The Road Scholar trip to Ireland exceeded both Sharon and my expectations.
On the last couple of trips, we have arrived a couple of days early before the tour or the cruise. I really liked how this strategy has worked. It gives us a chance to get used to the time change. If there are flight problems in route, we aren't going to miss anything. In both Prague and Dublin, we did a great job of taking advantage of getting there early. In Dublin, we spent two full days doing things that the tour wasn't going to do, including the historical walking tour, the walking tour of the Trinity Campus plus the Book of Kells Experience, the Jail and the National Gallery.
Like the seige of Sarajevo, I was aware of the problems in Northern Ireland. Being on the ground in Belfast and Derry and listening to the speakers provided a much more personal, real perspective. I didn't realize that there were actually walls between neighborhoods in Belfast. There were checkpoints between the neighborhoods, including one called checkpoint Charlie. When we walked the walls in Derry, they talked about how most of the buildings in the city had been bombed during the troubles. The walking tour of the murals in the bogside that Sharon and I did on our own were particularly poignant.
I was surprised to see Palestinian flags in Belfast. In Derry, we saw a protest in support of the Palestinians. Catholic, nationalist, and republican communities in Northern Ireland generally express strong identification with and solidarity toward Palestinians. This alignment is rooted in historical parallels, political ideology, and shared narratives of anti-colonial resistance.
One of the things about Road Scholar is that they will start some days with a lecture. They were all high quality and added a lot to the context of where we were going for the day and what we were seeing. While we had a couple of speakers on the OATS trip, Road Scholar made it more part of the rhythm of the trip.
On the trip, we got a chance to visit a number of very cool places, including the Giant's Causeway, the Burren, the Cliffs of Mohr, the Ring of Kerry, Brú na Bóinne and Glendalough. We got a couple of hours in each of these places before moving on. We could have spent the day exploring several of these places. The trade-off of being on the tour is that you can cover a lot of ground, but your experience at some of the sites isn't as indepth as it could be. I think that the tradeoff was worth it, but does make me appreciate the perspective of people who keep coming back to a country over and over. Holly and Van have some friends who have been to Ireland seven times.
The Road Scholar trip included a lot of meals. Nevertheless, Sharon's passion and superpower is finding nice restaurants. Over the course of the trip, we had five Michelin dinners, including: Library Street Restaurant, Dublin (Michelin Featured); The Muddlers Club, Belfast (one Michelin star); Artis, Derry (Michelin Featured); The Pullman, Galway (one Michelin star); and, the Pig's Ear (Michelin Featured). We had three other nice dinners, including: SOLE Seafood & Grill, Dublin; Peploe's St Stephens Green, Dublin; and, Rúibín Bar & Restaurant, Galway. Of these eight, I think that the Artis was the best and SOLE was the worst.
One other meal related note, a lot of the included lunches were soup and white bread sandwiches. One lunch was just white bread sandwiches. The lunches that we got on the OATS trip were more varied.
Almost everyone, including Holly, Van, Sharon and me, ended up getting sick. When we joined the tour, one or two people were sick. Over the course of the next sixteen days, traveling together on a small bus, it spread. Even the program director got sick; she said that it was the sickest that she had been on one of the tours.
The spreading cold/flu led to one odd experience. There were a number of single travelers on the tour; one was Tom from the Washington DC area. I had a series of nice conversations with him, including one at dinner when Sharon was sick in the room. In the last week plus of the tour, he got very paranoid about getting sick. Tom started wearing a mask all the time, bogarting a seat in the front of the bus and generally staying as far away from everyone as possible. At one point, he was sitting in front of Holly on the bus. Holly started coughing and he jumped up and bolted towards the front of the bus. While I appreciate trying to not get sick, I just felt like his behavior was extreme. Tom was in our group to transfer to the airport at the end. Rather than sit in the back of a large van with Sharon, Linda and I, he jumped in the front seat with the driver. When we got to the airport, Tom literally ran away from us.
I would definitely consider another Road Scholar Trip. There was an older woman on this trip--Linda--that had done 32 Road Scholar trips!?!
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