My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #24 – London UK- A 06/11/25

 HUGE number of photos of major London in this blog. My main London day & what a day!!!!!

6/11/25 Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel on Bayswater Rd is a fantastic stay & my room is very nice & the bed & the room entailed a great sleep. 7.30am is my usual fantastic breakfast on the 1st floor (same as Reception), so I was there at 7.45am & did I eat well! This enables me to get through my day without stopping for lunch .. too much to see. With great haste I was out the door & walking through Hyde Park again along dedicated walking trails but more a direct diagonal approach towards Hyde Park Corner (towards the Westminster City Centre). From there you see so many war memorials like The Bomber Command Memorial, statues of great significance like The Wellington Arch & beautiful autumn landscape everywhere you look. Amongst all the tons of leaves all over the grounds playful squirrels are abounding in their joyful playground. Obviously, people feed them despite numerous warning signage everywhere. I found one squirrel looking at me & when I did some soft clicking noises it came closer & then without any hesitation scrambled up my jeans to my knee allowing me to photograph it before it knew I had no food for it & ran back to its leafy playground. What an experience & to see them so playful .. leaving you with smiles all round. At certain points of walking paths intersections there are some handy directional signs, for this park is huge!

Within the meandering 5klm walk from my hotel I came up alongside Buckingham Palace, via Constitution Hill & the magnificent gates that would have cost a fortune to fabricate. I spent some time there seeing the magnificent Queen Victoria’s statue out the front & to take it all in; for my Mum was a real royalist who almost met the Queen in Parramatta when I lived in Sydney (The Queen basically walked past her at the gates to the new Cumberland Stadium of Parramatta’s Eels NRL club she was opening). I was so angry she ignored Mum, being the oldest in the very small crowd & out front). Mum was 1month younger than the Queen & they grew up ‘together’ in difficult times. Mum even looked like the Queen in life stages. I made this an important 1st thing to do in London for her. Happy now Mum (Mum passed away 2013)? She didn’t like Charles much, nor I.

The palace seemed much smaller than on TV & not as glamourous. Needs a bit of a wash on the sandstone. The famous balcony is not as high as I had thought also. The gates & fences were quite outstanding & so was the security (police with machine guns, etc). The Royal Guards (2 sets of 2 guards) do a well synchronised routine of walking the security gate of the palace. From the LHS, the palace extends well back & shows the gate where the royals, visitors & co would enter with their cars & again the security was quite impressive. There’s always a crowd here, so take your best photo possible.

From there, I went up the famous The Mall & towards the CBD with great historical buildings of grandeur & a little further The Duke of York Column caught my eye with its 40m height & a unique granite column slightly setback from The Mall roadway. With a little more walking I found myself at Trafalgar Square with an even more impressive Lord Nelson Tower Statue with its large bronze lions which is 52m high with Lord Nelson standing inclusively at 5m tall. This place is vibrant with street performers & pick pocketers of course, etc but it’s a great place to absorb & people watch. Phone snatching is prevalent in London now, so that is the major worry lately. This area then lead me to Whitehall (Parliament Area) where Royal Guards on horses are a photographic icon guard the complexes with high security police behind. I managed to see the horses & guards do their changeover to precision. This area also has the famous Cenotaph in the medium strip of Parliament St for Remembrance Day coming up.

A few more metres up I really wanted to go down Downing St, but the highest police presence prevents me plus it looks like there are permanent media setups just outside #10. Later on, I found out I missed a favourite of mine, The Captain James Cook Statue, for he was the one who discovered Australia, via Botany Bay on 28th April (my birthdate) but in 1770. One of the greatest navigators in history & achieved so much for England & the world. However, when looking at my photo of the Old Admiralty Building writing this blog, I had unknowingly taken a photo of the statue, so not all was lost.

Walking just a little farther I came across Westminster Abbey with the adjacent St Mary’s Chapel & the almost adjacent Big Ben (1mile away = 15min walk from Buckingham Palace) where I heard the bell tones of both icons along with the massive crowd near the river area. The Abbey was conducting a ceremony & services for the start of Remembrance Day & War Week. The suit dressed veterans & their family reps were very impressive, along with their badges & medals. The ground was cordoned off, so we could only watch with admiration. I was so impressed with the standard of this gathering in recognising the war veterans. So many poppies & miniature crosses all over the ground. I was a bit down on coming into the end of this wonderful ceremony but also no admittance today for the Abbey. So many great buildings in this area, like Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament (Lords & Commons), Victoria Tower & further away The Queen Elizabeth 11 Centre in purple lights. So much history here.

My next choice was to take a river cruise on the Thames River nearby. I took the option of the short river cruise of 3miles from Westminster Bridge (Westminster Pier) to Tower Bridge (Thames River Cruises suited me best at £14.50 return). We headed down the river seeing the main highlights like The London Eye (a giant 135m Ferris wheel with 32 air-conditioned capsules each holding 25 guests, located on South Bank). This attraction is the most popular paid tourist attraction with some 3mil passengers annually. It costs around $60AUD a ride for some 30mins rotation.

There are so many bridges of the River Thames, but one major structure caught my eye was the impressive Waterloo Bridge, totally constructed by women at the end of WW2, due to the lack of men available for construction. This bridge was built within the timeframe & under budget .. possibly no union involvement to stuff it up. I was so taken up about this bridge I neglected to get a photo. Another, almost hidden landmark near the HMS Wellington was The King Reach Commemoration Memorial which was erected for other reasons but establishes the boundary between The City of Westminster & London City. Of course, you can’t miss the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral & The Shard (London’s highest building at 310m & about £28.50 to do the lift to the top). The other thing was made clear to me was The London Bridge is not the Tower Bridge, such is my travel ignorance at times. HMS Belfast is right at the Tower Bridge & is permanently docked into this location as a naval museum. After we docked at the Tower Millennium Pier, I then walked over the bridge in all its magnificence & then onto the Tower of London adjacent to the bridge (notice my bridge photo with the iconic red bus in the centre of the bridge).

Walking right around to the other side of the Tower of London fortress I purchased the entrance tickets from the on-site office at £28.50. I walked straight in without much security checks & took the priority decision to view the Crown Jewels. The misconception is there’s no real high tower (my expectation) & the whole complex is basically a low-level fortress surrounded by an intentionally dried up mote, converted to a green landscape now. The actual ‘tower’ is a very large building, about 5storeys high with towers either side of the entrance doors & is located in the centre of the fortress.

I was so impressed with the tower’s entrance doors I was overtaken by some young ladies taking a group photo. I offered to take their photo for them, but one lady was already getting their camera ready, so I quickly scrambled under the security rope barrier to be outside the camera scope. When the photo was taken the ladies said thank you & I didn’t have to do what I did, although much appreciated. I said, that’s what I do & then told them about my adventure of being at the Louvre (Paris) when it was robbed (scroll down to see my older blogs) & they were so enthused I continued & said I had some cheaper jewellery for sale to much laughter & then prayed the Crown Jewels were still safe inside. LOL to more laughter.

The jewels, crowns, robes, spectres, etc were beyond belief!!! Of course, no photography, video .. nothing but your eyes to ‘record’ these amazing treasures. The crown used by Kings & Queen’s in their coronations was too much to comprehend in its magnificence. Super impressive. As you enter different chambers to do the viewing you can, if you look closely, you can see the steel safe doors, each about 250mm thick. So much locked security. It takes quite some time to view all the items in this tower & takes most of your time, leaving very little time for me to view all the other areas. This fortress area is huge!! Bought some great booklets to remember the Tower of London experience for £13.00.

Leaving the fortress, I walked aimlessly around the City of London CBD to photograph certain iconic buildings but with time closing in on me I had to walk with more pace back to the Tower Millennium Pier & finally managed to get the return cruise after a bit of an issue with a ferry conductor who had it wrong (wasted 40mins of my valuable daylight time). By the time the next cruise boat arrived it was dark however I managed to see the river lighting of the landmarks & buildings for great photos so that made up for the delay.

From Westminster Bridge to my hotel (Kensington) was walking in the dark & not doing the short cut through Hyde Park that late for obvious reasons. All the way back to my hotel using the walkways of major roads were plenty of people so I had no real apprehension doing the journey. London certainly looks brilliant with the lighting everywhere. King Charles obviously has no such pleasure on night lighting .. Buckingham Palace looks quite dim & uninspiring. With such a huge day I broke my walk record on this 44day Europe tour at 32,555 steps = 25.55kms from 8.30am – 7.20pm. No buses, taxis or Uber for me.

I’ll end my Blog #24 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blogs will be more of London UK. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #23 – Bristol A & London 04/11/25

Bristol – 04/11/25

Another great morning brekky by Sue & she has a big day planned for me. Dave has other commitments, so it’s just us 2 for the day. Sue said to trust her driving & I was glad she was doing the driving to navigate the narrow road system. The landscape certainly was breathtaking.

