Wicklow Way, Day 3

Day 3: Roundwood to Glendalough, 7 miles

On night 2 we saw the full moon rise above the Irish hills, on morning 3 the sun followed in almost exactly the same spot. After a quick petting session with Picasso (aka Mr. Friendly), the B&B's blind cat, and another delicious breakfast, we hitched a ride with the owner back to the trail head. After the spectacular views of the second day, our last stretch wasn't quite as picturesque, but it was still quite beautiful.

The hills are aliveeeeeeeeee.....

As we reached the end of our hike we suddenly came upon an incredible view - a beautiful lake with a typical medieval round tower and some other stone buildings. Glendalough is the home of the monastic city of St. Kevin, first founded in the 7th century. Some of the buildings, including the round tower, still exist today. It was a beautiful, serene place, and it was easy to imagine why monks had settled there and why medieval Christians pilgrimaged to visit the site.  

Glendalough at a distance

Ruins of the church

The round tower and graveyard. You can see the door on the tower about 12 feet up in the air. The inhabitants used a rope ladder to get to the door because then they could pull it up if invaded and the enemy wouldn't be able to get in.

From Glenadalough we took the bus back to Dublin, arriving back around 6:30. We found a pub with live traditional music and listened for awhile. The music is very appealing and it's fun to watch everyone in the packed pub sing and clap along. We saw lots of burrito places (sort of strange) so I insisted we go to one for dinner. Best decision in a long time. The burrito was exactly what I needed to refuel after the hike, and my taste buds were so happy to have salsa, guacamole, and spice.

It really was a tiny place.

Cradling my burrito baby.

Wickow Way, day 2

 Day 2: Knockree to Roundwood, approximately 14 miles including a side trip up to Djouce Mountain, 2379 feet about sea level.

Day two was another beautiful sunny day, and after a traditional Irish breakfast for Jason (blood pudding, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast) and some yogurt and cereal for me we got started. We knew day two would be the toughest, as it was long and had the highest elevations of the whole route. Luckily there were incredible views to help motivate us.

The first part of our trek took us through pastures and by rivers, all covered in giant ferns that made it seem like we were in Jurassic Park. Seriously, these ferns were as tall as we are!

Eventually we climbed up quite a bit and enjoyed views of pastures and lots and lots of sheep, evidence of which was readily apparent on the trail.

Once we were pretty high up we started our climb towards the summit of Djouce Mtn. It was incredibly steep and very painful. We had learned earlier that day that the Irish don't say hiking, but rather, "walking," as in "did you enjoy your walk up Djouce Mtn. today?" The understatement was killing me as we climbed up.

Jason toiling up the hill.

It was super windy at the top - if it hadn't been for the backpacks we might have blown away!

Leaning into the wind to stay upright

View down the other side

After we climbed back down Djouce, we had to continue fighting the wind along several ridges. Because there is lots of peat bog in the area, they've built boardwalks to walk on to protect the bogs and our shoes. The wind made it really hard to stay on!

Jason almost blew off the boardwalk.

I didn't fare much better.

And then suddenly we went down a bit, the wind calmed, and we came upon a beautiful lake.

It was totally unexpected and very peaceful looking. Of course, after the lake we still had quite a bit of walking to make it into town, but we were rewarded once again by a comfy bed and breakfast and some delicious food and beer. Stay tuned for the excited conclusion tomorrow! 

(PS. Yesterday we had our monthly lifeboat drill, and as we were all lined up on deck in our life preservers and warm clothes we saw dolphins playing just a short distance from the ship. Those mischievous animals seemed to know we were supposed to be totally silent and were jumping and doing their best to get us to ooh and ahh!)

Wicklow Way, day 1

A few days before we arrived in Ireland, we had our four days in Dublin all planned out - culture night, visits to museums and monuments, perhaps a bike ride to the coast. But then Jason heard of the Wicklow Way, a hiking trail beginning in Dublin and heading south for132 kilometers. We decided to scrap our original plans and spend three days hiking, staying at bed and breakfasts since we didn't have any camping gear. The plan was ambitious: 35 miles over 3 days in terrain we knew nothing about. But with an exceptionally good weather forecast (high 60s and sunny every day - unheard of in late fall in Ireland!) we went for it.

Day 1: Marlay Park (Dublin) to Knockree, approximately 14 miles.

We got a bit of a late start because first we needed to get off the ship, find a guide book, and buy some groceries, but by noon we were ready to go. Luckily for us, the Wicklow Way is very well marked, so we had no trouble finding our way. I'm mostly going to let the photos describe the rest of the day.

