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Medjugorje, what’s your story?

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It’s not my usual Friday night it must be said, watching a middle-aged man talking to Our Lady in Croatian on a hill.

I’d like to say that my usual Friday evening is spent on the ale, maybe a gig or a house party, or all three.

I’d like to say that, although there was a time.

Now it’s a tinnie of Stella Artois and Graham Norton.

But, enough meandering, and back to Medge in Bosnia & Herzegovina as us pilgrims (I’m a day in and am acting like I know it all) like to call it.

I’m on a Marian Pilgrimages www.marian.ie, for want of a better word, pilgrimage, and if I can confess…

And it’s 5pm outside St James’s twin steeple church in any language if you’re interested. But yes, I’m all preyed out.

We’ve done joyful, sorrowful, God it’s pitiful how I think I’m fooling anyone by pretending I know the words.

There’s been a Mass in the morning, a talk from an Indian priest who had been held captive by ISIS in Yemen in the afternoon.

And prayers outside the Church and on the path up to the Blue Cross where the six visionaries parlayed with Our Lady 38 years ago.

The power had been down in the town back in 1981 due to an electrical storm so Top of the Pops wasn’t on.

I’m going straight to Hell by the way!

Yes, and when we get up to the Blue Cross, there are more prayers (some of this rosary is coming back to me now).

And there’s an Ave Maria or two on the way back to the hotel.

Where the charming and loquacious Anis has us saying Grace Before Meal.

I’m off for a lie down now, but will obviously get on my knees and say a wee prayer first.

Before heading on up that hill later.

Where Ivan the visionary will meet Mary, although the rotter, he won’t get her to take off her cloak of invisibility,

I’ll let you know what Our Lady says… but I’m not expecting too much revelatory.

My money is on her asking us to say the rosary a lot more!

And here’s some more thoughts on Medge… Bosnia & HerzegoJimmy

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Bosnia & HerzegoJimmy

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I’m off… to see Our Lady. This time in Medjugorje in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

We get together every now and again, Our Lady and Me, as you’ll know…

Like a couple of years ago in

Fatima. www.visitportugal.com. And Secret Portugal

And, no that’s not her, but one of the nearest things to her.

Maria dos Anjos, the niece of the last Little Shepherd of Fatima.

Who will pray with you to Our Lady from the porch of her house.

Fatima still feels unsullied by the commercialism that stalks Lourdes www.lourdes-france.org.

But look hard enough, maybe have a word with St Bernadette.

And you will find some moving symbolism.

Like these candles carved and engraved by members of the same village or community…

Of course the most poignant part of any Marian pilgrimage is seeing those who come here for an intercession.

And here is my tribute to them The Lourdes prayer.

I’ll tell you how I get on in Bosnia and any message Our Lady and her intermediaries have for us.

On my Marian Pilgrimageshttps://marian.ie trip to Medjugorje.

But I’m off to a decent start. Bridie, a veteran of two trips a year since 1991 advised me to find my own path.

And I won’t get lost.

Before I went into the wrong lane at customs and she had to rescue me.

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Hungry and Thursday – sangria and La Sagrada

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Wel, you’d expect there to be wine around a church, and this being Spain it’s not too big a jump to see sangria too.

In Barcelona the most famous church of all is La Sagrada.

And the best way to make sense of this Teletubby church is with a jug of after jug of Sangria.

Which you can pick up fairly cheaply outside the church which is refreshing.

To the palate and the pocket. They do some pretty good pizzas and hot dogs and the like, and of course paella at a good price too.

Sangrias are one of the easiest cocktails to mix and always scream summer.

Whether in their home of Spain or in your back garden.

Sometimes it can go amiss such as when we were students and a bunch of us were working for SAGA Holidays in Aberdeen University’s Halls of Residence.

My flat mate was down with the lurgie so we decided to put some cough medicine in with the wine, the fruit, the soda water, the fresh orange juice and the lemonade.

I’m mont sure if it really made him better.

And when my old mucker Jevan, of Barbados fame https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/rihanna-in-barbados/https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/my-kiss-with-rihanna turned up all hell was let loose.

Party time

He’d only brought some cream pies from the kitchens and a food fight broke out through my flatmate’s room.

And on into the garden which our botanist landlord had expressly told us to stay out of.

Miraculously we managed to survive getting chucked out and with some good carpet cleaner I was able to maintain my friendship with my flatmate.

Who was meticulously tidy.

The good news was that he was back on his feet and propping up the bar next to us by the weekend,

But don’t try this cough medicine in the sangria trick at home, kids.

For more Barcelona frolics http://www.barcelonatourisme.com where I have wandered on my way to the port and some cruise ship fun… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/23/surfing-the-seas-in-barcelona/

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V for Vegan

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No cheap digs here about Vegans… just me flagging up World Vegan Day next month.