First of all, we head near Nailsee, but really Wraxall, for the huge grounds of a Parks Heritage Trust of an old mansion & grounds called Tyntesfield. This mansion & grounds are amazing (540 acres of grounds) & now well protected under the heritage act. Sue absolutely loves this special place and visits often, with friends & shares a coffee catchup using her heritage Tyntesfield Member Card. Unfortunately, there are things happening in the mansion, so no public access today. Sue was so disappointed hearing that & now no chance at all of seeing the wonders internally but we had a great coffee & sweets catchup in their cafe. Of the insane grounds & mansion, one could only imagine what lies inside the mansion to see.

William Gibbs was the original owner (1790–1875) after purchasing adjacent houses & grounds & converting to building the mansion, a merchant who made his fortune in trade with Spain and South America. In 1842 the Peruvian government granted A. Gibbs & Sons licence (Father Antony {died 1815 with massive debts} & eldest brother to William, George) to export guano (nitrate-rich seabird droppings for fertiliser) to Britain & the fortunes grew astronomically. In 1842 William was the sole heir when his brother, George died. In 1860s William & his wife, Blanche transformed Tyntesfield to a Gothic Revival Style & then undertook the interior design. William passed away & he had a chapel almost completed by then, attached to the mansion. Inside the mansion William had over 72,000 artifacts on display from his world journeys & businesses. Antony Jnr later inherited Tyntesfield in 1887. Over the years & with a complex family beneficiary setup Tyntesfield was ultimately sold & The National Trust bought it in 2002 & opened it to the public for viewing after only 10days.

We spent quite some hours exploring some of the grounds including the Man’s Shed (ex-stables) I called it for the old wood turning shed with feet push lathes. Being a carpenter by trade I found this quite interesting & had a good look at this area in detail while Sue gave me further commentary. Sue took a photo of me in the vegetable & florist nursery & everything is done at Tyntesfield in the highest of quality & detail. This historical facility is well worth the visit & so thankful Sue enabled me to see this local wonder.

The next stop Sue had planned is back in Bristol to view the SS Great Britain, a steam ship which was the largest passenger ship in the world (3,300tons) at the time at 98 metres (321 ft) in length, SS Great Britain sailed on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in May 1845. SS Great Britain was designed by a young engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (from my last blog who also designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge).

Brunel designed a very innovative giant propellor system (measuring 4.7 metres (15 ft 6 in) across) rather than the traditional paddle wheels, although it also had six masts for sails when conditions were favourable. It had a full iron sheeted double skinned hull with far too many rivets to count. The ship made several crossings of the Atlantic, averaging 13-15 days per voyage which was a massive result. Unfortunately, on its 5th Atlantic crossing (September 1846), the huge ship ran aground in Dundrum Bay on the northeast coast of Ireland after the captain used a faulty chart and perhaps suffered from a faulty compass. All passengers & crew embarked safely. Ultimately, SS Great Britain was placed into auction. There were no interested buyers at the reserve price of £40,000. In the end, the ship was sold to Gibbs, Bright & Company in December 1851 for around £18,000, one-seventh of the cost to build the ship. Completely refitted, the ship took one more trip to New York and then was used as a passenger liner sailing regularly from Liverpool to Melbourne, Australia.

During the Crimean War (1853-6), SS Great Britain saw service as a troop carrier but survived the experience to resume its successful passenger route to Australia. Still in service in 1870, the ship’s glamorous past was but a memory, and it was used to transport coal from Wales to San Francisco. This now old ship was converted to cheaper sail by Antony Gibbs & Son in 1882 (from my last post on the Tyntesfield mansion) and made its last fateful voyage in 1886 when it was wrecked off the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic carrying exported guano (nitrate-rich seabird droppings for fertiliser). Remaining above the waterline, SS Great Britain had a long and ignominious end as a coal bunker and wool store for the next 50 years. However, in 1936, the ship was eventually scuttled due to being an obstacle for other vessels. Ultimately, it was devised in 1970 to bring her back to her home in Bristol where a German company used a flotation ‘mattress’ to get her out of the mud & transported by barge & restored as a tourist attraction in its original home & dry dock of Bristol. Today the ship is managed by the SS Great Britain Trust.

You can view this magnificent vessel on its deck, the 3 levels of tight stairwells including the steam plant. There are mannequins in full costume & action poses to give you the feel of those times. The unique propellor & steam engine is beyond amazing & you can see most of the rooms, kitchen & dining, etc without too much hassle. When you’re finished with the internal viewing you exit the ship & wander back to the pavement to a small outhouse where you can do the stairs again & venture down to the dry dock to see the entire hull, propeller, rudder & anchor where you can actually touch most of it. Sue & I spent about 90mins touring this vessel & it was well worth the visit & love the selfie photo you took Sue.

It was time to head back home, ready for dinner & Dave’s return from his soccer & for me to pack my bags for the train departure from Bristol Temple Meads Station to London tomorrow at 11am. Today, we walked 7,724 steps = 5.89kms.

London UK  05/11/25 

I was up early at 7am & did a quiet celebration for my daughter, Kate back home for her birthday. I was all packed & ready to fit in with Dave & Sue for their day. Dave has football commitments & Sue will drop me off at the Bristol Temple Meads Station in time for my 11am departure to London Paddington Station. Sue had the timing down to a fine art, but some traffic changes had happened, so we had to make up some time. Sue hurriedly walked me to the platform right up to the 2nd carriage (J) & by the time we said good-bye I had climbed on & the doors started to shut. Shame it was a hurried good-bye however, seeing Sue wave & smile was a blessing that all was good. I hadn’t even stored my bags then. Sue was such a delight to fit everything in for me & words of praise don’t do the true justice. So blessed to have great friends.

The train trip was such a breeze (1hr 40mins) to Paddington Station (a very busy station) & it was just a simple 15mins walk to my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel on Bayswater Rd aligned with Hyde Park. The walk had a mixture of shops, apartments, pubs & basically everything else of a busy suburb.

The entrance to Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel was a little difficult to find as there was a redevelopment of a petrol station out the front, making the entrance on the side street. The sign said Reception 1st Floor & thankfully there were 2 passenger lifts in the lobby. I checked in OK, & after about 15mins checking in & settling into my room I was out walking around 1.30pm.

Across the road is the HUGE Hyde Park so I transversed through the Lancaster Gate entrance leading to a number of walking paths, seeing lots of people walking with their dogs, ducks in the lake & the gorgeous & playful squirrels bounding around in the thick fallen Autumn leaves of numerous trees & reached the other side to see the Gothic Prince Albert Memorial & the famous Royal Albert Hall. Unfortunately, there was a school’s event on & no admission was allowed, but I could walk around it. The next few days will be taken up by War Veterans Remembrance Day commemorations so there will be no concerts, etc, nor a chance to see inside while I’m in London.

From there I just kept walking & looking at the excessively rich neighbourhood. I had a sense of a nosebleed happening with the money air around. This area also has some embassies as well & numerous British Flags flying. Eventually I had walked the half-length of Hyde Park to the Hyde Park Corner & then up to The Marble Arch (basically where Bayswater Rd ends & the start of Oxford Street). After a quick look around, I proceeded West along Bayswater Rd to my hotel to finish off the day. Quite the walk lap to do. All in all, I walked 12,149 steps = 9.53kms in that quick afternoon.

I’ll end my Blog #23 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be more of London UK & I’m sure multiple blogs will follow on the number of days here. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #22 – Bristol UK 01/11/25

Lots of photos & info of Bristol & Bath on this blog everyone.

Departing Dublin … With just a tiny sleep I’m up at 3.20am (no brekky at my beloved Mosso buffet located on the ground floor of The Travelodge PLUS Hotel) to walk over the River Liffey in the dark to the Custom House bus stop (800m) for the Dublin Express to Dublin T2 (€10, booked online for 4.05am) for 06.35am – 07.55 BA (British Airways) on Aer Lingus flight to Bristol Airport, UK (1.5hrs). There are quite a few travellers here so I’m hoping I can be able to board on time. Many thanks to Kevin, my pub guide yesterday for sorting out the best bus stop to get. Luckily, there were just 2seats available on this 1st bus & just enough room for me, albeit I was crammed in. Of course, the usual stuff happened at the airport, but I bought Dave & Sue (my wonderful friends who my eldest son, Scott & I met doing the Machu Picchu Trek back in 2019, see 1st photo) some alcohol gifts they love in Duty Free for I’ll be staying at their lovely home for the next few days. The British Pound does no favours with our weak AUD. The usual of late transpired, where we walked down the air bridge into a bus again which took us all over the place. Finally, we were let out & everyone was scrambling for the rear door only entrance up the stairs. These prop plane flights have minimal overhead space so looking at the large carry on of some travellers confirms the mad scramble. I had a go at a couple of people ‘cos waiting on the tarmac in blustering freezing wind from a prop plane for some 10mins wasn’t good for the young lady with a 3month old baby placed over her chest. People had no empathy at all until I came along. Didn’t give a shit for those pretentious arseholes & the lady was inside the plane much quicker. She was so thankful & I’d say the baby was too.

