Month: September 2018

The End of our Trip – Reykjavik to San Francisco to Home

Friday morning we set out early to see a bit of Iceland before catching our 3:00 flight to San Francisco. We stopped at the Gullfoss Warterfall. The weather was windy and cold and the walkways were a bit icy. It is a pretty amazing waterfall.

Next we stopped at Geysir. Our tourist map calls it the best known geyser in the world because it leant it’s name to the English language to describe a periodically spouting hot spring.

The Keriō volcanic crater was our next stop.

We still had a bit of time so we stopped for a coffee in Reykjavik.

Our flight was uneventful. We were through immigration in San Francisco in about ten minutes and then caught BART to Walnut Creek where we had a special welcome!

Yesterday I attended and thoroughly enjoyed a New England Historical Genealogical Society all day conference in Oakland. One of the speakers was a genealogy rockstar Robert Charles Anderson.

This morning we caught. Amtrak home to Reno. It was a great trip. We plans to do our next big trip in the Spring. We are still deciding exactly where to go.

Making the Most of our Part Day in Dublin and then a flight to Reykjavik, Iceland

Our flight to Iceland was at five this evening so we had the morning to do a wee bit more exploring in Dublin.

We checked out the Dublin City Museum in the basement of City Hall.

Then we walked through the grounds of Dublin Castle and stopped in at the Revenue Museum.

Finally we visited the Chester Beatty Library. It is a jaw dropping collection of manuscripts and rare books. As an example We saw the earliest known versions of the Apostles letters from the second century.

Our flight to Iceland was about two hours. We will only be here twenty hours or so. We rented a car and drove two hours east. Along the way we picked up some snacks at a grocery store and are spending the night in the little town of Fluor.

Our Last Full Day in Ireland – Dublin

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is where we spent our morning. It is interactive and very very well done There are no typical museum displays but you work your way through twenty interactive rooms full of media of all types. We learned about Irish emigration and the people who have emigrated. It was good to be inside because outside it was blowing a gale!

On our way back to the hotel we braved the gale to walk through Trinity College.

For dinner we found another great pub and had Beef and Guinness Casserole and Bangers and Mash.

Our Day in Belfast

We spent the day today relaxing and exploring Belfast. Tonight is our last night in Northern Ireland. Tomorrow we head to Dublin.

I’ve found Northern Ireland fascinating especially because of the British connection and the somewhat conflicting Irish connection. I suspect my Protestant Irish ancestors would have identified as British Irish. I never understood the significance of Union Jacks and William of Orange before this visit gave me a bit of insight.

For the first time in a while breakfast was not included in the rate at our hotel. So along the way today we stopped for coffee and a pastries.

We also checked out an excellent exhibit at Belfast City Hall.

I had fun checking out a couple of bookstores.

And for a change for dinner we had bruschetta, pizza and wine.