Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Travel

  • On Abbey Island

    Unlike the impression that many have of Irish people, I have never spent much time getting to know the Ring of Kerry. In fact, I’ve always regarded it as a route much beloved of tourists and therefore cluttered with tourist buses or – perhaps even worse – tourists driving hire…

  • Ballyconneely photo used by Go Ireland

    Go Ireland is the web site run by Bord Failte (Irish Tourist Board) to help visitors find places to stay and see in Ireland. They run regular photo competitions, one of which I entered in 2008 when we were living in the U.S.  I heard nothing back about the results…

  • Different views of property

    I’ve been a keen visitor to http://www.openmedia.fr amongst other French property web sites as a tool to help identify a suitable vacation property. Yesterday, I was browsing the details of some Provençal villas in a place called Flayosc (in the Var department in the south of France) and noticed that one particular…

  • Making salt from sea water

    An article in the Irish Times (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/magazine/2010/0703/1224273550711.html) provoked a thought that we should take advantage of being close to the Atlantic Ocean and bring some salt water home to see if we could make some sea salt. I duly went down to the Coral Strand near Clifden and filled bottles…

  • Ailebrack

    Some folks from California arrived to visit us in Ireland and created the immediate question of “what to do”? As we live in Dublin, it’s an easy call to have them spend a day looking around the city but Dublin has become increasingly like other European cities over the last…

  • Some good French restaurants

    A number of excellent dinners in restaurants across France enlivened our trip as we meandered from Normandy to Paris to Chamonix to the Cote d’Azur and back again. In date order these were: Le Mascaret in Blainville –sur-Mer (Normandy): This is a Michelin one-star restaurant in a small and sleepy…

  • Chamonix Serenity

    For the last five days we have been staying at Les Balcons de Savoy (http://www.les-balcons-du-savoy.com/), a four-star apartment residence in Chamonix. Our apartment has two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a small sitting room – and best of all, a balcony (hence the name of the residence) overlooking the town of…

  • A gem in Blainville-sur-mer

    We had to pick somewhere to stay in Normandy for our first night in France. The easy decision would be to head to somewhere focused on tourists such as the resorts that service the D-Day beaches on the Manche coast. Indeed, we have stayed at the Chateau la Cheneviere (http://www.lacheneviere.com/en.html)…

  • Irish Ferries to Cherbourg

    Yesterday we took the Irish Ferries vessel “Oscar Wilde” from Rosslare to Cherbourg. I have been travelling  by ferry between Ireland and France since 1973 in fair weather and foul (one particular voyage in force 9 winds sticks in the memory), but this was the first time that I had…

  • Recommended in Palo Alto

    We lived in Palo Alto, CA from August 2007 to July 2009. This week we were back in town to catch up with some friends and stayed at the Cowper Inn (705, Cowper St). If you’re looking for somewhere to stay in Silicon Valley, there are worse places to be…