It was a pleasant flight (1hr 20mins) & all went extremely well getting through Immigration, etc at Bristol Airport. I already registered & paid the British ETA Tax of £16 arranged in April this year which is now mandatory to enter England. I textd Dave to confirm I was at the pickup point, but he got me on his 2nd attempt due to the ongoing changes at Bristol Airport. It was fantastic to see Dave (& Sue waiting at their home). It felt like yesterday in reuniting & of course, so much to talk about. D & S had done some real magic in their recent house renovations .. really impressive & a credit to them.

One of the things I was recommended back at home to see at Bristol was the last operational Concorde aircraft at the local Bristol Air Museum & the super-engineered Clifton Suspension Bridge & that was all I noted for this stay. D&S had scheduled the time in for the Concorde & we did that in the afternoon, so it was timely & filled in the day. D & S haven’t been to the museum either. Back in 1986 I missed seeing inside the Concorde by just 5mins as I was working out on the new taxiways & the proposed 3rd runway upgrade project on Sydney Mascot Airport. By the time I was escorted off the runway area by our airport safety officer assigned to us I was ultimately only allowed to walk around it, due to the removal of the access stairway & added security now in place. Some 39yrs later, my 2nd chance has now come alive & it was awesome to see. The volunteer guide was brilliant & it was such a great engineered plane to see. We also saw their other aircraft under restoration & it was certainly a good few hours of experience. When we arrived back at their home I settled in instantly, had a great home-cooked dinner, hot shower & the best sleep for a while.

02/11/25

I had a little bit of a sleep in & Sue provided my best brekky I’ve had in ages. Certainly spoilt. They had organised a visit into a very historic city nearby called Bath, in Somerset. Beautifully placed alongside of the River Avon. James was our Bath Walking Tour guide & boy can he talk fast! For a young person he stored a lot of history into his tour. We all struggled on putting the info together due to the pace of his speech, accent & the city noise around us. So much information.

England was invaded by the Romans in 43AD & around 70AD they had built a lot of the infrastructure of the mineral rich thermal baths in Bath which are world famous. The water still flows today through all sorts of bath types and rooms in very ancient Roman buildings. Apparently, it was asked, some centuries ago, “what is that” (pointing to the river)? The answer came back “Avon” & there the name stuck. In referring to the ancient British language Avon means river, so it should be called River River. LOL!!! Below is the River Avon with its very unusual weir terraces.

There is a legend that dates back to 860BC where a person was cured of leprosy due to hot springs. Aquae Sulis was the original name for Bath, dedicated to Aquae Minerva in 60AD. In the Georgian era of the 18th century the city was thriving through other industries & the wealthy came to reside there. In 1987 UNESCO granted it a World Heritage Status.

Getting tickets into the roman baths is a wonderful experience & you can imagine the people from those days where your footprints are meeting theirs. The Romans, in my language were excellent plumbers & drainers when you see how they controlled the flow & the distribution of the thermal water. When you actually stand back & look at the buildings you can see the ancient times & the Gothic appearance and so much to take in. There are some amazing places to live here, for example, The Royal Crescent – High-end semi-circular apartments (middle right photo above) for the elite with open grounds.

James took us into a park surrounded by a circular street & buildings built around it. He stood at a designated spot next to a large tree & clapped his hands loudly. An instant & clear sound with no echo. We all had a go & my clap was far the loudest & certainly gave a great clear sound to our amazement. A really strange occurrence in a city development. It was quite a few hours in walking around & eventually we went back to D&S home for unwinding & trying to remember all the points James raised on Bath. We needed a recorder obviously.  My steps today, 2/11/25  6,975 steps = 5.35kms.

Today, 3/11/25 is going to be a big day planned by Sue & later by Dave. After a hearty breakfast by Sue, we headed off to Bristol (D&S live just outside Bristol city). Both D&S have never done a Bristol Walking City Tour so we will all learn more together & we took the city bus into town, noting the very narrow streets.

We had a great guide (name forgotten) who was a history teacher for schools, etc for some 30+years, so his local knowledge was amazing. We were blessed in only being the 3 of us for this journey. Dave quickly became interested in meeting up with him again at some point, such was his local knowledge. He showed us parts of the old city walls that tried to prevent the Roman incursion. These walls were 24’ thick (7.3m) of solid brick & mortar & when it was not solid there was an operational church or shop inside (below right photo).

There was just too much info to take in … The 2 rivers that flowed through Bristol are the River Avon & the River Flume. I believe in the 1800s the city used manual labour to create a major River Flume diversion & over time the city was built over most of it. The river still runs underground & one of my photos shows the box culverts where the River Flume comes into daylight (Centre right photo below). We stood in some street arcades where our guide stated the River Flume is directly underneath. A strange experience. The 1st photo below is the oldest residential house in Bristol.

The city is full of history & well worth doing the Bristol Walking Tour. Again, far too much to remember for my blogs. Our guide was quite furious of the blatant vandalism of graffiti over the years, nothing credible or in his word’s intelligence at all. It was everywhere. The tour went for 2.5hrs & Dave, being very time conscious suggested we also do the Clifton Suspension Bridge seeing we are close & will fill in the remaining hours, leaving tomorrow a better day for more Bristol looking. Very good suggestion Dave.

Dave was quick onto an Uber who came within 1minute, as he was around the corner & that was a relief as the road climb was quite ‘severe’. We hopped out to very strong chilly winds, being this high on the hill & what a magnificent, engineered bridge, suspended some 72m or 236ft above ground & total length of 412m (1,352ft) with the longest span at 214.05m (702ft). Clifton Suspension Bridge was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a young and innovative engineer, he was 24 when he was appointed for the project which came about through a competition. The bridge finally was built in 1864 through funding issues & today there is a £1 toll for vehicles for maintenance, etc & that does well for the 3million car users each year. The Clifton Suspension Bridge & its structural design engineer (Mr Isambard Brunel – Plaque photo above) will surprisingly come again in my next blog in a complete twist. Bristol has quite a few of world connections, triumphs & history.

We walked the entire bridge taking in all the views before walking back downhill to the nearest bus stop near the public CBD carpark, as no Uber would respond to Dave for the pickup. At least it wasn’t uphill.  It was a great day out & we did 12,809 steps = 9.95kms. Such a great few days with superb humans, Dave & Sue. I wished they lived closer to me though .. I wonder if that would also be their thought too? .. LOL!!!

I’ll end my Blog #22 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be more of Bristol UK A & onwards to London. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #21 – Dublin B 31/10/25 

My last Full Day in Dublin Ireland. It’s been a rushed stay here in Dublin, but I must fit in with my planned stay with friends at Bristol UK, I met on my Machu Picchu Trek back in 2019.

I started my day off as per usual (early) with my over-the-top buffet protein brekky at The Travelodge PLUS Hotel. With my research I checked out the nearest Dublin Express bus stop to ensure I can catch an extremely early Airport bus tomorrow without too much walking in the dark & with that completed I headed down the riverbank walkway away from the Temple Bar end that I have seen for the past 2days.

The first notable sight on the river is the 19th century ship that took emigrants to America. The original Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship did 16 emigrant journeys, carrying over 2,500 people with no loss of life. It is moored at City Quay & they do onboard tours of the ship showing you the famine times. Unfortunately, I’m too early for the first day tour setting, so I kept walking.

There’re some unique bridges here, plus some are raised sectional bridges for the river & channel operations. I walked The Sean O’Casey Pedestrian Bridge, Samual Beckett Bridge & the Dublin Drawbridge (Rolling barrel type). At this point of crossing over the river, the city has assembled the famine sculptures of citizens back in the day & it really is life-like giving you a real feeling of those tough times. The more you look the more you can feel their pain .. so, life -like. Late May 1847 at the height of the great famine, 1,490 tenants from the Mahon estate took on the gruelling 100mile (165km walk) from Strokestown to Dublin docks. Their estate landlord organised this assisted emigration journey to Quebec on one of the numerous ships available, but unfortunately over half died at sea being unwell. Today, there are trek walks doing this journey & some of it to raise money.

Just up from the famine sculptures is the very impressive Customs House (day photo & night photo below) & what a building of the past. Getting up to O’Connell St (Main St) there is a commemorative needle called The Spire, of stainless steel that is some 120m high. It is supposed to represent hope & inspiration reflecting from the past to the vibrant present. I don’t get it, but I agree with the Dublin community as they call it the shiny toothpick. It cost €2mil to do it (bloody waste I think). It just sits there like a pin in concrete.

I came across a street eye (Dublin Portal) & watching everyone being silly & waving to each other was quite funny. I couldn’t tell where the other street eye portal was located but the vision was quite pleasing to see people lose their inhibitions. Near the eye portal & the toothpick was an impressive building of Modern History Museum & nearby was an equally impressive monument, called the Charles Parnell Monument (an Irish Nationalist) set in the middle of the intersection of Parnell & O’Connell Streets. Notice the Golden Harp above which eventually became the Guinness logo.

