Ancient conquerors and empire builders get a bad press – they were really just adventurers who wanted to see your land. Now if only they had put away the slaughter they’d have been very welcome. Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte were among the most successful and like most emperors they cut a dash. Jools and […]
Tag archives: www.sunway.ie
Holiday Snaps – UNESCO sites and bike treks
Mariaclaudia kept us on a tight leash which is as it should be and is fiercely proud of her Padova. Which is why her antennae pinged when I asked to be dropped off at the train station during free time. Of course she drew out of me that I was going to spend the afternoon […]
Cruiseday Tuesday – Alaska, I’ll ask her
I always get a thrill when I hear of people cruising for the first time. And before I forget to get angry I’m reclaiming that word ‘cruising’ which has come to mean something else. My old friends Dougie and Julie are floating around the western Med at the moment and the last time I checked […]
Cruiseday Tuesday – Transatlantic
My three Irish uncles had tried Glasgow but swapped it for New York (each to their own). Glasgow had, in fact, rivalled New York as a shelter for immigrants in the 19th Century. And especially Italians who had mistaken it for America’s biggest city when the ship stopped for refuelling on it’s way there. It […]
Holiday Snaps – Post-exam hols
I’m glad that’s all over – the Post-Leaving Cert holidays. By the time it got to my two the destinations had changed.., it was Lisbon and Amsterdam. For me and my buddies it was camping in the French Riviera. And, no, of course it wasn’t Cannes. But St Raphael. And yes, I’ve had to add […]
Holiday Snaps La Sagrada Familia
Some things were never meant to be finished… take The Scary One (please). She is always finding things that still need to be done to the house. Word reaches me that Antoni Gaudi’s magnus opus, the Sagrada Família, first begun in 1882 but only a quarter completed by the time of his death in 1926, […]
Holiday Snaps
I love an oul’ festival…. they’re almost always not what you expect, and even better too. Take for example the Festival of the Trays which too me conjures up an image of people banging beer trays over their heads. It used to be popular in the Seventies and was featured in one of Esther Rantzen’s […]
HOLIDAY SNAPS
Sante… say it before you take the glass to your lips and afterwards and raise a fat wallet to the host who has bought you the drinks. It’s Beer Day today. What do you mean that’s just another name for Saturday? Now that’s the way the Flemish toast. And in Ieper they go to Tom’s […]