Marco Island FL

Corey: May 2-10
Jen: May 7-10

The weeks proceeding this trip saw a flurry of text messages reading "Maaaaarcooooo!" quickly returned was the reply of "Iiiiisland!"
Jen's sister and brother-in-law, Amy and Brian, are on a tour around the country (www.kuzmerlain.blogspot.com) and decided to take a week in Marco Island Fl. Corey went down to join them on Saturday along with their friend John from GA. Jen, because of work, flew down for a short vacation or a long weekend, however you want to look at it, on Thursday. Marco Island is nice if you are looking for a slower paced beach vacation. It was also the low season, which suits us just fine. We stayed in a suite at the Olde Marco Island Inn and Suites- decent.


Most of the week was spent at the beach and exploring Marco Island. We all decided we want to buy a condo at the Esplanade Shops. This has shops, restaurants, including a Cold Stone Creamery and beautiful views of the bay. Thursday night after a glorious day at the beach, we celebrated Big John's birthday (which was actually Friday) by hitting the town. After consulting with the front desk at the Inn, we took a cab over to the Tokyo Inn, a Japanese Steakhouse. It wasn't much to look at but the food was tasty, and our chef Tim put on a good show. We then took the craziest cab ride of our lives, and funniest, to the bar the locals had been telling us to visit all week, the Snook . Which was also walking distance to the Inn. Um, they have happy hour from 10 pm - 1 am! It was a good night and Brian got the whole bar to sing happy birthday to John at midnight.



Friday started with a nice greasy breakfast sandwich from Starbucks, not as good as Dunkin'. We then headed down to Everglade City to get a fan boat tour of the Everglades. After doing come web searches we decided to go to Totch's Island Boat Tours. Our boat Captain Javier did not disappoint. We started the tour and were immediately joined by a young pelican. Clearly this was a rehearsed trick with the pelican but it was still eyeing Amy in a freakish way. We saw some interesting trees, foliage and quite a bit of wild life, including rather tame raccoons who come up to the boats for dog biscuits. After getting to hold a very strong and very smelly three year old alligator we headed back to Marco to go to the beach one last time.



For our last night on the island, we watched an amazing sunset (exactly at 8:02 pm as predicted by the weather service) on the beach with probably everyone else in town. There was applause and cheers when the sun dropped below the horizon. We looked but didn't see the green flash. (It's a real occurrence by the way). We had a lovely water side dinner at CJ's on the Bay and finished the evening with a stop at Cold Stone Creamery. Or as we often call it, Stone Cold Creamery- WWE reference anyone?..no? moving on.

Departing early Saturday morning (too early for Jen) we headed up to Fort Myers (we were flying back to NH from there the next day). Amy, Brian and John dropped the Kuzliots off at a hotel in the middle of a shopping plaza and headed back up to Georgia. Jen and Corey hiked up across the hot pavement to an Ihop for a huge and yummy breakfast/ lunch and then spent a lazy day by the hotel pool. Conveniently, the shopping complex had the Bell Tower 20 Cinema right next door; we went to see Wolverine- it was ok, should have seen Star Trek instead. After we ate dinner on the outside deck at Shoeless Joe's, the hotel restaurant and bar (Fort Myers is the spring training home of the Red Sox and the Twins), we attempted to walk to the river but it was dark, a non-residential area and a lot further walk from the hotel than it looked like on the map. Oh well, maybe next time. It was a fun vacation, see the pictures in the post below.

Marco!

Ireland

We took this trip in November. Ireland is a great place to visit anytime, this was Jen's third trip and Corey's first. Jen thinks there were ups and downs to visiting in Nov. Down- it was wet and foggy, Up- not a lot of other tourists and since she hates crowds it's a big Up. One of the best parts about Ireland no matter when you travel- the Full Irish Breakfast (or Ulster Fry in the North). Always get the full breakfast. We had a great time and are looking forward to going back again.

DAY ONE

We flew in and out of Dublin which is a great city but next time we think we'll just fly to Shannon since you have to land there anyway on Aer Lingus. (one of our favorite airlines- can't beat an airline that serves a meal every two hours).

Upon arriving in Dublin we went to pick up our economy rental car from Hertz.... economy in size- not so much in price.

After cramming our two suitcases into the tiny boot of the Yaris- we were off! Oh and economy also means standard transmission- having to shift with your left hand is a little unnerving.

Thanks to the hand drawn map by the lovely woman at Hertz, we got to the hotel with little to do- other than Jen's general panic of driving in any city larger than Manchester.

Our hotel was located conveniently downtown (we had good experiences with the Days Inn or Days Hotel chain for clean cheaper accommodations). As we arrived at 9:30 am but couldn't check-in until 2 pm we set off to see the city. It was cold and rainy. We found a cafe to warm up and plan our walking route- 20 minutes later we emerge to a beautiful sunny sky.We walked through Temple Bar over to City Hall and the Dublin Castle then on to St. Patrick's Cathedral (closed due to mass), and over to St. Stephen's Green where we saw statues of A.E. Guinness and James Joyce then on to our final destination of the afternoon- The Guinness Brewery Storehouse.

The tour is not free and self-guided but the building is very cool. It's shaped like a 7 story imperial pint glass with the Gravity Bar at the top. This was very interesting and you have to do it, but essentially you are paying $28 for a pint. But what a pint it is!

After dinner at Wagamama and an early night out in Temple Bar, we headed off to bed.