I crossed the Half Penny Bridge (Pedestrian) to get to the other side of the river & to look back at other great buildings. This bridge crossing is obvious where it cost a halfpenny to cross it until 1919. Walking away from the river you can’t miss Four Courts, built in the later 1700s & housed various main courts. The next obvious landmark to be seen is St Patrick’s Tower in the Liberties. It was originally built in 1757 & rebuilt 1815. It was a windmill to power the Thomas St Distillery. Not far from this iconic structure is one of the many gates to the Guinness factories & this photo is of the St James Gate & just around the corner is the entrance to the Guinness Storehouse (Tour entrance). Just up from this gate is the St James Cathedral.

By this time (2.30pm), I am at the meeting point of the Utah Teapot for my Pub Walking Tour, early of course so I sat around until this quirky looking gentleman asked me if I was here for the tour. In a thick Irish accent it was Kevin, my guide. We supposed to have 13 for the tour but we ended up missing 3 & in waiting for them we were quite late getting away. We had 2 women (Doctors) from Turkey, a lad from India, a father & son from California (Dad a retired FBI agent), an English traveller, a Perth lady & a lady from Florida to name a few. As we walked on Kevin was a great communicator with wonderful Irish humour. This is going to be good, far better than the below average walking tour I did the other day.

Our first pub was The Cobblestone, a quaint heritage looking corner pub. A family-owned pub that encourages singers & musicians to do the open mic method. We found about 12 musicians of an Irish mini orchestra band in full swing & harmony using all types of Irish music string & wind instruments. Very entertaining & lively. There is a mandatory silent rule of respect when people are performing. Sinead O’Connor started singing here when very young. Had my first pale ale there too for the day called Ambush by Trouble Brewing, so the names weren’t that threatening when consuming the mid-level alcoholic beer. I thought it best to pace myself.

The next pub was the Bonobo (new age bar with fireplace) which is more for the younger generation. Here Kevin gave us more beer history along with his quirky knowledge & humour. There are 798 pubs in Dublin alone. He told us The Brazen Head on Liffeyside Bridge St is Dublin’s oldest pub where it started beer moonshining in 1198 (photo below) & now on the same site the pub was built in 1754. Smithwick’s (Irish Red Ale) is traced back to 1710 as the first official beer produced in Dublin by John Smithwick’s Brewery at St Francis Abbey (Kilkenny) adding on to the same beer produced by the then monks.

But the real stories came next. Poitin beer was a rural beer made without any rules (moonshine) in 17th century which caused blindness, coma, etc & ultimately tens of hundreds of people believed to be dead were buried alive. The beer was ultimately made illegal in 1661. Through this series of yearly events a few things came out of it. Sayings like “Blind Drunk”, “Bell Ringer”, “Shit face drunk”, “Saved by the bell”, “Graveyard shift” & “raining cats & dogs” to name a few. To explain these; when they buried the ‘dead’ they had a length of fine rope placed through the top of the coffin & tied to a small bell on a small stick above ground. If anyone came too, then they would ring the bell & would be ‘saved by the bell’. A terrible job was for someone to work the graveyard shift where the person would roam the graveyard at night listening for any bell ringing & then start the recovery digging. Blind drunk is obvious when someone has had too much & also became blind. Shit faced is where people would bucket out their toilet waste, etc into the gutters of the street & it would flow sometimes into a thick rope area, as a small pond. The drunks would ultimately fall over into these areas & when they get up, they wiped their face ‘clean’ using their hands. Get the picture? The raining cats & dogs is when houses had thatched roofs & when it rained over time the dogs & cats would scale up onto the roofs to get away from the flooded streets & ultimately, with their weight would fall through the roof. You could imagine Kevin embellishing these stories in his thick Irish accent. So funny.

After that, we went to Frank Ryan Bar where the pub is so dark, hardly a light is on, but you get used to it. It is for the ambience of pure pub drinking without the distractions. Quite some years ago, a group of women were having a hen’s night out & at some point they took off their bras & hung them from the ceiling beams. There are a lot of bras there now. None of the women in our group were going to contribute, but we even offered them a lot more beer. LOL!! The lighting didn’t allow a photo of the bra ceiling either.

After that session, we went to Arthur’s where Kevin had organised a large table upstairs & for group privacy. Here he showed us (after we bought our Guinness beer) how to drink the beer in the correct manner. If anyone buys me a Guinness, I’ll gladly show them. It is an art & an accurate one. Only one Australian woman from Perth in our group managed it accurately. After this, we had a range of challenges (tests of knowledge). By this time, it was getting very late & I had a very early flight in the morning & I explained that to Kevin who ultimately gave me some welcomed advice on getting the right bus stop which was on the other side of the river to my hotel in front of Custom House. He had knowledge on so many things & wished I had come across him on Day 1 of Dublin. He also conducts his much-loved food tours.

I said good-bye to all & headed off through the very cold winds again & to cap it off a huge amount of people about & fireworks everywhere (Halloween was on). All day I was trying to find a reliable money exchange facility but alas, no bloody luck so it will be me carrying useless Euros into UK, until I find a place there. Airports are a rip off for currency exchange!!

Without looking at Google Maps, I remembered my 20+ minute walk back to my hotel. Showered, packed my bags to 99% complete & settled for some short sleep with the alarm set at 3.20am as I must get the Dublin Express bus to the airport at the bus stop 4.05am described by Kevin. My walking today was 19,461 steps = 15.26kms. Below is a generalised geography of Dublin & surrounds.

I’ll end my Blog #21 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be of Bristol UK to stay with very close travelling friends from my Machu Picchu Trek in 2019. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #20 – Dublin A 30/10/25

 From my last blog I am very pleased with my Travelodge PLUS lodgings and became quite settled & feeling refreshed when going to bed. This level of ‘luxury’ (3star, but I rate it 4star) certainly helps when I have been on the fast road of travelling for almost a month straight with no real respite from constant moving.

Somehow with my alarm set I woke up 5mins before it activated. Must have been this wonderful room & awesome King size bed. Such a great sleep. I had plenty of time to venture to Ground Floor & get stuck into the buffet breakfast at the in-house Mossco Restaurant. So much food there & surely there must be a lot of waste. With my protein food in my stomach, I headed off to my 10am meeting point at The Old Storehouse Pub to undertake the Dublin: Highlights and Hidden Gems Walking Tour (2hrs) some 12mins walk away but with this inclement & unkind drizzle weather & wind factor is not making this a fun walk. Not pleasant at all.

Of course, I’m early & left with no cover anywhere, so I used a side of a building to the opposing wind & gradually some people turned up confirming we are all at the right spot. Kieran is our guide; he is late & with no green umbrella as he described to us in emails. With a quick introduction & roll call we are off! Seems strange we have walked almost 1.5klms before our first historical stop, noting we passed several landmarks along the way.

Dublin Castle & the Chapel Royal (Castle St). The castle (round tower) was built early 13th century & had various duties. First one was the ruling King’s Palace & where laws were set in. Then became the Queen’s residence, then a prison for the anti-loyalist Irish. It took on storage duties & some unknown duties as well. The castle was built on the grounds of the Viking settlement & from 1204 – 1922 it served as the seat of English & later British rule. The chapel was built in the early 1800s & attached to the tower.

Our adjacent stop, some hundred metres away was Garda Memorial Garden, Dame St but this is really the Dubh Linn Garden where the Vikings settled their only time in one Winter & set up a long-term camp by a “black pool” which in old Irish language means Dubh Linn. Over time this dialect changed it to Dublin. This lawn area was the governing ruling area when they were here. My photo shows the old Irish language with the translation below of the Garda Memorial Garden. Kieran stated 30% of the population is now learning the old Irish language & is growing with students learning it now in schools. Back in the 1950 -70s only 5% spoke that language. It’s a resurgence to keep their culture & voice. A country that has no culture or language is a country that is lost.

Kieran went on to talk about the Potato Famine where the rich people sold most of the food grown in Ireland overseas for huge profits that basically made most Irish people starve to death from 1845 – 1852 leaving the ‘only’ staple food being potatoes & estimates of over 1million deaths. This changed Ireland to this day where emigration was in full mode to enable Irish to survive in other countries. Ireland is still growing their population but hasn’t come to the original number.

The next big historical site was St Patrick’s Cathedral where Kieran explains St Patrick wasn’t a lifelong Christian & he was also Welsh. His sea life started young & was captured by pirates. He later escaped, did a lot of Christian things & became a heavily involved Christian, later becoming a saint. The world doesn’t know that it celebrates St Patrick’ Day, not knowing the full history of his life story. Kieran calls it a great Irish story. LOL!

Following in from St Pat’s Cathedral we call into the Christ Church Cathedral undergoing extensive stained glass window repairs (Bottom left photo). Across the road is St Audoen’s Catholic Church (Bottom right photo) but we don’t go close there. Walking back to our origin, we come across The Temple Bar district (bit lively & happy area) & we see a store heavily into Christmas with bright lights & decorations (21 Essex St E, Temple Bar). A real standout & very busy & yet we don’t stop & interact .. weird. Then, we come up to a grand building, yet again no commentary. This is Regent House, part of Parliament House, so I had to do my own digging of research.

