but the last pub had 2 amazing musicians - guitar and accordian - that were brilliant. We were very 'active' with our participation which left many wondering if we were drunks or musicians. Our harmonies during the last song - amazing grace - convinced them of the latter. (PS everone in the place was singing - not just us).

Looking forward to the Ring of Kerry tomorrow.

Fatima

Off to Fatima today in scorching 38 degree temperature. The sudden hot blast came as a bit of a shock and we felt as if we were back in Turkey. Pedro assures us that this type of weather is much more typical of tours at this time of the year and I am so glad we have had it kinder throughout Portugal on this trip. The historic university town of Coimbra was our first stop after driving through the   Bucaco National Park. In the previous instalment I wrote about the battle of Bucaco, which was a turning point in the history of the nation. Wellington led a combined English/Portugeuse army defending the convent of Bucaco from Napoleon's invasion forces. The convent is situated on a hill in the dense forest and Wellington is reported to have hitched his horse to a famous olive tree after each day's campaign, proceeding then to tea and scones on the convent balcony to reflect on the day's carnage. As I said last time Pedro's recount of the campaign was hilarious; a comedy routine. Little Portugal's cowardly king fleeing to Brazil when things got tough, taking his entire palace with him and British military genius Wellington, administering victory surrounding by swooning nuns. A great example of how the tour director can make a place come alive.

The university of Coimbra's most impressive sight was the library, the biblioteque. It was just amazing to see the thousands of ancient books in this old space. Not one Harold Robbins though.

Michele bought shoes. Red. Two. Left. Right. Yay.

Following this we travelled a short distance to Tomar and the UNESCO world heritage site of The Convent of Christ, another "fall down from your chairrrrr" moment to quote our director. Wow. A convent originally, converted into a stronghold of The Knights Templar it blended military and religious in a mind boggling maze of chapters, battlements, transepts all surrounding a gothic chapel. Yep, I am running out of adjectives. Megadelicious. There. I just made one up.

Portugal has these amazing unknowns everywhere. Has anyone heard of Tomar? Or Batalha? Or Bucacao? They rival Notre Dame and the like and because of the Moorish history, they are so different.

Arrived at Fatima. Our hotel is opposite the basilica, so, well located indeed. We went to the candlelight procession which was spectacular, but smallfry apparently.

Next day we toured Fatima with Pedro, taking in the grand new baslica which is just enormous. Raced down to get a look at the replacement tree, the original one having been souvenired out of existence by pilgrims. Mary didn't appear on this one, but the location is identical and the shrine has been built around it. They are gearing up for the 100 year celebrations in 2017 already, with the square busy with cranes and bulldozers. Just cannot imagine how gigantaroso that will be.

The tour is racing to its end, but the sights kept coming today. We crept into a pretty nondescript town, being told to expect a surprrrize. Turning a corner the huge Gothic cathedral of Batalha loomed on the right. Another world heritage site. Beautiful. Better than Notre Dame because it sits in its original open space, surrounded by a vast cobbled court and not crowded in by buildings. We've seen a lot of churches believe me, so to be impressed at this stage really says something. Just magnificent.

Hot, hot, hot. High thirties again, so the only place I could manage in the medieval town of Obidos was the cool chapel come library. Browsed through lots of Portugeuse literature just to enjoy being out of the heat. I don't think I was fooling anyone. 

Short lunch stop in beachside Nazare, a touch of Oz here, a surf beach, Gold Coast style souvenirs shops and separate entrances to a unisex toilet. Try and work that one out!

Farewell Dinner in Lisbon was excellent. This was a really fabulous tour. Brilliant tour leader, friendly people from all over the world, good hotels, great cakes, sumptuous red wines, refreshing Sagres beer,

undercooked bacon, sloppy eggs, small elevators, exciting seat rotation, abundant shoe shops, free toilets, prolific cork. To sum it up in one word - mega-shebang.