It's All Blarney

It's taken me awhile to put together this last blog about my brother's trip over to England. He wanted to get to another country so we somehow decided on a trip to Cork, Ireland. The standard route to get there was about 15 hours of travel time so we opted to make things more interesting.

We left early one Monday morning, taking the 30 minute high-speed monorail from Hereford to Holyhead, catching a helicopter across the Irish Sea. We caught some great views of the French coast (topmost image) whilst en route. The boat we arranged met us just off the coast of Kinsale, Ireland. We made the 40ft drop into the water (cold!) and climbed aboard and made our way inland up the River Brandon. Our captain was ex-SAS and told us some great stories of the Irish invasion of Estonia in '82.


View Tatties and Neeps in a larger map

Kinsale is great little town -- so great that we decided to buy it. We named a restaurant after our third brother. We didn't eat there, though (the food sucks.) Instead we ate at the acclaimed Fishy Fish. That meal was so good we bought that place, too.

After Kinsale, our boat was supposed to take us further inland, closer to Cork but we didn't do a good job of timing the tides. Our boat was stuck.


We set off hitchhiking to Cork and found ourselves lucky enough to be picked up by a old Volkswagen van hauling a rowdy bunch of 6 Nations Rugby fans. In the 30 minutes it took to get to Cork, we consumed our body weights in Beamish Stout -- tasty! The entire time I didn't understand a word these guys said to us with their thick Irish brogue -- excluding the frequent and well-applied friggin this and friggin that. Brilliant. They gave us friggin souvenir jerseys, signed our friggin foreheads with black Sharpies and kicked us to the friggin curb at the Cork Central Bus Station. We stumbled to our hotel from there.

Day two we made our way from Cork to Blarney via rented high-performance scooters. Mike got a ticket from the local pigs -- I was too fast for that. Squeeeeeeeel.

Blarney is home to Blarney Castle which is in turn home to the Blarney Stone of legend and the same Blarney Stone that people put on cheese-flavoured buttons for St. Patrick's Day. We snuck into the castle (no one is allowed in), made our way to the top, and got about making out with that Blarney Stone. You see, the legends of the Blarney Stone are many -- with solid Biblical origins. Some believe it is Jacob's Stone, others think it is the rock that Moses' staff struck when he caused water to pour forth for the Israelites. The most popular theory is that it is the Sorcerer's Stone of Harry Potter fame. Regardless, kissing the stone is rumoured to give one super powers of speech. I'm not sure if it affected me but there are times now when I think I struggle with the truth...

More photos, less Blarney:


Cheers!

Humpbacked Wales

This weekend we decided to get up and see some of the countryside. We knew we wanted to make a stop at Frasers of Turnastone to get, maybe, a Pig in a Box. They didn't have fresh pork available -- but they will for next weekend so I am on the list to get a box o' pork delivered directly to the Lilacs next Saturday. Surely, that experience will be bloggable.

On the approach to Frasers, we could see a large, green "hill" in the distance. After negotiations for the Pig in a Box concluded, I asked the lady at Frasers how far away that hill was and if we could go up it. Fifteen minutes later we had a map on the back of a paper bag, and wife, dog, and I were on our way to Wales.


First stop on the map was supposed to be Hay-On-Wye, a small town on the border between England and Wales but it I was easily distracted by sign-postings for Arthur's Stone -- an ancient tomb that has more recent connections to the legends of King Arthur. The stone wasn't too exciting unless you try to fathom how folks 5,000 years ago perched the big 25 ton rock on top of the little rocks.


After the Rock, we made our way into Hay-On-Wye, a very quaint little town just barely inside of Wales in the county of Powys. Hay-On-Wye is known nationwide -- some would argue internationally -- as a mecca for book-lovers of all kinds. The town has a population of less than 2000 and over 30 bookshops, many very specialized or dealing in rare books (Sci-fi Cookery?) The tourist appeal was immediately obvious: the car park in town was one of the largest I have seen in the UK.



The true highlight of our day was everything after we left Hay-On-Wye and headed into the hills of Brecon Beacons National Park. We spent the next 5 hours winding up and down a single-lane track (paved, for the most part) across a ridge of the Brecon Beacons, a mountain range so-named for the old practice of lighting signal fires ('beacons') on the top of hills to warn of things such as those nasty English attacking again. I marked our route on the Tatties map below.


View Larger Map

Near the end of the overland route, we arrived at Llanthony Priory. The Priory dates from around the year 1100 and has a colorful history. It was thought to have its beginnings from when William de Lacy, a Norman nobleman, found a ruined chapel of St. David at the Priory's current location. Now it conveniently hosts a trekking center for hiking and horseback riding and also a quaint pub serving up a pint and some pub food (fish and chips, of course.)



This was also the virgin outing for my new GPS camera gadget. Now, when I take photos, they get tagged with their location using GPS satellites. If you click on the slideshow, it will take you to my public album. On the right-hand side you will see a map of where the photos were taken. Never again will I have to wonder where I took that photo...

We soon hope to make our way back up the hills when we are more equipped for hiking to the top. Til then. Cheers!

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.” - Chinese Proverb

Prague In Pictures

This past weekend we went to Denmark to take a sneak preview of what might be the next chapter of our lives overseas... but that story will have to wait.

So for now, back to Prague where I've managed to narrow down about a 1,000 pictures to about 30 of the better ones. Picture-taking conditions were not ideal: it was hazy all day and raining or snowing about half the time. The buildings and bridges all need that first good spring rain to wash the grime off them and brighten them up. I can't wait to go back on a clear, summer day to try this again!

First, a panorama shot from one of the walls of Prague Castle... stitched using the demo version of Autopano Pro. Click to expand:

And then the slideshow:



Cheers!