We kept walking till we came across the famous Temple Bar district which is always busy with residents & tourists, but we are given no time to experience this area & before long we are in front of Trinity College which was set up & built by order of Queen Elizabeth 1. This college is very distinguished with famous students coming from it. It has over 1 million books & archives of ancient history. I’m bewildered why we just passed Parliament House with no commentary or even time for a photo. We were ahead of schedule. Kieran starts talking about the River Liffey & some of its bridges. O’Connell Bridge joins north & south & forms the main street of Dublin, but this bridge is the largest bridge in Europe that is the same width as its length. This bridge is wide! The other bridge he talks about is The Sean O’Casey Bridge where it was built by the same company that built the Titanic. Irish joke about “would you trust it”? It’s a pedestrian bridge thankfully. Again, no photo opportunity.

Within a few minutes the tour was wound up, Kieran thanked everyone & basically that was it. Very weird & like a throw away tour & everyone parted immediately, with no other conversations. Pretty disappointing really. OK .. what now?  

With the weather becoming increasingly worse I decided, without much intelligent thinking walked back to my hotel, not taking in consideration of the significant distance & that I had a Guinness Brewery Tour at 2pm in the same district almost. Walking back to my hotel I came across a sign stating my country hometown of Grafton, so I took the photo for my extended family. Grafton is a very strong British name of standing (Lord Grafton, etc). By the time I got back to my room I was reasonably soaked, so I dried off & caught some downtime.

Within an hour I was required to walk back up to Guiness St Jame’s Gate, The Liberties district which was, say the next neighbourhood to my previous walking tour. What a walk & the weather is getting significantly worse making it a very hard journey. The Guiness factory is huge (more than several blocks & signed on a 9,000-year lease) & after checking a few entrance gates I was finally given the correct entry address. The line-up was quite long, but I was inside surprisingly in a few minutes. Not happy being this sodden. We do the standard aircraft cattle run but the line keeps moving when they release 50 of us cattle at a time. I just got to the gate (almost through) & I was stopped. Well, at least I’ll be the first person in this run when freed. The people behind me had a great laugh on my antics & comment (always trying to get humour in all situations).

This storehouse, opened in 2000 on a £31Mil redevelopment, used to be one of the brewery houses but over time it became semi-converted to a museum & interactive marketing complex of 7 floors. The atrium I call it in the centre has a glass balustrade design on each floor that resembles a giant Guiness pint glass which is calculated to hold 14.3million pints of Guiness beer. There is brewery info from start to finish, then a large commercial shop, more videos & information, then a café, tasting floor & then on the 7th a Guinness Gravity Bar where I can use my entry ticket for a free pint of Guinness, expertly poured. This area was packed!!! You could buy more beer if you wanted too, but my one & only was enough. Nigeria drinks the most Guinness in the world & their alcoholic range is 8% & not the usual 4.6%. Guinness employs testers that inspect all pubs that sells their famous drinks to ensure the ultimate experience & quality is maintained. There are 798 pubs in Dublin County alone.

This Guinness tour is a free self-walk tour, but you must leave before 5pm. My tour started 2.10pm & I walked out happy at 4.50pm & I didn’t waste much time. My free Guinness time was excellent when after a while at the Gravity Bar I had some Americans from Florida ask me about my Wobbly Chook beanie & that started a whole massive talkfest. Shanaia was a blast & asked the most questions. She did horse camp drafting & then became a jockey at 17 & now in her early 30s is doing her pilot’s licence. Such a great conversation but alas, they had an appointment & had to head off. They do brewery work back in Florida too, but I couldn’t find out much more info.

During my tour I found out the following information. I found out how the name of Porter became a type of beer, how Guinness do their own barley & yeast roasting & fermenting & storing their yeast in cryogenic plants with liquid nitrogen set at -196°C & yeast is used up to 8 times before disposed of. Barley is roasted to 232°C. Being a real brewer is far too much technicality & stress for me. Cheers to just drinking the Guiness.

Guinness started brewing before 1759 but in that year changed to the dark brown ale in a bigger way when he signed a 9,000year lease on his original factory & storage area. Today, it covers 50+acres of land & produces 3million pints in Brewhouse 4 every day. Each batch is taste tested 23 times & analysed by scientists & lab techs 231 times.

Back in the day Guinness used his own 300 skilled Coopers to manufacture 1,000 casks (barrels) per week. One time, 250,000 casks were stacked like a pyramid awaiting filling, or repairing & suspiciously caught fire at night & to save most of the barrels they were thrown into the adjacent River Liffey. There was over 200years of continuous cooperage in this factory. It took Guinness 10days to get the casks from the brewery up the river to the port for overseas transport when they first started internationally. The photo taken on 7th Floor shows the green copper dome is the last reminder of George Roe & Co Distillery in 1957, but you have to look extremely closely to see it. To the far left of these photos you can see the start of Pheonix Park which covers 1,760 acres making it the largest in Europe. It even includes the Dublin Zoo. The Gravity Bar gives you a 360° view, but the weather was beyond acceptable for photos, so more beer consumed.

Seeing it is 4.50pm I had better head back towards my hotel & find a good eating spot before retiring. After much walking the rain is getting heavier & the wind increasing. I can really feel the coldness .. OK .. freezing … ALL day!!! It is far worse than me spending 8hrs straight in the Wobbly Chook Brewing Company Cold room with cousin Shane. Bloody freezing all day & I have a thermal top on too (3 layers). Seeing time is critical now, I head back to my trusty Eddie Rocket’s, 52 O’Connell St (main street) to use their facilities & to get a quick meal.

When I arrived at Eddie’s I scrambled straight to the toilet as the Guiness had caught up with me. LOL! As I walked back up the tight stairs a lady about early 60s was confused, so I told her where the toilets were & to go down the stairs carefully. She immediately noticed my accent & said “Australian”. Well, I have never met anyone so excited & thankful of Australia. Her son moved from Dublin to Sydney & now lives in Brisbane (married now) & after some 9years has saved & borrowed money & bought a hotel there. She is so happy he chose Australia to make a start where Ireland never gave him that. She has visited him about 5 times since he moved there & will do so again soon. She shook my hand twice & thanked me for what Australia has given to her family. She is so blessed. We had a wonderful chat before her daughter; son-in-law & kids had to venture back out.

Leaving Eddie’s was bloody awful, the weather was CRAP!!! I was completely soaked when I entered my unit & hung my clothes up to dry, had the hottest shower possible, set the air con on 24.5°C & made a Lavazza coffee with my machine included in the room. Pure luxury. Yay!!!! Today, I walked through crappy weather for 22,643 steps = 17.79 kms.

Tomorrow, 31/10/25 at 3pm I have a Dublin Walking Pub Tour .. which could be dangerous .. where we will be having some drinks or two & that will close my last full day in Dublin. It will end in the Liberties where Guinness is, so another major walk back to my unit. My flight leaves at 6.35am 1/11/25, so technically I’m supposed to be at the airport 3hrs prior, but that’s not going to happen.

I’ll end my Blog #20 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be more of Dublin B, my last full day in Dublin & then onto Bristol UK to stay with very close travelling friends I met on the famous 4day Machu Picchu Trek in Peru. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #19 – Lisbon to Dublin 29/10/25 

I thought I would start this blog to highlight how things pan out, some in your control, most are not, in getting to your plane. As my friend Sharyn back home would say “C’est La Vie”  .. (such is life).

As per usual, I don’t sleep well when I set my alarm. Brain mustn’t switch off. 6.30am I am up, having a quick bite of what I bought yesterday & my protein drink & when all was done, I was out the door by 7.10am. At my unit there are 2 underground train stations (Restauradores at the front door & Rossi around the corner & some 200m away). These stations have 2 different lines & each one has a different way to connect to the 2nd train station to the airport. Rossi is the clear choice for the airport & I’m more confident on achieving the goal. The ticket machines are another thing. Luckily there was an assistant there & he guided me through it. First you buy a train card (1metro ticket with it or a day ticket). The card costs €0.50, then €1.85 ticket = €2.35 & I was able to pay in coins. Whew!! Now off to the platform (down the stairs). Train in 2mins (7.30am). Exact arrival time confirmed.

Arrived at my change station of Alameda (a few stops up the line) & more stairs (2 flights up), then a 100m walk & finally I see the one small, almost hidden sign below saying Aeroporto. I’m half-way down the stairs & the train comes in. You have 10secs to board or get out of the train before it heads off. Seriously!! Doors almost hit my arse! Thank God I’m reasonably fit to get down those stairs with baggage. With about 6 super quick stops we reach Aeroporto & 3 flights of stairs (1 escalator there but not working). The platform I came in on (main line) is 3 storeys below ground, yet crappy access with stairs mostly. A lot of people struggled with their luggage. Lifts are small & take for ages to get in one most times. From my last blog I discussed my routine of scouring the airport you arrive in & to see how your upcoming departure can proceed. Everything is going to plan & I know where I am to go in this ultra-large airport terminal. You can see in the photos the large lobby & HUGE departure board the second you arrive. This procedure of scouring also applies to train stations, especially & particularly Gare du Nord & Gare de Lyon stations in Paris. OMG, brutal stations!

