Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story

So this title refers to something said by two different tour guides before they launched into an explanation of some aspect of Irish history.  We have appreciated the mix of details, humor, and embellishing the story.

This will be a bit of a long post with lots of photos because we have had some intermittent problems with the WiFi connection so don't know when I will have the next chance.  Also, we have been on the move, much like our tortoise friend in the backyard.  For a few mornings in a row, he/she has maneuvered to the patio close to the house to greet us.

And Jim has also been "maneuvering" - you can see him celebrating his first time parallel parking from the other side.  Was on a one way street, so made it a bit more like America.

This was the start of our Wednesday trip to Sandy Cove, which is the locale of the James Joyce Tower and Museum.  When we were in Dublin for Bloomsday, there were many references to this museum, so we wanted to check it out.  We arrived to find the Irish "mist" (what we call fog) surrounding the area, which was a disappointment as we had looked forward to the view from the tower.

We were greeted with a very laid back tour guide, James, who entertained us with stories while he sipped his coffee.  He was our first one to reference the "don't let the truth..." preface before he launched in to an explanation.  

The significance of this tower is interesting.  While it is called the James Joyce Tower, he only spent 6 days there in 1904.  The tower itself is one of 15 defensive Martello towers that were built by the British in the early 1800s to guard Ireland from possible invasions by Napoleon.  

Once they were no longer needed for military purposes, they were made available to rent, and the first renter was Oliver St. John Gogarty, a poet and model for one of the characters in Joyce's Ulysses.  He envisioned the tower as a place where poets, writers, musicians, philosophers could come together to discuss their ideas.  In 1904 Joyce was invited to visit, along with another writer.  As our tour guide explained, these gatherings become more of an opportunity to drink - and likely absinthe (which is quantity is a hallucinogenic).  As the story goes....in the middle of the night, in the only room of the tower

the third guest thought he saw a panther coming out of the fireplace, and so he shot at it...over the head of where Joyce was sleeping.  Gogarty woke up and grabbed his shotgun to shoot at the third guy, yelling "get out!" Joyce took this as a prompt to leave the next morning and never came back

He did use this setting as the first chapter of the book Ulysses.  The entry to the tower holds a small collection of Joyce items, including this tie that he loaned to Samuel Becket

as well as his guitar and cane.

We headed up to the top of the tower, still encased in mist

But, as our Irish luck would have it, the fog began to lift

And afforded us a spectacular view of the sea, as well as Dun Laoghaire ("Dun Leary") off in the distance.

and in front of us was the Forty Foot Pool which used to be an all-male nude bathing spot until the women protested in the early 1970s and made it co-ed.  Do remember that the water temp is 55 degrees - and they aren't wearing wet suits!  

And now we also had a better view of the tower

With another setting so similar to the Marina Green, we walked from Sandy Cove to Dun Laoghaire for lunch

The main street was still decorated for Bloomsday, so Jim felt right at home seeing his name all over the place

And even the Miami Cafe to greet him

People's Park - much nicer than the one in Berkeley!

Loved this unique flower planter we passed as we headed back to Sandy Cove.  By the time we arrived back to Sandy Cove, the beaches and cliffs were packed with sun-bathers and swimmers.  What we have learned is that it only takes the temperature getting up to 70 (or even 65) for everybody to head to the beach.

Look who came to visit us on Thursday!!!

No, not just the bird, but my cousin Janet and her husband Gilles, who live outside of Paris and has met us on several of our travel adventures on this blog.

We picked them up at the airport and headed south to Powerscourt in the Wicklow mountains.  An old castle that is used as cafe, and shops

surrounded by the most amazing gardens...so just enjoy this series of photos before further adventures below...

On Friday we headed in to Dublin for a walking tour of the city.  We had done this the last time through Sandeman's New Europe and had loved it, and thought it would give us a good review as well as be helpful to Janet and Gilles given this is their first time in Dublin.

We had a different tour guide this time - Lisa - who was so informative and very funny as well.  So it was like a whole different tour.  Here she is outside of Dublin castle entertaining us with her own fascinating history.  She was born and raised in Dublin, was a chemistry major, but really preferred to travel.  She lived many different places until she decided to start a career in pharmaceutical sales (she apologized for that) in London.  But she missed the traveling, so decided to make her career with a focus on travel.  She operates her own tour business focusing on rural Ireland as well as spiritual tours to India.

She taught us some Irish/Gaelic expressions, including this one..."craic" (pronounced "crack") means fun...

Our tour ended in St. Stephens Green where she pointed out this sculpture dedicated to the various Irish famines.  Last time we were here we had seen a very large installation near the harbor, but had missed this smaller sculpture.

One of the stories she shared as we looked at the Georgian homes around the Green:  When these buildings were built by the British, all of the doors were black.  But once the Irish took ownership, the husbands would go out to the bus and have one too many pints, and get confused about which door to return to, so they ended up painting the doors in a variety of colors. So now, when you go down the streets, one house will have a red door, another will be purple, then a bright yellow...etc. 

Of course, our tour guide in 2010 told a completely different story about why the doors were different colors - to rebel against the British.

But as I said at the start, never let the truth...