DAY TWO

Irish roads and highways are usually well marked and easy to follow but we recommend buying an Atlas if you plan on a lot of driving. We started our road tour of Ireland by heading north to Belfast. We got there without incident; crossing into Northern Ireland and vice versa is a non-event, there are no border crossings, no Welcome to signs, the only clue we had was that the speed limit signs changed from kilometers to miles per hour.

We got in a little later than planned so we hopped a tour bus (probably the only one in the city) and took a driving tour of the newly established quarters. The Titanic Quarter- where it's namesake was built, the Queen's Quarter/ University District, the Cathedral Quarter and the Political Districts- Falls and Shankill Rds. After this we walked around the City Centre to see the City Hall, the Wheel of Belfast- a quasi-temporary Ferris wheel and to get some food. We found a nice, somewhat swanky pub in Joy's Entry called McCracken's. Entries are small- sometimes very narrow alleyways that connect the main streets of the City Centre. They have businesses and pubs down them. After dinner we went to the famed Crown Bar to relax in a snug and have a few pints. Belfast is an amazing city that we wished we had more time to explore. It felt very safe and the people were very friendly. There is so much history- we could go on and on.

DAY THREE
The next day we left early to log our longest drive of the trip. We drove north to Bushmills to see the Giant's Causeway. Not the greatest weather we had, not the worst. We arrive to driving rain and wind. Still the scenery was beautiful and thankfully the sun did come out a bit, but the wind was so cold it made little difference. We walked down the coast and up on a path on the cliff- where we were nearly blown off in the wind gusts. After our visit and near death experience we headed back into the Republic towards the west coast.

We ended our day in Westport, Co. Mayo and pulled up to the first accommodations that a) looked open and b) looked nice. Westport is rather deserted in the low tourist season. However we found a nice place the Westport Inn or as it is now called the Mill Times Hotel. After walking around town three times to find and compare the three restaurants open for dinner (again, low season) and choosing one, we headed over to Matt Molloy's Pub. Matt Molloy is the flutist for the Chieftains and part owner of Manchester's own Shaskeen. Lucky us, there is traditional music played every night; even in the low season.

DAY FOUR

We decided to try not to log as many hours in the car this day and headed for Galway for the night. On the way there we drove though Connemara National Park which is absolutely amazing and full of sheep. True to Ireland's growing economy and population (until very recently anyway) there was a lot of road construction or Major Works as they call it and this made for slow travel on secondary roads. We got into Galway and found a B&B that was sufficient and spent the afternoon and evening wandering the town and shops.

We had dinner at the world famous McDonaghs, fish and chips of course, and then hung out at Sonny's. Which we thought was a small narrow pub (we had a nice seat in a niche in the wall across from a fireplace). But as we left through the back door we found that the place was HUGE and quite elaborate. It was actually two pubs Sonny's and the Front Door. We headed back to our B&B for a extra early start in the morning.

DAY FIVE
We got up super early and were on the road by 7 am. We wanted to drive from Galway to Killarney and drive through the Burren and stop at the Cliffs of Moher on the way. Now this being the Irish winter, it didn't get light out until 8 am (and gets dark again at 4:30). We arrived at the Cliffs a little after 8 to find that they don't open until 9-and that it was completely fogged in. We waited for a while in the car then bundled up and went inside to the cafe for the WORST cup of coffee we've ever had and waited for the fog to lift...it only got worse. So we decided, "we are here, right?"...and made the best of it.

After spending some time exploring in the fog and damp (it's a color you know- damp) we headed for the Killimer Tarbert ferry which would save us 85 miles of driving. It leaves every hour on the hour and we had just under that to get there. Thankfully only having to stop once for major works and not encountering many lorrys going our way (plenty coming towards us- makes the roads seem even more narrow) we got there just in time to be the last car on the ferry before they shut the gate. The rest of the drive to Killarney was nice though a bit slow, and we got into town around 2 pm. We drove around town and found a street where there were many B&B's to choose from. We picked the first with parking and vacancy and it paid off. It was probably the best place we stayed the whole trip. The Larkinley Lodge on Lewis Rd is as nice as any hotel. It has been recently refurbished in a modern style with nice down comforters and marble bathrooms. The hostess, Toni was delightful. She also made the best breakfast of the trip. We highly recommend this B&B to anyone. We got settled in our room and then headed to the Ross Castle for a walk about the park and a Castle tour- we learned some gross facts about bathrooms in a 15th century castle. We then headed over the the Muckross House for a tour. Beautiful house- though not as old as our own in Concord- interesting to see how the upper class lived.

We headed back into town for dinner and some more Guinness at Corkery's and a great night's sleep back at the Lodge.

DAY SIX

After Toni's wonderful breakfast we headed back downtown to do some shopping and see if we could find Corey a Killarney Christmas ornament (ala Bing Crosby's Christmas in Killarney song- which he sang the whole trip). Finding none, we drove back into Killarney National Park to do some exploring. We went to the Muckross Abbey and the Torc Waterfall.

Then we got in the car for our long trip back to Dublin. Toni had warned us that traffic around Dublin on a Friday was going to be bad... she was right. We got to Dublin faster than we thought we would- the highway was much farther along than Google maps knew but once we got to the city limits, traffic slowed to a crawl for miles. Because our flight out was early the next day and we had to drop off the rental car we decided to stay in the Days hotel Dublin Airport. It was not all that near the airport but we did meet the very nice shuttle driver who says we have to go to County Wicklow the next time we are in Ireland. And that we will.