My arrival went too well & I’m here ultra-early but thought I would do my bag drop anyway. After 2 check-in counters I obtained my boarding pass. I checked online the day prior but due to having another TAP flight upcoming into Bristol UK they sent me to another counter & after all that gave me a revised boarding pass. Following the line, you come to the Duty-Free area, large food hall, etc & that’s where you wait in the N Terminal (North), S is for South Terminal to a central area to see the Departures Board. It would be another 2.5hrs before my gate is even displayed. Once your gate is called on the board you must go straight to that gate as the brand-new section of the EES Schengen Travel Visa System is in action now (Oct 12th), so the line was very long. They have a section for EU residents & another section for all other country passports. Finally, you get through after a couple of questions (9am) & then I was allowed to go to my Gate 44A which was almost the furthest one in that N Terminal. No time to muck around.

Showing your boarding pass & passport was so slow at the gate; it was bordering on painful & some people weren’t helping by not being ready. Really? We walk down the aerobridge but then redirected down the stairs to the tarmac level. There we wait for an airport terminal bus to transport us to our plane. Some 5mins passes when the bus door open, we pile in, slightly crushed when another bus pulls up slightly after. We are left in this bus for more than 10mins before it travels (seemed much longer). The route now takes us past the full length of the Terminal 1/ Terminal 2 building, through the plane maintenance area & then turn right into another plane parking station & up to the rear of our plane. Why catch a bus at the furthest end of Terminal N & then travel about 3klms to the parked plane at the other end? OK … we now wait for the doors of the bus to open so we can board our plane up the steps. We have 3 babies, about 6mths old but so far, they are OK. It took about 13mins by my phone for the doors to open with utmost relief from the passengers. We were certainly NOT happy. Finally, we are off!! What a time phase of disorganized crap.

It seemed a quick 3hr flight where we land in lovely Dublin 4.30pm at a fantastic 11°C + wind factor (sarcasm). Obviously much colder than Lisbon. Brr! Outside the terminal are buses & the best one for most of us is the Dublin Express which also stops at Terminal 2 on the other side of Terminal 1 (across the roadway) & then to the City Centre & beyond. My ticket to the city centre (Financial sector) was €10 & 30mins travel. Some 300m away from my stop is my Travelodge PLUS Hotel & it’s very swank indeed. My room is glorious!! I quickly went back out in the lovely weather (more sarcasm), crossed the River Liffey bridge (Talbot Memorial Bridge) at my street (Moss St) & walked past the glowing Customs House, looking more like Parliament House. This is the bus stop to catch the Dublin Express again for the Airport to Bristol UK in coming days. I eventually found a recommended place with retro booth seating, great music & food at Eddie Rocket’s, 52 O’Connell St (main street) within a 6min walk.

Tonight, I finally had confirmation of a refund for the failure of the Tut-Tut Golf Cart Guide Tour in Barcelona (24/10/2025), so I found a one spot availability for the Guiness Brewery Tour for tomorrow arvo at 2pm ($52AUD) in time for my 2hr Walking Tour to finish at 12noon. Looks like my days are planned but still knowing I will only scratch the surface of fabulous Dublin.

I’ll end my Blog #19 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be more of Dublin & eventually onward to Bristol. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #18 – Lisbon A  27 & 28/10/25 

27/10/25 A HUGE FULL DAY!!!! 7.30am – Of course I’m early for my tour start, but I was hoping to get some breakfast in but not a store or bakery was open. Apparently, Lisbon doesn’t awake till 8am. LOL. I sacrificed myself to a nearby Starbucks … but only to get juice. I’m saved!! What a great day planned some months prior. Odyssey Tours for a regional bus tour of nearby towns & landmarks of Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo Roca Coast & Cascais plus the additional Full Pena Palace and Regaleira sights included & our bus arrived right on schedule, but we had to wait till the exact time for our guide, Mario, an early 40s & of great humour to welcome us. It was a full bus indeed, not a spare seat. Now get ready for lots of photos & details for this is a packed tour of almost everything. Stand by for 44photos of truly amazing landmarks & scenery.

The bus meandered around to the outskirts of Lisbon & then battled the freeway & about an hour out (traffic) we entered a regional town of Sintra, but prior to this Mario points out several sights along the way, like the super impressive Roman type water viaduct (aqueduct) that was used for centuries, right up to the 1970s for the water supply to several parts of Lisbon. This viaduct is quite some distance in the air, around 50-70m in parts & its general length is 18klms but with its added canal system it reaches 58klms & building started in 1713 & finished in 1748. From my seat I couldn’t get a photo & same for the other sight of significance being the 25 de Abril Bridge in the distance, built to a smaller scale of the Golden Gate Bridge by the same designer, but still impressive. This bridge links the city of Lisbon to Almada on the Sth bank of The Tagus River, spanning 1,013m & was inaugurated on 6th August 1966 & was named Salazar Bridge after the Portuguese dictator. It was renamed after the successful Carnation Revolution, 25th April 1974.

Sintra (Photos below) was once the summer escape for Portugal Royalty but as more elites visited, the village changed. The Palace National da Pena is the main attraction in this region & the one road in & out is a nightmare of literally inch-by-inch traffic & ultra tight bends. Our driver, Phillip had the judgement of a maestro using every inch available & I mean inch. So close sometimes & will we ever get there, but we must do our first stop of 3 where we are shown the city square where the National Palace of Sintra is sited on the side of it & from there you can take in some of the village views. Walking about 100m up the road incline we stop to look at the first vision of a mansion described below, but first Mario shows us this quaint little building, called Lavrences Hotel (translated to Lawrence) where it has been serving beer, etc non-stop since 1764. The longest server of beer in Europe. Lord Byron even stayed here (middle right photo of apricot building).

A little further up the road (Stop 3) we venture through the big wrought iron gates to view the grounds of this estate called The Quinta da Regaleira estate of 4 hectares of forests, jotted sculptured work, fountains & walls, etc built by an eccentric freemason, António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro who built an enormous gothic mansion on it as well, but the most famous feature is the mysterious Initiation Well, built 1904 – 11. This well is an inverted tower with a spiral staircase, some 27m deep. It is based upon death & a rebirth theme & has a myriad of tunnels running off it. It’s unclear the meaning of the tunnels & what they were actually for. There’s even an underground lake that feeds off a small waterfall. The base of this tower has the Templar symbol tiled into the floor, so again, the mystery continues in regard to the Templar Knights Order. Again, the mansion shows some incredible architecture, finishes & furniture.

Next, we venture to the Palace National da Pena but it’s a painful journey winding your way up the elevation in crawling traffic. No-one yet has come up with an idea to limit the traffic & get people up there. This road is a nightmare. I would suggest a large carriage module SkyRail (Cable car) as my best first choice & then make it a one-way loop road. Such a narrow winding elevated road that is beyond in catering for the traffic of sightseers. Once we were dropped off there is limited time to do so & our bus driver, Phillip has to keep moving & do this entire loop again to retrieve us as there is no car or bus parking at the entrance. Surely a torture for him. That doubles the traffic volume .. der!!! Hopefully, the newly elected Mayor may fix this crap .. but Mario doubts it based on past experiences.

This Palace National da Pena is a 19th century of pure romanticism & fanciful architecture by King Ferdinand 11 with colours abound internally & externally. Ferdinand had a pre-arranged marriage with the Portugal Queen Maria π & had 11 children, but she died at 34 giving birth. He was King from 1837 – 1853. With Ferdinand being new to the Portugal people he used his own wealth to construct/ renovate this castle from a previous monastery as a ‘thank you gift’ to the people of Portugal for accepting him & not use the country’s money. In 1995 it was declared an UNESCO World Heritage site.

He used almost every type of architecture occurring in the then known world to bring it all into one place. He was his own architect too with other architects seconded. The ceilings & floors, plus the room’s designs are beyond amazing. The state rooms are presented as they were in 1910 when the royals vacated. The cabinetry & furniture is of an amazing high standard. Enjoy the photos but it doesn’t bring it justice. This palace is enormous & so are the grounds .. you would need more than a day just to see the grounds. The walk up the hill really sorts out the visitors. It takes a while & is steep enough. With the crowds it is such a struggle to get through the single line of viewing inside the palace but at least you get a chance to venture outside in the courtyards at various points. We spent an hour just going through the palace. I took lots more photos of this amazing place & cannot upload all of them into this blog.

Next, we head to the coast to the very ritzy Cascais where we pull over next to an old fortress, now converted into a luxury restaurant overlooking the ocean. This area has a weekly problem with the high winds here & the enormous sand dunes where the roads can be made impassable withing an hour. They have the required engineering plant permanently sited here. We can see it is a very popular surfing beach too, but the waves aren’t good today.

Moving forward we head into the centre of Cascais (Historico sector) where we have 2hours of free time. I walked to the bay, then around the Citadel, passed through the large expensive yacht marina, then the Old Quarter & back again (long walk & I believe the only one from the bus that did it). Mario was really impressed. Most of the bus went for a late lunch & sat for the entire 2hrs. On my walk I saw the famous single house, next to the marina & shown frequently on Instagram & Pinterest (Casa De Sao Bernardo) where, they have their own private beach (middle right photo below) & a parked Aston Martin coupe in the yard (super expensive house). Also, I saw in the adjacent marina carpark with Bentley’s & Rolls Royce cars. Whew!!