More of St Stephen's Green

Feeding the pigeons

We headed off to Trinity College for a tour, as well as a visit to the library and Book of Kells Exhibit.

The tour guides waiting for business
wearing the robes of underclassmen
(not normally worn anymore)

Campanile at Trinity College

More of the Campus

Our tour guide explained that these huge Oregon Oaks (?) were planted to help absorb the water from underground streams and reduce flooding of the adjacent library

yeah little guy...we don't get what it is either

As we were leaving the campus, we came upon these graduates posing on the steps for a photo.

The med school grads
wear tuxedos

Things are more casual at the San Diego State graduation
(A shout out to Alex - completed his BA in English in May)

Sand sculpture on Grafton Street

So that is the quick update (before the internet dies again) of our past few days.

Of course, maybe these stories are just a "good story" with no truth

and we are really hanging out in Berkeley and just writing about Ireland.

(at Trinity College)

A Walking Tour and Cliff Walk

While we were trying to plan out our post-relatives week, we realized that Monday, June 16th was Bloomsday.  Don't feel bad, I had never heard of it either.  But it has great significance when you're husband is James Joyce Gioia, named after the famous Irish author.  Bloomsday is in reference to the main character, Leopold Bloom, in the Joyce novel Ulysses.  The events of the very long novel (that Jim has attempted to read several times beginning in high school, but has never gotten past page 37) all take place on June 16th, 1904.  So each year, on that day, fans of Joyce celebrate by walking through the scenes of the novel.  We decided we must head in to Dublin to experience this...and maybe get inspired to actually read the book.

 We have a bus stop in across the street from the house that heads straight in to city centre, however it drove right past us, ignoring us standing there.  We carried our wounded feelings into the cafe, and waited for the next bus 20 minutes later, which did stop for us, but I was holding on to the bus stop sign to make it as obvious as possible.  Another beautiful day here, and we walked around a bit and had lunch before heading to the James Joyce Centre for some readings and a walking tour.

Here is Jim in Temple Bar, swearing to never return
to a pub crawl after his 2010 adventure here

The James Joyce Centre is located on N. Great George's Street just half a block from Belvedere College which Joyce attended. Much of the novel is autobiographical and Bloom's journey follows a path and includes locations very meaningful to Joyce  Inside were several exhibits, including a photography exhibit: Lee Miller (1907-1977) in James Joyce's Dublin.  Sixty black and white photos of sites from James Joyce's life as well as locations that figured in Ulysses.

In the Center, there were several reading from the book by actors from a troupe in Boston. 

This lady was my favorite.  

We then embarked on our walking tour through Dublin, stopping at various sites that figured in to Joyce's life and/or Ulysses.  A number of people attending were in period piece costumes.

Here is the statue of James Joyce, looking off to the post office, the site of the Easter uprising.

This is also the statue that my James Joyce hung on to on the way back to our hotel, post pub-crawl, in 2010.

Our tour guide was a literature professor from Trinity College here in Dublin, although he was from Los Angeles and taught at UCLA prior to coming to Dublin 10 years ago.  I have never read any Joyce, but enjoyed the play "The Dead" which was from his book The Dubliners (which is one of Alex's favorite books).  Really appreciated his readings as we stopped at each site, as well as his explanations about meaning, style of writing, political relevance.  

This is St. George's Cathedral (Protestant) - which was near the character Leopold Bloom's house.  But it is now an office building - which our tour guide said has been "to let" as long as he has been in Dublin.  I took the photo to highlight just what a beautiful day it was.

After the tour we went through the Garden of Rememberance

for those who lost their lives in the rebellion

We had heard a lot about how great the hiking is here in Ireland, and got many suggestions from the home owners as well as some of Jim's cousins.  So today (Tuesday) we headed off to our first "hill walk" which is what they call it here.  It was predicted to be another great weather day, so we headed off to the coast - about a 20 minute drive - to Bray.  It reminded us so much of the Marina Green in San Francisco!  

We walked along the beach path heading to the "Cliff Walk" trail which you can see below, heading up the hill after the cluster of buildings.

Once the trail begins, it is a 6km walk on a trail that ends in the next coastal town, Greystones.

Jim at the start of the trail, looking back to Bray

The trail was originally built for the workers building the train tracks that connected this area with Dublin.  

I cannot help myself from sharing the photos we took while walking, so you can imagine taking the walk with us...

Towards the end of the trail, Greystone off in the distance

We arrived at Greystones, headed in to the charming 4 or 5 block main street and had lunch.  

The nice thing about this walk, particularly since Jim injured his heel prior to the vacation, was that were able to take the DART train back to Bray.

Today the tortoise became very active, quickly (for a tortoise) going around the garden.  Even came up fairly close to me.  Don't know if he/she is disoriented as we are with the long days.  Dawn is around 4 a.m., dusk around 11 p.m.  We haven't had any rain since the brief showers the first few days, so I watered the potted plants here.  At dinner last night, the waitress asked where we were from and commented that we brought the sunny California weather with us.  Hopefully it will stay nice like this - certainly makes it easier for us to get around.

More of Dublin and some day-trips over the next week, so keep checking in!