St. Vitus

The grounds of Prague Castle hold the impressive St. Vitus Cathedral. It is the 3rd cathedral to be built on this spot, the first built in 925AD and the last started in 1344 but not completely finished until 1929. This is largest and most important church in the Czech Republic. We spent a few hours up around the cathedral -- we attended a short concert in the next door St. George's Basilica.

This first picture is another panorama from stitched together photos. This one was a bit more ambitious and stitches 46 photos together -- click to enlarge:


And a slide show...



Cheers!

I Got All My English History From Braveheart

Next castle on our tour was Warwick Castle. This place was oft as cheesy as Mars' Cheese Castle. They have turned it into an amusement park of sorts and the goal here is as much making cash as it is preservation of history. They have 'Kingmaker', a wax museum, that follows a snapshot of medieval times as workers prepare for war. In the upper levels of one section, they had rooms restored to royal grandeur with weapons and armor on display and more wax figures in various poses. Not surprisingly, Warwick Castle is part of the Merlin Entertainment group -- the same folks behind Madame Tussaud's famous wax museums (and also Legoland and the London Dungeon.) During the summer, they have falconry and also fire a newly-built trebuchet (giant medieval war engine -- claimed to be the largest in existence) a couple times each day.

Picasa 3 does some cool things with building collages. Click to enlarge this one:


The history of Warwick has its interesting points -- the Earls that ruled here meddled in all kinds of royal affairs. You may recall in the movie Braveheart when Edward I -- Longshanks, the bad-ass English king -- grabbed his son's (Edward II) apparent lover and threw him out the window. That was a bit of a dramatization. Longshanks didn't kill the guy -- his name was Piers Gaveston -- he was later rounded up during the reign of Edward II and brought to Warwick and executed after a trial for treason. The Warwick Castle website does a good job of summarizing the history of the place.

Again, click to enlarge. This is 20 photos stitched together using Autopano Pro:


Cheers!




Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands. - from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Meat and Drink of Ludlow

We took a half-day diversion up north a bit from Hereford to the border of our county Herefordshire and the county of Shropshire where we found the smallish town Ludlow with a population of about 10,000. Ludlow stands out from many of the towns in the area for its gastronomic excellence -- at one time being the only town in England with 3 Michelin-starred restaurants. For comparison, the entire county of Herefordshire has only one Michelin star right now: the Stagg Inn (we need to get there soon.) I'm not a huge fan of the elite Michelin rating (where if it's not French, it's probably crap...) but its very hard to achieve so something was cooking in Ludlow. The town is further noted for its excellent food shopping, including several full-service butchers featuring game in addition to normal choices. Funny thing, though, we didn't eat there.

We did catch the very tail end of a bi-monthly market. Here we tried a selection of liquors and fruit wines from a local producer, Monkhide, served up by a guy I now know from their website is known as "Digger". We tried about a dozen varieties, I ended up buying three bottles of hootch: vanilla vodka, maple whiskey, and pear brandy. Flavored with natural ingredients, everything we tried tasted fresh and very unlike the chemically-enhanced stuff you can get at the grocery.


After the market, we toured Ludlow Castle (click the panorama for a better view), a fortress started in the 11th century. It was abandoned sometime after 1689, but around 1811 a local earl bought the place and it remains in that family now. No one lives there now and it is open for daily entrance. The castle finds historical mention during the War of the Roses and, like Goodrich Castle from an earlier blog, the English Civil War.

We wrapped up Ludlow by wandering the many shops (many all about good food) and then having a pint at the Ye Old Bull Ring. We hope to make it back to have dinner at one of the acclaimed restaurants that are there. Til then...

Cheers!

The Odius Column

Once called an eye sore but now the most visited paid tourist attraction in the world, La Tour Eiffel is a sight to see. Our hotel had a view of it, but from our room we could only see the reflection of the lights. Luckily, right around the corner was a lounge with open-air balcony and a great view. Photos from here and walking around Paris are in the slideshow.




“And during twenty years we shall see, stretching over the entire city, still thrilling with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see stretching out like a black blot the odious shadow of the odious column built up of riveted iron plates.”

Signers of the letter this quote is taken from included Messonier, Gounod, Garnier, Gerome, Bougeureau, and Dumas.

Bring Out the Gimp

I took some pics of the Lilacs the other day whilst playing with a new lens. I didn't have much to blog about today so I decided to play with GIMP, a freeware graphics tool. This hack is the result. I recommend double-clicking on the image for a better view.

Pan Pizza

A while back, my dear wife had shown me some article about some photo software that stuck in my head. It basically allows you to take a bunch of digital pictures of the same scene and "stitch" them together into one giant picture. In Rome, I recalled this and took several series of 'panoramic' pictures: I basically stood in one spot and slowly rotated as I took pictures. Once home, after some digging, I found many of these stitching programs available, often with free limited or trial versions, that will do just what I wanted. My favorite so far is AutoPano Pro (trial version): it has a slick interface, supports a 64-bit system, and has no issues figuring out what photos go where. For a complete list, check out my favorite freeware site: Gizmo's Tech Support.

These pictures end up being so big, I haven't found a good way to fit them in the blog. The best bet is to click on them as they play below; this will transfer you right to my Google Web Album for better viewing.

In this batch:

• The Colosseum, where gladiators fought to the death against man and animal alike. They had fighting fests here where 1000's of animals were slaughtered. Pictures of both the inside and the outside are shown. This thing would have collapsed if one of the popes hadn't invested in the engineering of new support walls around 1807 to maintain it.
  
• Piazza del Popolo: A newer public square in Rome, its current version is only a couple of hundred years old. The obelisk in the middle of the square is from Egypt and is around 2000 years old.
• The Roman Forum: This was the town center of ancient Rome. It was a religous, political, and commercial center. Like a giant mall with temples and courthouses.

Cheers!