When the 2hrs were up we headed back towards Lisbon (getting late), but we pass through another exclusive beach area called Estoril where the world-famous soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo is currently building his huge home there. This is when Mario provides a great story from WW2. Portugal was a neutral country during WW2 & that gave sanctuary to thousands of refugees & also an in-depth spy network of opposing sides. The famous hotel, Palacio Estoril Hotel, still a current hotel was a vibrant non-stop lively establishment where the upper class resided or visited frequently. The place to be seen. Ian Fleming (author & creator of James Bond) was himself a spy there & befriended a Russian spy nicknamed ‘Tricycle’ due to the concept he may have been working for 3 networks (USA, UK & Russia). He based this Russian as his James Bond after the war. Estoril had a great port & was a superb location to still be connected to the world, neutrally of course. After the war, the hotel did some renovations to bring it up to their required high standard. Flooring & walls were replaced or relocated, etc only to find a myriad of cables travelling through certain sections of the hotel with no-one knowing who, why or how they were done without anyone knowing. It remains a mystery today but obviously; the spy networks were working overtime. LOL!!

Lisbon is now only 30mins away, so it was a good-bye to all especially Phillip & Mario once we reached our set meeting point again. Some of us gave these wonderful gentlemen a generous tip which gave them much surprise & smiles. An American lady, Christine was really the only one I managed to have time & conversations with. Some people just won’t communicate or give you the time of day, but I push it as their loss. With that I found a small restaurant for a good meal, a beer & headed up to my quaint little unit ready for a free day in Lisbon.

28/10/25 – My Lisbon Free Day

With a great sleep in & no set plans today I found a great little brekky place at my corner block where I was treated to a warm welcome & a table outside on the street platform (deck). Once I sat down people started to stream in & next it was full. Such is the power of me. Lol!! Also, the pricing wasn’t bad here too.

I saw a bit of the bay area the other day, so I headed up the main avenue linking the old quarter to the new area. This is called Av. Da Liberdade however, the locals call this Liberty Avenue, which I think resembles Paris Av. Des Champs – Elysees with its extra-wide tree lined street, nature strips & multi-walkway pavements & service roads. This renaming came around when the Portuguese Army with the help of tens of thousands of citizens peacefully revolted against the governing dictator (Salazar) on 25th April 1974. The citizens used carnations & placed them into the rifle barrels of the soldiers to maintain their peace action. It was all successful by the end of the day. Portugal changed for the better. Liberty Avenue is high end shopping & is so wide that between the building fronts it would be 120m distance (photo shows the medium strip between the roadways). At the northern junction of this avenue is a major roundabout where centrally is the magnificent Marques De Pombal Monument of a powerful leader in the 1700s. An impressive monument. From my hotel, this is a 2klm walk.

With nothing around this area to view out of the ordinary I headed back towards the bay area to seek out more sights & find a layback area to watch the Lisbon day life. Passing down the other side of this expansive avenue I came across another brilliant statue depicting an angel praising the brave soldier & with the help of 2 strong male humans supporting the soldier in his efforts. Well, that’s my interpretation. What is yours? Down at the bay area I embraced the culture straight away of peace & harmony with the Arco da Rua Augusta like it’s Lisbon’s Arc de Triomphe & another monument in the Placa do Comercio.

After a while I came across Espressolab Baixa which was a brilliant café & with good pricing & such a great ambience. I sat there for quite a while until I thought best to move on. I wanted to get better toothpaste than what I had & out of the blue I found this supermarket that had been hidden the whole time I was here. Not shown on Google Maps & nothing like it around my unit area. I was also able to get my protein bars & drinks for later today & tomorrow before my flight. The toothpaste was also a lot cheaper than the pharmacy store stock. You have to be so aware of the pricing especially when the Australian dollar is doing so poorly.

Coming out of the store, I walked straight into the deluge of teeming rain & with hardly any overhead covering around but a few of us ‘huddled’ together under a very small canopy. I should have looked at the forecast more closely. Didn’t pack my raingear. Der!! The slightest easing forced me to move on & surprisingly I thought I would have been soaked more by the time I got back to my unit. It was a lot of rain in that time. Thankfully, I knew the underground train station & subway connection to both sides of my street & close to my hotel. Now to get my clothes air dried before I start packing for my flight tomorrow to Dublin. I started to write this blog & do my flight check-in with TAP Airlines. Such a breeze. The trick is, to do my train connections well tomorrow to get me to the airport. It’s a bit tricky here in downtown Lisbon at first glance, but I’ll work it out.

I’ll end my Blog #18 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be my journey to Dublin. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #17 – Lisbon 26/10/25

 It was my last night in Barcelona, so I strode out for one last look & enjoy the restaurant night life and a great pasta meal in Placa de Reial. Eventually I returned to my Hotel Espana to repack my bags for my later flight to Lisbon Portugal set at 12.35pm. This later timing gave me the chance to be first at brekky (7.30am) & then walk the 12mins up to Placa Catalunya where I was able to step straight onto the Aerobus for Airport Terminal 1 (€4.30 – one way = 20min trip). The bus let us off at the end of the terminal building & as I walked through the doors the enormous indicator board had my bag drop off at the counter #1 & there wasn’t much of a line up either. What a win!! Some passengers even got to the counter & didn’t even have their passports ready. Really? The joys of travelling.

With being 2.5hrs early (3hrs required) my flight has some 30 before it, so no gate set as yet. With 30mins before boarding time the board & my notified email says the plane is running 40mins late. It seemed longer but finally Gate B40 comes up (long way down to that gate) but we can’t board yet again. An Airbus A320 arrives & it has to go through a clean & sanitize plus services delivery of food, refueling & baggage storage, etc before we can board. Going to Lisbon gains us an hour, so nothing to get upset about. We are split into 3 zones as per our passes. When I get my seat there is confusion all around with carry on hand baggage storage & then so many people were found to be in the wrong seats. How simple can it be, not just seats wrong, but rows? Arghh!!! Finally, taxiing starts at 1.22pm (1 hour late).

A beautiful landing in Lisbon (2hr flight) so understandably no inflight refreshments provided. With the ultimate stop at the terminal there was a rush to stand & retrieve their carry ons. Why? There’s always an accepted timeframe for departing the aircraft. I’m sitting still in my seat watching the frustrations of passengers & trying to not blurt out in laughter. It seemed an eternity till there was positive movement to the exit. One of the worst delays I’ve ever experienced. Strolling through the airport looking for the Baggage Claim signs that were minimal to say the least, but I kept walking with the stream of passengers & eventually Baggage & Exit appeared & we are on carousel 5 & my bag was one of the first to come out. Another win!!

One of the things that has helped me over some years of my travelling is to plan sufficient time to peruse the airport terminal you arrived in to see the set out, signage, etc & in this case Terminal 1 where I will be using in a few days. As you can see in the photo the Lisbon airport entrance is fantastic with a huge indicator board in your first viewing then clearly Terminal 1 & 2 are identified. This ensures confidence when returning to catch your next flight without the confusion anxiety attacks.

Now for the bus or train to the Historical Quarter … With much confusion I found the bus stop for the 722 buses so that will do. However, the driver & the machine won’t accept my VISA Debit Card. The driver wanted to depart immediately & stated cash but said fix him up later & drove quickly. I kept an eye on Google Maps when I could to see if I’m on the right track. After 20mins, the bus pulls up, apparently end of trip (terminates) … I went to pay but driver said, “now free”. “Gracious” with me now speaking Spanish .. LOL!!! Another win! I found out later the train involved 2 stops, so the bus was the right guess. Looking at my phone, the bus stop was on the opposite side of the road to my hotel, Inn-Chiado Restauradores. Now comes the fun part in finding the entrance. After checking a few times (confusing), it kept me at this souvenir shop (photo). Ultimately, I walked into this ultra-tiny souvenir shop & the owner sees my suitcase & points to a large door at the rear of the shop (Welcome Door). Here I press a button & the door unlocks. There is a staircase immediately in front of me. Yikes! With my 19.6klg bag & now 6.5kg day pack.

A deep breath & up we go to a door with the hotel name on it on the 2nd level with a doorbell. A welcoming young man opens & happily shows me to my room #2, facing the street. I sign the small form, get keys & WiFi & then that’s it. Bonus! My ‘hotel’ is basically an apartment & the bedroom is my unit. Go figure!! I quickly dropped my bags, locked my room & headed out for the remaining sunshine & to see what’s around in the vicinity of my ‘hotel’ in this historical quarter. With this main street of Av. da Liberdade (my hotel street) there were lots of people & many sights to see, plus it was obvious to wander down to the ocean via the street R. Aurea to Placa do Comercio (plaza with an 18th century notable arch & statue called Arco da Rua Augusta), seeing great landmarks, some quite unique to a clear ocean (bay – like) & painted stone castles & people enjoying the serenity. In the centre of this plaza is a very large equestrian statue of King Jose’ l which is quite impressive & in detail. I enjoyed seeing the cute trams & some restructured engineering structures converted to elite restaurants up high (Elevador de Santa Justa) as per the photo below. The Arco da Rua Augusta was built to commemorate the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake. I then returned for a large beer & later a great chicken thigh meal with bean rice & flat chips (Nacho-like) in a small street near my hotel. Yummo.

