Westport, County Mayo

Last weekend, Erin and I went to Westport with Colm, a colleague of mine, to experience of bit of the country outside of Dublin. We arrived in Westport late Friday night after the 4 hour drive across the country. Colm parents were amazing hosts and spoiled us the entire weekend, thanks again!

We got a lift to town from his house in one of the many bays of the area to the West Bar for our first pints. After this, we went to John's Bar, which had a great fireplace and a live band playing the traditional songs, who of course was one of Colm's friends cousins. If you aren't related to someone, you know them in some way shape or form. The Guinness there was really good. After the bar we made it to the night club and ended the night in the early morning hours. It was a good taste of the city for the first night and Colm and his friends showed us a great time. It is cool to be out with the locals as you seem to always do things you normally wouldn't as a tourist (i.e. we would've never choose John's bar out of the nearly 50 in Westport town, as its off the beaten path). Erin and Steve, Colm's good mate at Matt Malloy's:The club warrants a post of its own, but I'll leave it to you to experience it yourself. Funny enough, John's Bar happens to be right across the street from McCarthy's Pub!! This one is for you Johnny Mac!

The next morning Colm and I golfed at Westport Country Club, where his counsin is the pro there. It is a beautiful course and has a couple great tee shots overlooking Crough Patrick, where the Saint himself drove the snakes out of Ireland!

After another delicious dinner from Mrs. Mac, we made it back into town for to Moran's bar for the Ireland-Bulgaria world cup qualifying match. Sporting events bring out our favorite part of Ireland, the pub culture where everyone gathers for a beer and watches the match...kids too! It beats the american sporting event culture where you go to your friends with the biggest flat screen, much better atmosphere!

The line of the day goes to Steve. He wasn't drinking (yet) and I said his doctor would say a pint of guinness a day is good for your health. Steve naturally replies, "he actually would, he's standing right there," and pointed at his doctor, sipping on a guinness across the pub!!

This pub also serves the best pint of guinness in the city, and the best I have ever had. The closer to the tap the keg is, the more pure your pint is. Naturally the keg was directly below the tap here and the guinness was amazing!

After the disappointing match, we walked across the street to Matt Malloy's, an institution in Westport owned by the flute player in the famous Irish band, the Chieftans. Instead of most theme bars like those in the US, Matt Malloy runs the pub with his son and it is a truely great bar. Once in a great while, Matt will join the locals in the midst of a trad session and play with them. To our delight, this was one of those nights! He played for about 30 minutes in one of the smaller rooms and Erin and I squeezed in to catch the very memorable experience. The music was amazing.

The next morning, Erin and I got a lift into town from Colm's mom and walked around the town for a few hours, and walked out to the quay to check things out. It is a great city with tons of character that everyone who wants to experience the true irish culture should visit! Its right up there with Dingle. Thanks again Colm for the great weekend.

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Last Monday, we woke up to a grey Sofia, luckily we had plans to hit the road again...to Plovdiv. As you could probably tell from the cobblestone road arriving in the old town. Plovdiv is one of Europe's oldest cities, it was originally a Thracian settlement before becoming a major city ruled by Greeks and Romans in Antiquity, as you can tell from the Roman ampitheatre discovered only in the 1960's. It was so well preserved partly because this was more or less a compost/junk pile for hundreds of years and this was forgotten.

They also discovered a Roman stadium dating from the 2nd century when building the promenade for the current town center, it now stands beneath a mosque. It cool that this monument is just chillin at the center of the town square with vendors doing their thing all around it.

The old town was really cool, large and fun to explore. Plovdiv is among the few cities with two ancient theatres; remains of the medieval walls and towers; Ottoman baths and mosques; a well-preserved old quarter from the National Revival period with beautiful houses, churches and narrow paved streets.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel in the middle of old town, and used the scare sunshine to wander around in the afternoon, before going to a local bar for a bottle of Kamenitza, brewed in Plovdiv. They also have a pretty sweet promenade with tons of modern shops. The town is really has the potential of being the next great European destination. The old town, though amazing, is being reconstructed and preserved at a pretty slow pace and I bet in 5-10 years you'll hear the name everywhere. This is from the top of the old town looking over roman ruins.