Vegans get a bad name when it should be the very opposite.

And like all things which we don’t know we tend to sneer.

Elaine ‘Black Magic’ as I nicknamed her (I gave everyone on our walking trip a mantle as is my way) has her own look.

She wears black, likes piercings and is a vegan.

But she doesn’t shove it down your throat.

In fact the exact opposite. To quote the quietly-spoken and truly warm Black Magic: ‘I’m entering your world.’

Which is why she never kicked up once on our Topflight trip www.topflight.ie to Ehrwald and Garmisch-Partenkirchen about the food.

And, to be fair, mine host Daniella, did cater admirably for her at the Hotel Sonneburg www.hotelsonneburg.com.

Which brings us back to World Vegan Day… which incidentally is on November 1.

With much else on lifestyle California leads the way.

West Hollywood www.visitwesthollywood.com is on point in so many ways so it comes as little surprise that it’s right up there for vegans.

Fine dining

Gracias Madre on Melrose Avenue http://Gracias Madre is the place to go.

It offers 100% organic plant-based Mexican cuisine.

And it’s chic too with hand-woven chairs, wrought-iron fixtures, embroidered fabrics and hanging fabrics.

I found WH one of the most embracing and chilled places I’ve been too.

I promised myself I’d return with our host Kate and my pals Jon, Helen and Heather.

To recreate the Beatles Abbey Road pic… on their rainbow zebra crossing.

Here’s what I thought of WH… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/06/01/california-screamin-my-weekend-with-marilyn/

If California is all about fitness and health then here’s another state which I’d pitch as even more Outdoorsy… Colorado.

Where man-banned, tattoo-sleeved men called Brad or Dexter make vegan food at their eateries in the morning, climb a mountain free-style in the afternoon and then white-water raft before it gets dark.

Casual dining

Santana’s Vegan Grill http://Santana’s Vegan Grill is proof that these aren’t people from another planet where things are logical and they have pointy ears.

So we’re looking at the only vegan drive-thru in Colorado Springs.

Which serves up plant-based alternatives for bacon cheeseburgers, hot dogs and buffalo chicken strips. Visit http://www.colorado.com.

And here’s how I got on with the hipsters in Colorado…

https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/go-west-denver-buffalo-bill/ and https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/29/the-new-pioneers/

Sweet stuff

You want some sweet treats. Well Portland, Oregon where some of us Murty’s live is the place to go.

Doe Donuts Doe Donuts is the city’s first dedicated vegan donut (they spell it without the ‘gh’) shop.

Look out for the house-made strawberry soy milk and a signature chocolate raised doughnut topped with gold pearls, chocolate shavings and ganache.

Portland is also home to the world’s first vegan mini-mall where visitors can enjoy dining, shopping and even vegan tattoos.  travelportland.com

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Cruiseday Tuesday – Trolls and the fjords

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You never forget your first love which is why I make no apologies in revisiting our unforgettable trip to the Norwegian fjords last year.

Me, The Scary One and MSC.

It was our first dip into cruising as a couple (no, not that and again why has that word been hijacked?)

I swam in the fjords… well, not exactly the deep blue sea but in a swimming pool on board.

As the mists enveloped the mountains and inlets and hid the trolls from view.

Of course there’s plenty to do inside should you want to stay out of the soft drizzle.

And it doesn’t always rain, it was just that we went in September which made it all the more dramatic.

There are a host of spa, gym, food and drink and restaurant options and great bars.

And if you want to unleash your inner karaoke singer you can do that too, although you’d have to be really lucky to be there when Bandanaman is singing Chuck Berry’s Memphis, Tennessee.

The Scary One wasn’t!

Now, of course there are wonderful on-shore excursions in Norway and a day in Copenhagen too. Wonderful!

So, here’s the deal:

7 Night Norwegian Fjords Fly + Cruise on MSC Meraviglia from €899pp, departing May-August 2020.

Balcony cabin upgrades from €200pps.

Itinerary: Copenhagen, Denmark – Hellesylt/Geiranger, Norway – Alesund, Norway – Flaam, Norway – Kiel, Germany – Copenhagen, Denmark.

Price Includes:

Return flights from Dublin, seven-night cruise, all meals and snacks, entertainment, service charge,

Visit Click & Go www.clickandgo.com/holidays/cruise/cruise-deals.

Christmas on the river

Christmas Market Dusseldorf Marktplatz – with a Christmas tree as a backdrop.

Just 71 sleeps until Christmas so plenty of time to escape…

Our friends at Travel Department will help you get away from Auntie Mary and Uncle Joe and all those annoying little nephews and nieces.

Not to mention your own family!