Returning back to my room I noticed 2 separate underground train stations, one on each side of my street Av. da Liberdade (Restauradores & Rossio) plus an underground walkway linking them. These I will need to check out to see if my return to the airport might suit in a few days. Eventually, back into my room to unwind & get things ready for my full day bus tour along the coast with Odyssey Tours (Lisbon board to Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo Roca Coast & Cascais plus the additional Full Pena Palace and Regaleira sights included), so should be a great full-on day. The meeting point is just 50m away from my hotel .. another win!! Something doesn’t feel right .. too many wins … LOL!!

I’ll end my Blog #17 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be my full day bus tour of regions outside of Lisbon with lots of amazing locations & photos as mentioned above with lots of photos. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #16 – Barcelona B 25/10/25 

25/10/25 My free day to do whatever. First thing .. sleep in. Yay!!! Take time & eat large at the buffet brekky (included in my rate). I then headed off towards the marina (Southeast) where you see all types of old buildings, Naval HQ, Naval Museum & where you also come across some insane yachts that someone must own in this marina. The ‘ships’ here are enormous & beyond comprehension. Mostly have the Spanish flag mounted. Serious money here. The ship that caught my eye was ‘Breakthrough’ & is owned by Bill Gates of course & is the World’s first Hydrogen fuel-cell superyacht. It has 14 balconies & 7 platforms for 5 decks. You must look it up to fully see what this yacht has. Beyond belief. BREAKTHROUGH Yacht – 119m (390ft) Feadship 2025 | YachtBuyer Bill Gates has never set foot on this boat & I also wish to reaffirm my absolute disgust of this vile human in what he continues to do to this world by stealth.

Today, lots of photos again. I walked around the marina seaport & very new marina complexes but can’t afford the shopping there. Lol!! Walking over a pier at Rambla de Mar to the shopping centre I had to wait for a 40m part of the pier that glides away (photo above) to allow the marina vessels to pass through to the open sea. It takes about 10mins to slide out & the same sliding back. Very ingenious.

From there I walked towards the historical centre, Palau & El Gotic (Gothic Qtr) areas of high-end shops via Laietana & Portal de l’Angel streets where I came across a compilation of close landmarks like, the Historical Barcelona Museum, Barcelona Cathedral, Placa de Catalunya, Placa de Sant lu & Placa del Rei & Placa Reial near my Hotel Espana. A great area to see the old & new works & by chance I ended up eventually at Placa Catalunya with 2 very large fountains, green park space & the bus terminal for the Parada Aerobus Shuttle I’ll take tomorrow morning for my plane to Lisbon, Portugal. A1 Bus leaves here for my airport terminal. It is a 1klm walk for me to board this bus, so only 12mins away from my Hotel Espana.

I headed out later for some food & drink & then was back early to repack for flying (different than by my recent train trips). I did 17,503 steps today = 13.42klms. I’ll end my Blog #16 here. Many thanks for reading my blogs. My next blog will be my journey to Lisbon, Portugal. Please stay safe, happy & healthy. Cheers.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #15 – Barcelona A 24/10/25

WOW!!! Lots of photos!!! From my last blog #14 24/10/25 12.30pm to finish off. With my online ticket from Get Your Guide I bought back in Aus, I am about to enter the beyond amazing Basilica de la Sagrada Familia where after going through the airport-type screening, I can walk through to the mezzanine (inside the security fence, but still outside the monument). I’m in awe of what I’m seeing but not sure what to do. Without noticing, a young guide was standing next to me (Thomas). He helped me download the Sagrada Familia app (Google Play) for all the media connection & narrations. Thank God he was there. Everything flowed after that. Now I’m not going to write everything that I experienced & came across. Firstly, I have no words that can describe the amazing structure before my eyes. Beyond words & comprehension. In total awe. Antoni Gaudi at 31yrs old was in my opinion beyond comprehension in his vision for his temple, later to be unified as a basilica of a gothic type of perfection. Look at the scale of this structure by comparing the people within & around it.

You must read the book I bought in their museum to grasp the many details, etc in this basilica. I’m awe struck at everything that my eyes scan to. How can anyone design the engineering, physics & still get the construction right. If this is not the paramount of human design/ construction on earth I don’t know what is (forget the pyramids, Great Wall of China, etc). I hope you can get a grasp of this basilica, inside & out. The stats are beyond comprehension; there will be 20 towers when completed & with the central tower (under construction will reach 172.5m high, named Tower of Jesus Christ) & the 2nd highest tower, St Mary’s Tower at 138.5m high completed now. 12 of the towers will represent the 12 apostles. I was able to take the tower lift option located within St Mary’s Tower & that is high .. for a great city viewing & you are welcomed to exit by taking the spiral stone staircase all the way down, to which I did gracefully & carefully but didn’t count the steps (above a hundred easily). I don’t believe my photos show you the real insights to this structure, but I hope you can get at least a gist of it. Feel free to immerse yourself into the details as a means of what my eyes are seeing. You will see one photo (bottom right) with a large cross on its highest tower. This is what it will be when this tower is completed.

This basilica has all the sculptures & religious items from the bible on the external faces of the structure & there is so much to see externally, whereas the internal areas are full of open spaces & light to resemble the peace & solitude of prayer. As you enter the internal areas, you are left standing in disbelief of the stone columns, stained glass windows, the roof where it is far too much for your eyes to fathom. The darkest columns (4 of them at 22.2m height x 2.1 diameter) are made of Porphyry stone (a hard purple-red volcanic stone, highly prized from Egypt & extremely strong in compressive forces) & these will carry the entire central tower (Tower of Jesus Christ) & form the centre piece of the structure. The darker grey columns are of Basalt (18.5m x 1.75m); the light grey columns are Granite (14.8m x 1.4m) & the lighter columns of Montjuic stone (11.1m x 1.05m) with the walls of Sandstone. The columns leading to the ceiling resemble the shape of trees with their branches spread out to support the roof structure, quite some 30+m high. How do you engineer & construct stone column trees? The 4 Porphyry columns support the transept vaulting (30+m high) which glows of rich gold with a central skylight & is the Throne of God. The Tower of Jesus Christ continues above it to its eventual height of 172.5m. Gaudi even designed the furniture & prayer benches (pews) & so many more internal items on display.

The centrepiece is the ‘altar-like’ stage, with the enormous pipe organ pipes standing high above it & everywhere is covered with natural light. When you walk behind this ‘altar’ there are low windows forming a curved wall. Looking through these windows you can see below, the real sacred church alter & pews (The Crypt) & the organist playing the organ. Near the altar is the tomb of Antoni Gauci who worked on this basilica from 31yrs old right up to his death in 1926, when he was hit by a tram (Born 1852 – 1926 = 74yrs old). Barcelona gave him a royal sendoff & dedicated his resting place in the Crypt. The centre bottom photo is the window looking down into the crypt & the pipe organ player. The top right photo shows you the small window looking into the crypt below. The top centre photo shows you the altar with the magnificent Jesus & cross sculpture suspended above with the pipe organ tubes behind the altar.

Walking through to the other side (Main entrance in the future) you can see even more external statues & biblical symbols of teachings plus the enormous bronze doors. Each door represents certain events of Jesus & one of the doors has different sized fonts of the Lord’s Prayer written in 49 other languages than the main language in Catalan. The detail on these doors is truly amazing. Gaudi tested a lot of bells to get the tones he wanted for the bell tower & eventually was able to secure a myriad of tubular bells to reach all the octaves of the keys of a piano.

To repeat, I don’t believe my photos show you the real insights to this structure, but I hope you can get at least a gist of it. I took far too many photos to upload as well. To do this monument in a real sense & with the tower viewing it took me 3hrs & I could have stayed longer. I also managed to do a prayer before the alter for a great Yamba lady, Edie who I found out today passed away in her 90s. She was an icon in Yamba & I loved seeing her every time. I’ll miss her. As stated earlier the 2nd highest tower, St Mary’s Tower at 138.5m high is fully completed now & I took the special lift up to the viewing platform within to take the photos of the surrounding Barcelona, noting this structure is the highest in Barcelona. Taking everything possible into my memory I literally spiraled down the volume of steps to the ground floor.

With some trepidation I left this magnificent basilica & in the hope I can retain all that I saw firmly in my memory. I kept looking back at this structure as I casually walked away. If you read my last Blog #14 you would see the sights, I came across going to & from this basilica & well worth mentioning. Of course, I did a lot more walking after & overall, I managed to do 26, 274 steps = 20.42klms. Finished off with a great pizza & a pint of beer. Finally in bed at 11.30pm after blog typing & a part of my sleeping problem being the basilica reminiscing in my mind like a video loop. The bottom photos show you the completion & the right one shows the status Oct 2025 construction as I walked away.