Overall, it was a gorgeous day of hiking with incredible views over Dublin, the ocean, and the countryside. That night we slept in a bed and breakfast in the teeny hamlet of Knockree, owned by an older couple that was very sweet. We found dinner and some beers in the slightly larger town of Enniskerry, where Jason made friends with the bar regulars and I warded off the advances of a drunk Irishman. Bedtime came early, as we were wiped out!

Edible Belgium/France

To round out our recaps of Belgium and France, a quick compilation of just some of the delicious things we ate. Be very, very jealous.

A Belgian waffle, of course!

Hot chocolate, Belgian style: liquid chocolate, warm milk, steamed milk, then chocolate shavings.

A French picnic in the park

Belgian beer

Berthillon ice cream, made only on the Ile Saint-Louis (where we stayed in Paris)

Falafel making at L'as du fallafal

Mmmmm falafel!

Let me take you on a night ride

 One of the things we were really excited to do in Paris was to take a night bike tour of the city. Armed with bikes, reflective vests (construction-worker style), and a good bit of courage, we set off into the night. I don't have too many pictures as we were busy riding, but we had a great time cruising down the streets and seeing all the monuments lit up. The last part of the trip we switched the bikes for a boat and took a cruise down the Seine and past the Eiffel Tower. My favorite part of the whole trip was riding our bikes like maniacs through the deserted courtyards of the Louvre Museum. Jason loved that our tour guide kept telling us to dominate the cars and use our "palm of power" (outstretched hand) to let them know that we were taking the right of way. And most of the time, it worked!

The River Seine

The glass pyramid of the Louvre Museum

Eiffel Tower at night

Good Times in Ghent

For the first two nights of our Belgium-France extravaganza, we stayed in the 12th-century city of Ghent, Belgium. We stayed in a wonderful apartment from Airbnb that came with two cats! I'm not sure if hanging out with Fons and Babs made missing Ricky and Lucy better or worse, but we sure had fun with them.

Fons doesn't look so happy to be corralled. Jason, on the other hand, looks thrilled.

 Ghent is a beautiful city that mixes very old buildings with modern conveniences and the hustle and bustle of a good-sized population. We had a lot of fun checking out the sights and eating waffles, frites, and chocolate (more on that later). Of all the cities we've visited so far, I think Ghent gets my vote for place I'd most like to live.

Hanging out at the castle.

On our last night in Ghent we went out with friends from the ship and their friends that actually live in Ghent. It was incredibly nice to have a local show us around (and order for us, since our Flemish is a bit sub-par). As one does in Europe, we met up with them outside the castle pictured above, as it is an easy landmark to find in the middle of the city. While we were waiting I was able to take some great pictures of Ghent at night, and we had fun helping some teenaged girls do some sort of initiation pranks on teenage boy scouts.

Ghent has won awards for its night illumination.

Once we met up with our friends, we grabbed a quick dinner of doner and falafel, then headed out to a few bars. In one spot we ordered a specific kind of beer that is traditionally served out of bowls! Weary, old travelers that we are, we didn't stay out too late, but it was a fitting way to say goodbye to a fabulous little city.

Beer in a bowl in Belgium.

Happy Birthday to Moi!

This lucky girl got to celebrate her birthday in Paris this year!

A peek at Notre Dame in the background

When I saw the Semester at Sea schedule, I realized that we could make a Parisian birthday happen. So we went from Antwerp to Gent, Belgium for two nights, then Paris for two nights. More on Belgium later, birthday recap now.

Before we left for Belgium and France, Jason got almost all the faculty and staff from the ship to sign a card for me, a project accomplished with some very slick maneuvering on his part. I'm not easy to surprise but I had no idea he had been running around getting people to sign. When everyone kept mentioning my birthday and how cool it was we were going to be in Paris I just thought that I really needed to stop talking about myself so much!

It was a grey, rainy day in Paris, but we still had a great time wandering around. And I learned an important birthday lesson: when there's rain in the forecast, pack TWO pairs of shoes for your trip.

Notre Dame

Us, blocking Notre Dame. The helpful tourist who took it clearly didn't get my vision.

For dinner we went to a wonderful couscous place where the waiters surprised me with a pastry topped with the most insane birthday candle I've ever seen and the whole restaurant singing happy birthday in French. Next year's birthday has a lot to live up to!

The French don't worry about fire hazards

Sunday Funday in Hamburg

 Everyone we talked to let us know that we had to go to the Sunday fish market in Hamburg. I think everyone on the ship was a little confused as to why a fish market was so awesome, but we all headed that direction anyway. Turns out, it's so much more than a fish market.

