From Cairo to the Connemara: A Sojournal

 Pt3 - 23 PARIS I parked the silver bullet at Chiswick and rode another bullet to Paris. The Eurostar left Waterloo at 9:53am and pulled into the Gare du Nord precisely two hours later. The ride was a little ricketty brocketty racketty bucketty on the English rails but the minute we launched into France from the Chunnel at Calais the ride was so smooth you had to look out the window to confirm the train was actually moving. In coach 3 an elderly gentleman sat between myself in seat 55 and the panorama window. He kept to himself until I spread my Printemps map of Paris on the fold down table. “Your first time?” he asked. I felt a bit like a schoolboy on his way to a brothel. “Yes, it is.” He peered at me through tinted bifocals. “You will enjoy it,” he said, a gentle smile on his kindly face. There was an American inflection to his accent, but he ordered from the refreshment trolley in fluent French. “You are a native?” I asked. “I’m American, but I’ve lived in Paris for m...

 Pt3 - 22: BRIEFLY BACK IN THE UK The most memorable moments of the crossing from Dun Laoghaire belonged to the blob of a bloke sitting opposite me who spent the entire two hour trip stuffing Big Macs into his face. He had so many chips poking out of his mouth at one stage he was the living caricature of one of those grotesque joke masks you find in cheap showbags. From Holyhead I took the A5 through places with unpronounceable names like Llanfair-Pwligwyngyll (Lanfair-Piggywiggle?) and Abergwyngregyn (Aber-gwin-greg-in?).   The immediate plan was to swing through Llandudno where Lewis Carroll reputedly groomed the young Alice Liddell by inventing stories about a whimsical wonderland, then swerve south through the Vale of Conwy. Llandudno spectacularly failed to live up to its reputation as a beautiful holiday playground, but the Vale of Conwy was a pretty drive along the Conwy River through chocolate box stone villages called Gollywollywow and Llillypillywilly. I paused...

Pt3 - 21:   DUBLIN The suburbs of Ireland’s capital felt like home. Mysterious forces led me to the B&B on Avondale Road in Killiney just following my nose. I’d chosen the southern side of the city deliberately for its proximity to the ferry terminal at Dun Laoghaire ( pr Dun Leery), where I’ll board the Sealink for Wales, and to Sandycove, where I’ll pay homage to James Joyce. Avondale was right on a bus route too, so I could park the bullet up for a few days and avail myself of the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport). And a happy bonus - Bailey’s pub was an easy stroll away. * Day 1 : I rode the 25 minutes into the city on the DART and emerged from Pearse Station into bright, warm sunshine. I strode out for Trinity College, alma mater of some of Ireland’s finest writers and repository of the Book of Kells. I entered through a rear gate and crossed the green playing fields to the Berkley Library, a modern addition to the campus and inconsistent with the fine Georgian archi...

 Pt3 - 20: I woke up with a hangover measuring 10.4 on the Richter Scale. If I weren’t feeling so righteous for helping Paddy last night I’d have stayed in bed. Timewise I can’t afford the luxury of lying around for a day either, there’s still too much to see before Paris. I loaded up with a full English and levered myself into the bullet for the drive out to Dunmore Head, which at 52 o 11’N and 10 o 48’W is the westernmost point on the Irish mainland and the westernmost point of the Awfully Big Adventure. The short loop on the R559 has to be one of the most beautiful little drives in the world and I felt the mushroom cloud lifting as I stepped out to inspect Dunbeg Fort and the ancient beehive huts in the shadow of Mount Eagle. These dry-stone Iron Age igloos are perched on the edge of the cliff overlooking the mouth of Dingle Bay and the vast sweep of the Atlantic Ocean. It must have been a bit breezy in poor weather, but the stones are so forensically laid there’s nary a slive...

 Pt3 - 19: I’d love to have hung around Derry for another few days, but time is beginning to be an issue again. The race through Greece and Italy was to make the date to pick up the bullet, now the gathering pressure is to be back in Paris for the flight home on November 1 st . Today is the 24 th of September, day 214, and the maths says there’s less than six weeks to cover the rest of Ireland, Wales and the south of England back to London, cross the channel again to Antogny then drive up to Paris in time to return the mighty bullet before exxing Charles De Gaulle, barring the unforseen.   It’s forced a bit of corner cutting, which I’m literally doing right now. Instead of sticking to the coast as I’d originally planned, I’ve taken the most direct route to Sligo via Donegal and sliced off the northwest corner of Ireland. By way of consolation, I’ve already decided we’ll be back one day to see it all. * Random factoid : After Spanish Armada was routed in the Battle of Gra...