Christmas Rhine River Cruise (Cologne-Cologne)

Hop on-board the 4 star MS Amadeus Silver II and sail through Germany.

Visit Cologne, Dusseldorf, Koblenz, Strasbourg and Mainz along your cruise.

Beat the drum: Dresden and the Elbe

Stop in Speyer where you will have free timBe to explore the former imperial town or attend Christmas Mass before a Christmas party on-board the ship with dinner and entertainment. 

Departing December 22. Visit http://www.traveldepartment.ie

Cruising in Germany is a delight which I should have done more of, but here is Dresden, a boat trip and much, much more… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/dresdens-renaissance-martin-luther/

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Holidos and don’ts – late nights

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One of the best things about a holiday has always been later bedtimes and not having to get up for work or school.

Unless, of course, you’re Irish where 4.30am is the time to leave a party.

As it was explained to me after one Christmas party when I asked the next day why it was 4.30am?

And I was out of there by 11.30pm.

‘Too early,’ said my colleague.

‘So why not 5am?’

‘Oh, that’s just taking the piss.’

Late nights and through-the-morning benders raised their head when a reporter I sent away pulled such a stunt.

And let down the holiday providers by falling out with the hotel in the early hours and then going AWOL.

Now I’ll get back to you in a future post on my favourite people in the Travel business – holiday providers.

And my least favourite, entitled journalists who call Travel assignments ‘junkets’ and treat the holiday providers with disdain.

Now that’s not to say you can’t have fun.

On my first trip to Barbados my old University pal and proud West Indian Jevan took me out on Foreday Morning.

Which was after the planned itinerary.

It got messy, yes, a mud and paint Soca and rum party through the streets of Bridgetown.

And I got no sleep but I did meet up with my group the next day to go catamaranning. Let’s rumba in Barbados and My kiss with Rihanna.

And visit http://www.visitbarbados.org and https://www.visitbarbados.org/crop-over-festival.

Treat your reps and hosts well, no treat them better – after all they’re babysitting you.

And they will allow you up late after your bedtime… if you behave yourself and are there the next day.

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Moanday Morning – Carousels

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And the seasons

They go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on a carousel of time

We can’t go on, we can only look behind

From where we came from

And go round and round and round

On the carousel of time.

The Circle Game – Joni Mitchell

No, not that carousel, but the ones at the airport.

I got in late earlier this month to Dublin Airport from Munich.

And spent a good half an hour watching the painted suitcases go round and round.

Mine’s unhelpfully is charcoal grey.

Now for whatever reason mine always comes out last.

Which means that if I’m on an organised trip I might hold my party up as happened in Los Angeles. https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/06/22/my-weekend-with-marilyn/ And http://www.visitcalifornia.com.

Or have to get a taxi and join up with them later which very neatly happened.

This time on the way back from Munich my luggage didn’t arrive at all. Hungry and Thursday: The Munich Beerfest. Visit https://www.muenchen.de/int/en/tourism.html

And I got the call over the Tannoy to report to the desk.

Where I was told that my luggage had been held back.

Either because they had to look through it or that there wasn’t space on the plane.

Extra baggage

Now, I don’t have a problem with them scanning my clothes and possessions.

But why can they not guarantee that the luggage which you have given them gets on the plane?

The charming young man at Dublin Airport was patience personified though.

As he assured me that I just needed to fill out my form and that it would be delivered to my house the next day.

And that if I needed to buy emergency clothes I could apply for compensation.

I can’t complain about this process but I would again suggest that every piece of luggage should arrive at its destination.

As for the carousel, can they not just line up the luggage in a row inside the airport?

That would be easier.

Usual consultancy fee.

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Holiday Snaps – Paddington and Peru

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They’re part of our family… Paddy, Barney, Maura, Stevie G (although we don’t like him anymore for obvious reasons), Scruffy, my first and best… and a pack of others.

And we’ve even got a spectacled bear from Berlin who I think we called unoriginally Berliner.

We don’t though have a Paddington Bear which is OK because the real one lives in Darkest Peru as we all know.

Permit me to say

It was his creator Michael Bond’s idea to have Paddington come from Darkest Africa.

But he was dissuaded as they don’t have bears and instead chose Peru, home of the Spectacled Bear.

Too many people probably visit Peru and forget all about our favourite marmalade-munching bespectacled bears on their way to Machu Pichu.

But the Peruvians don’t and have their own statue to the famous furry fella… http://www.atlasobscura.com.

OK, Machu Picchu is well worth seeing and is one of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World.

The city which means ‘old mountain’ in Quechua, is a city of stone, was built by the Incas around the 15th century and discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

All of which makes me think what a golden age for exploration the 19th and early 20th century were.

And wouldn’t it be good if we could unearth a new civilisation now, one that had never heard of Brexit.