First, they have tons of food vendors and a lot of them sell baskets or bags of their products for 10 euros. Basically they start filling the baskets, and if no one comes forward to buy they add more and more products until someone bites. I couldn't resist and went for one of the fruit baskets, figuring the basket itself was worth a few euros to me. I was so excited with our haul!

That's right, we got a basket of fruit AND a box for 10 euros. 2 melons, a pineapple, 4 containers of little plums, 2 containers of nectarines, a ton of bananas, some apples, and two huge bunches of grapes. Heaven. We also traded with some Germans to get some grapefruit.

All that fruit is definitely my idea of a good time, but there was one small problem: we're not allowed to bring fresh fruit on the ship. We bought the basket around 10am, on-ship time was 6pm. So we had 8 hours to make a ton of fruit disappear.

First step was to head to the fish market's beer hall and dance floor. That's right, the fish market hosts a crazy party with a Rockabilly band, beer for sale starting at 5:30am, and tons of middle aged and older people dancing up a storm.

Yes, that is an elderly woman on the dance floor rocking a cane and a multicolored mohawk wig. Just like Sunday mornings back home.

We ran into a bunch of Semester at Sea-ers there and got rid of some of the fruit, later we deposited some bananas on some homeless peoples' blankets, but it was getting late and we still had tons left, including a prized pineapple. Oh, and no knife. And so, under a bridge, near major tourist attractions, my manly husband used HIS BARE HANDS to open the pineapple. Then, dripping juice and with pineapple in his hair, he fed it to me as tourists stared. And who says romance is dead?

Rrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Success!

So I married a German

Flashback a few days: when we got to Germany, the immigration officials came on board to do passport control. When the official took Jason's passport, he exclaimed "Muhlenkamp! German!" He was very excited.

 Then, when we were in Berlin we came across this street:

We have officially entered the homeland of the Muhlenkamps.

Ich bin ein berliner

Berlin, Berlin. What an intense city. We visited the Berlin Wall (what's left of it) and Checkpoint Charlie. It was amazing to see pieces of history that happened in our lifetime, not centuries ago.

Checkpoint Charlie

The stones represent where the wall went. I'm in West Germany, Jason is in East Germany. Hard to believe that when the wall was up we would never have been able to cross.

Although a little gritty Berlin is really an amazing city. Despite being destroyed and torn apart so many times, it's green and vibrant and friendly. We stayed in a mostly Turkish neighborhood and ate falafel, went to the top of the Reichstag (Parliament), bike toured around the city thanks to bike-friendly city planning, and ate two meals in an amazing Biergarten.

Biking around the Reichstag (Parliament)

One of our favorite parts was right before we left today. We headed for another section of the Berlin Wall that has been covered in amazing murals. Behind it is a "beach club": from the wall to the river is filled with sand. Locals hang out, drink beer, play beach volleyball, soccer, or basketball and relax in hammocks and beach chairs. There were all types of people from all over. The whole idea is peace and reconciliation in bar form. It was such a contrast to Berlin's history and was a nice antidote to some of the places we'd been visiting.

Berlin beach club

Do svidanya, St. Petersburg!

We are back on the open ocean, heading away from St. Petersburg to Hamburg, Germany. I think both of us are excited to back on the ship so we have an excuse not to walk 10+ miles every day! Being in port is exhausting in the best of ways. Here are a few things we learned in Russia:

1) Russian is HARD. I think we only figured out 4 or 5 words, although we're much better at deciphering Cyrillic now. Da, nyet, and spasiba (thank you) were pretty much all of our vocabulary. Between that, some English-speaking folks, and sign language, we managed to get around.
2) Everyone in St. Petersburg gets married in August. They only get 50-60 days of sunshine a year and much of the year is freezing cold, so we literally saw 5-12 weddings EVERY DAY. Brides everywhere!
3) St. Petersburg-ites love cats. Everywhere we went there were cat t-shirts, cat pictures, chocolate with cats on it, etc. Apparently there are cats that live in the basement in one of the museums and have the run of the place at night. They've become a sort of symbol of the town.
4) Russian women generally are very dressed up and wear a lot of makeup - we saw lots of 4-5 inch heels on cobblestone streets.

We also know tons more Russian history now. All in all we had a wonderful stay with beautiful weather (sorry St. Pete for taking all your sunny days this year!). On to Germany!

Church of the Spilled Blood - all the color on the walls is mosaics. 7000 square meters of it!

View from the ship as we pulled out of port. On the right in St. Isaac's Cathedral. We climbed to the top (just below the dome) and had great views from there.