30th Anniversary cont'd Day 6 aka Irish Stud Farm/ Japanese gardens

Another day that started early in the AM, we got on the bus to head for the Irish Stud farm. On the same property as the stud farm is a very quaint Japanese garden. It was pretty interesting to see the horses, and the pampering they received.

No this is not the Irish stud. ;-)

The property is very tranquil and peaceful with fountains, plants and animals.

Artwork on the property to show their business

This is what a successful product is.  :-)

Some of the variety of foliage in the Japanese garden.

After finishing up at the stud farm we headed to Waterford, where the expensive beautiful crystal comes from. 

Church that we went through, nice stained glass and materials.

 One of many organs found throughout our trip.

And here we are at the Waterford Crystal factory.

And here is a mold for the shapes

 Here the worker is heating up the material, before a glass blower shapes it.

Here is a quality control station, lots get rejected and re fired.

 Here is a worker marking up a bowl, a cutter then gets the work.

 It takes 8 years to make a master cutter, the test is a timed event where they make every cut the company uses.

 Below are some samples that were in the work area and out on the showroom floor.

 Of course the national emblem is represented.

 Hi tech crystal for the fan boy who has everything.

Part 7 will follow where we head to Kilarney and castle Blarney.

30th Anniversay cont'd Days 5 - aka Trafalgar excursion to GlendaLough

This is the first day with our bus trip and we started with an excursion to some old ruins and the start of the scenic parts of Ireland we are beginning to see and love.

The place was beautiful with some babbling brooks, old trees and interesting architecture. At the gateway to the ruins, an old timer is practicing her Irish bag pipes.

After a short walk we came upon the ruins and some grave stones. Some of the stones had a bit of writing on them that could be seen.

And two of them fell down so the my lovely wife had to crawl through to get to the other side.

After a while our tour guide had mentioned that there was a great photo shot to be had, as a extra that other companies don't give. It was to go behind the church wall that was standing and take a photo of the tower through the window. So I included a shot of the tower from outside the ruined church.

The bus returned to the hotel, and dropped off people who wanted to see more of Dublin. So we got off downtown and walked around the campus of Trinity College. Walking over to Grafton St checking out the mall and the museums that we had time for.  The skies opened up on our way back to the hotel. 

This is from inside the Campus of Trinity College and the following is a piece of art at other end of campus.

Below are the Grafton St mall and the museum of Dublin.

The next blog will be leaving Dublin for Irish stud farm and Waterford Crystal, part 6

30th Anniversary cont'd Days 3 & 4, 30th Anniversary cont'd. aka The doors.

After moving our bags to the hotel with the Trafalgar group we went downtown again. And this is where I started noticing the doors (I may have read about them being special).  Here are a few of them.

 

 

 

With the Hop on hop off  bus we were able to see all the highlights of Dublin. And were able to decide which tourist sites we wanted to visit more up close, like the Guinness factory.  Here we saw a bicycle tour in Dublin at the Castle using folding bikes. Some art work inside the castle with curved mirror.

And behind the castle in the grounds we spotted a Bakefiets.

Spotted near one of the church entry ways, bike rentals with a guard watching the bikes.

And a shot inside the church.

And seeing an electric passenger three wheeled vehicle for tourists.

That's it for day 3, the next post will be re: leaving Dublin for County Cork.

30th Anniversary cont'd (part 2) aka Dublin days 1,2

Well our trip started in Ottawa, where we took a train to the stop where the shuttle to the Dorval international airport was. The airport has one of the best setups for international travel. The stores with the duty free are along the concourse leading to the airport departure lounges. So it needs to be noted that the young woman performing the watching of the carry on bags was checking her fingernails as our bags passed on the scanner. It was a comfortable flight with a nice bout of weather to greet us as we arrived. We took the city bus from the airport to the downtown stop closest to our hotel. We actually needed to take the light rail for 2 stops. We noticed after leaving the train that there was a place to put your ticket/pass to leave the platform, ooops. We went to our first hotel to decompress from the effects of flying eastward. It was a very nice hotel, with segregated bike lanes across the street and a canal on the other side of the lanes. We had to remember to carefully check the direction of travel as they drive on the opposite side of the roads in the British Isles. So we explored the downtown of Dublin and found the streets very easy to discern and discovered Stephen's green.

Our Hotel from which our Trafalgar trip left from was about 1km down the way across the canal. After exploring the downtown of Dublin and seeing lots of cyclists wear bright florescent green (got me wondering if it was the law). Noticed that there were different designs to their bike racks.

Below is the rack in use, pretty secure looking apparatus.

After seeing the racks in various places around town we continued on to the shopping mall street where the movie Once was made. And near there we found a small boutique called the House of Whisky (Irish spelling).

We bought a few bottles to try a sample of Irish and Scotch single malts. And it was here we tried the Japanese single malt and were pleasantly surprised at how good it was.

