My favourite train & ferry ride

The hotel packed a breakfast for us to take on the train - ham & cheese sandwiches, fresh fruit and a drink - that was a nice touch. Off we go ...

The taxi took us to the station but we were an hour early. The trains were running on time, but you do not know which platform you are on until 15 minutes before boarding. So we waited. The night before when we checked our bookings, the Virgin Customer Services man reserved seats for us - carriage D, seats 5&6.

Mary went ahead to sit in our seats while I maneuvered the 23kg suitcases. I was expecting suitcase racks at each end of the carriage - but no! So I had to ask the lady in the cafeteria - hoping she wasn't like Coral Morrison on the Limited Tasman!!! Anyway she pointed out the gaps between the seats, so our suitcases found a home between seats 9&10 and 11&12. All's good.

Mary had good signals from Vodafone all the way - but the wifi on the train was hopeless. The train speeds through country England and Wales at 135mph - but you can really enjoy the scenery - I loved it.

When you get to Holyhead, you simply walk off the train with your baggage and walk onto the ferry after a very scant check by customs. All going good until I ask Mary if I could set up a hot spot from her phone so I could use my iPad on the ferry.

Program developers must think that we all have access to the fastest wifi and high speed cellular networks - of course we don't. So when hot spot wasn't working I had to check on the internet and then go back to the phone. It didn't work so I pressed reset - wrong - because now I needed the internet to redo the settings - but I had cancelled that and I now didn't have an internet connection - round and round and in the end all stuffed up. Thanks Vodafone.

When we arrived in Dublin port we went through immigration easily and caught a cab to our hotel. The driver was so keen to tell us about all the things to do around Dublin - Mary was taking notes feverishly - something about Howth?

Our Hotel was right in the middle of Temple Bar - and a big weekend of football was on offer - this was going to be both noisy and fascinating.

After dinner we walked out into the streets to see what was happening - people everywhere, drinking, music coming from every bar [every second building is a bar] and street performers everywhere. Outside our hotel we had a chap who had laid down about three metres of carpet on the cobblestones. He had a bike with the steering going through a set of cogs so turning left made the bike go right. For €5 you get 4 goes - if you pedal the length of the carpet you win €40. No-one did, but it was fun watching.

The noise stopped about 4am - still what do you expect, it was an experience.

Tomorrow a day in Dublin and dinner with the Jacksons - friends from way back.

CheersRead more