Now Michu Picchu is one of the Seven Modern Wonder of the World and is therefore pretty popular.

With Gap Year students alas, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to see it.

Particularly as USIT  https://www.usit.ie/tours/25295-trekking-the-inca-trail-4d-3n will help you get one of the permits which are like gold dust.

Permit me to say

Only 500 permits per day are allocated for the year by the Peruvian Government and this number includes porters and guides too. 

Permits are sold on a first come first serve basis, so you need to book well in advance.

USIT will also give you lots of advice for the Inca Trail…

Such as what you’ll have to carry, how many people to a tent, how many porters for the group and if there are arrangements for special diets.

Last year only 427 people from Ireland were lucky enough to get their hands on a permit and each of them applied on average is months before their departure.

Now that I’ve found myself an ancient civilisation, Petra in Jordan https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/petra-jordan-jesus-and-the-sands-of-time/ I’m after me a Machu Picchu.

And a Great Wall of China, Christ the Redeemer in Rio, Chichen Itza in Mexico and Taj Mahal… I’ve already got me a Colosseum. It was colossal.

I can’t say that they don’t all deserve their place but I’m just saying… no Acropolis? https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/09/21/acropolis-later/

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Give us this Day – hotel churches

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Every hotel should have them… comfy beds, good showers, quiet, great vistas, and often, but not always, a TV. And obviously a church.

Which is where Francesca and her hotel in Sutri in the Lazio region of Italy, 70km outside of Rome, comes in.

Francesca is my babysitter on that leg of the 100km pilgrimage from Viterbo into Rome.

Which means that she has to show me the directions out of the village.

And onto the Via Francigena which means tutto diretto, always straight.

But, of course, she has to tell me twice… and inevitably I get lost and almost shot by a farmer shooting pheasants.

It happens.

And before she sent me on my way, she had to go into town early to get me plasters for my feet.

Charity begins at Rome

From my walk which was by then 5km longer than it should have been.

On account of me getting lost.

I would put on maybe 20 extra kilometres.

This being Italy and on the Via Francigena route charity is at the forefront.

And so back to the church.

It is a quirk, or an age-old custom, perhaps both, to have a church attached to their hotel.

And this is a working one, not like the church besides the Paradores hotel I stayed in recently.

Next to thE El Teide National Park in Tenerife.

Which for reasons unbeknown to me was locked.

Now there are few better ways to start a day than a quick quiet reflection.

On our place in the world among the hustle and bustle.

Now that can be a prayer in a church, or wherever your God lives, and a look outside and what He made.

OK, he seems to have given preferential treatment to the Italians, Il Bel Paese (the beautiful country).

But wherever you are in the world there are signs of his handiwork.

More hotels should have churches. After all who needs a gym?

Anyhow, to the important links… http://www.FrancigenaWays.com and http://www.CanariaWays.com.

And here are a couple of reminders of why walking the good walk is good for you and gets you closer to God.

And I don’t mean by almost bringing you nearer to death! https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/small-roads-lead-to-rome/ And https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/tenerife-walk/

MEET YOU IN THE PEWS

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Holiday Snaps – Step this way to Tenerife

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I’ve had more than my fair share of stick… and sticks.

And stick about sticks.

But I’ve become dependant on them, and not just because there are more rings on my trunk now.

I do feel fitter now than I have done for some time and that is in large part down to the trekking trips I have been fortunate enough to go on in recent years.

I have to confess that on the first of those I sneered somewhat when I saw the oldies with their walking poles on their way to the Camino in Galicia in Spain.

But it was me who was left with egg on my face and pains in my calves.

My Dear Old Dad, a doctor by trade, was right when he would say that we all need a stick.

And there was a collection of them in our porch back in Chez Murty when I was growing up.

I added to that too when I transported an adorned and steel-tipped stick back from my fabled Oktoberfest trip. Along with a Stein and a medical bill!

Which my Dear Old Dad, James G as opposed to my James J, discovered when he ‘accidentally’ opened my mail some weeks later.

Walk in my footsteps

I make a point of grinning and bearing any pain abroad rather than going to the hospital now.

Not that any of that will befall you on your CanariaWays.com http://www.canariaways.com trip as you will have the best prep and back-up from your holiday provider.

All of which brings me to a trailer for my Tenerife trek which was published in The Herald newspaper this weekend an in case you missed it….

Here it is here… https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/tenerife-walk/

And also to flag up these other Tenerife holidays… courtesy of TUI http://www.tuiholidays.ie.

Try seven nights over the Festive Season, and there are lots of quirky customs on the island.

From December 20, flying from Dublin to Tenerife and staying S/C in the 3* Globales Tamaimo Tropical from €719pps.

Or if those dates don’t suit, try January 3, from €409pps or January 17, from €419pps.

SNAP TO IT