Finishing off the memories of first few days in Dublin. At the Dublin Museum (across from Stephen's green) we saw the bicycle named "the gift bicycle". As the story goes it never was paid for in cash.

And here is the bike, one of the owners was Stephen Roche winner of Tour in the late 80s.

Finishing here is a pic of one of the famous doors in Dublin.

Part 3 will continue with Dublin.

30th Anniversary trip 2014 itinerary details

Well the trip was set for the spring of 2014 to celebrate 30 years of marriage to my sweetheart. The trip was built around a bus trip with Trafalgar and a ship trip with Royal Caribbean International on Legend of the seas. During the trip it was decided to visit as much of my family in the UK, Lyn in Scotland and Hilary and Gillian in England. And a quick trip to the Island of Jersey UK to see where my nephew was cooking up a storm. Followed by a ride on the train that goes under the Channel in the Chunnel. BTW I recorded speeds of over 180 mph on land while heading to Brussels. For the between trip of UK to mainland Europe we purchased a eurorail train pass. This allowed us to make a spur of the moment decision and get off the train in The Hague, store our luggage and find the Escher museum exhibit. Ending up at our airbnb in Amsterdam on one of the houses along the canal system. Before heading to the ship in CPH we went to Hamburg to see the Minatur Wunderland bldg. After leaving Hamburg we took the train to CPH which went on a ferry, smartly we had reserved seats for this part of the trip as there were bodies all over the 1st class car. In CPH we found our airbnb, and walked the few miles to it, as the bus ticket machines were refusing our credit cards. After we made it back downtown, at the Info bureau we purchased a multi day card which got us to the embarking of the ship. The ship made 9 stop overs in 11 nights. For our trip home after staying in Stockholm for 2 days we headed home via Iceland. In Iceland we rented a car for the few days, again a stick which we used to go to the tourist sites there. After day 52 we headed home with a transfer in BOS, and back in YOW. So for this trip we used, buses, trains, ships ferries and our feet. The photos are of a canal near our hotels in Dublin, the flight over and waiting in YOW train station. we actually started the trip by leaving the Van at the park and ride, took the bus to the train station. Train to Montreal Dorval stop and got a shuttle to airport.

End of the beginning, part 2 coming soon.

Wondering why? Some cities are noticed when....

I have started wondering why some cities are listed and noticed as being "cycling friendly" and others not. I see a lot of praise for facilities in various cities. And I see that Ottawa has had them for a while. Back in the 90's we had Contra flow lanes, and we still have one for access to bridge into the city center. Thanks to the NCC we have had multi use recreational paths through out the core. We have had roads built with larger lanes so cars can share. We had campaigns before the web was around calling for vehicles to "share the road". A successful advocacy group the brought Canbike courses to the masses. A sporting group that has weekly rides with some special activity rides for members. We have had very successful valet bike parking at our world class music festival "Bluesfest". Advocacy and education is promoted via Citizens for Safe Cycling, who have been a strong force since the 1970s. We have bike stores who are involved in all aspects of cycling, bike polo, bike racing and even bike riding. We have bike builders who build and ride bikes that the Atomic Zombie would be proud of. The only thing I can think of is we have no custom builders who are local and well known. Does anyone have any other ideas, what are we missing? Do we need famous racers (Gord Fraser, Jim Glover). Fancy night rides, wait we have one the second one is coming this year. Famous ride with lots of riders, how is 2,000 riding from Ottawa to Kingston and back the next day. I have got the ideas started, fill in folks.

Brian

Thoughts on bike parking at Landsdown park

After you had started your blogs on the cycling facilities for the park I started hunting. The best I found is the volunteer staffed San Francisco stadium. It is actually a better idea for volunteers, esp those who want to see the event (for free). The precedent for giving tickets is already in use at the Bank, bus drivers get to see two periods of hockey games (perk with OT). Most of the cyclists who would take advantage of the valet bike park have been well versed at Blues Fest. Both how it is done, and how long after an event it takes to get bikes. And there are members of CFSC who know how big an area is required for close to 700 bikes, and how many volunteers per event. It would have to be done valet style because any other method creates havoc. A good idea would be to utilize the cattle castle or the bldg the farmers market is using for winter. https://picasaweb.google.com/bikeboy999/TripToNAHBS2011#5580266369355491842 This photo is before we figured out the A frame could not take the weight of too many bikes. Here is after we re-enforced the A frames. https://picasaweb.google.com/bikeboy999/TripToNAHBS2011#5580266639771535138 Some of the bikes being stored at the North American Hand made bike show were so unique they were happy with the valet service and did not care about getting their bikes in a quick time. Like this guy's bike, https://picasaweb.google.com/bikeboy999/TripToNAHBS2011#5580267388187045666
I think the most we parked at one time was 300 to 350