After walking around the lower town some more, we got ready and went to dinner at Hebros, voted the best restaurant in Bulgaria a few years ago. It was a slow Monday, but an amazing meal that is probably 1/3 - 1/2 the price of a similar restaurant in Western Europe. Definitely a must if visiting. We had a 3 hour dinner and took some night photos of the old town before we went back to the hotel.

The next morning we wandered where we hadn't in the old town, had a coffee and lunch at a really cool Armenian restaurant where the owner helped us himself and gave a great experience. 3 courses and beer for €10....that is not a typo. It was amazing!

We caught the 4pm bus back to Sofia, had a quick dinner, and then it was off to the airport. Duty free had Zubrovka polish vodka for dirt cheap which made a happy ending for another terrific weekend! We are off to Westport, County Mayo, for the weekend!

Rila Mountain Roadtrip

On Sunday, we had arranged to see the countryside and Rila Monastery, one of the most historic sites in Bulgaria. Initially we had debated renting a car as we love to peel off the highway and explore villages and small towns. Thank god common sense got the best of us as the roads are horrific and the cyrillic road signs made navigation, even for seasoned travelers, impossible. The main road leading out of Sofia and heading towards Greece and Macedonia is cobblestone...COBBLESTONE! It was like a video game trying to dodge the potholes. Given the difficulty in navigating, we were lucky to have an awesome Bulgarian tour guide named Krasi to drive and share stories about Bulgarian culture and life with us as well as homemade rakiya liquour. Krasi is originally from a city called Plevin in the north and offered great background on the country's communist history as well as its customs. For example, the month of march and its weather represents women, 'somedays nice', 'somedays not so nice.' He had an immense pride in his country and shared information on how the orthodox church was created and the difficulties of living in a new democracy. It is a rarity to find a young American with such an incredible knowledge of history along with dates and details. As the drive went on, the altitude got higher and the ground whiter. We arrived at Rila Monastery on the most beautiful day Krasi has ever seen in his years of visiting the Rila mountains. The sky was radiant blue and there was not a cloud in the sky.

The monastery was founded in the 10th century by St. John of Rila, who lived in a nearby cave for 7 years before his students built the complex. The arrival of the Ottomans in the end of the 14th century was followed by numerous raids and a destruction of the monastery in the mid 1400's. The current site was constructed in the 1400's and in 1983 was designated a Unesco world heritage site. One of the most interesting relics that survived from hundreds of years ago, was a cross carved with a needle by a monk for 12 years; the detailed work led to eventual blindness.

After touring, we grabbed a bite with Krasi who recommended several traditional Bulgarian dishes including tripe soup. We were nearly through the meal when Lou turned to both of us and asked, 'Is tripe a fresh water or salt water fish?' Poor Krasi looked at me with fear in his eyes, so I had to be the one to tell Lou that it was actually cow stomach. No more tripe soup was ordered after that although we loved the shopska salad. Shopska is basically a Bulgarian version of the greek salad served with the best feta ever tasted.

One interesting thing to note from the photo of Krasi above, are his red and white bracelets. These are given as gifts in the beginning of March to friends and loved ones to symbolise peace and fertility. You take the bracelet and hang it on a branch when you see the first stork of the spring. It was really moving tradition as both men and women and the young and old participated.
After lunch, we hiked in the snow.Then we stopped by the monastery's bakery to sample banitsa, Bulgarian donuts.

After that, we needed to do more hiking. We drove through the village of Stob, complete with donkey carts, rustic buildings insulated with horse manure and locals enjoying the sunshine. We hiked up to look at some really cool rock formations and enjoy the view.

On the way home we ran into a large traffic jam.

Sofia, Bulgaria

After the longest continuous stint in Ireland of six weeks (not counting my return home in February) we finally embarked on our long awaited trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, including a day and a half in Plovdiv and a day trip to the Rila mountains, south of Sofia. This post will highlight the highlights of Sofia.

We arrived in Sofia after a three hour flight from Dublin on Saturday night, and grabbed a taxi for 10 leva (5 euro) into the city to the Sofia Guesthouse, situated in a great location near countless bars and restaurants. After dropping our stuff off, we had dinner at Divaka, an amazingly cheap and quality restaurant. We were definitely the only english speakers there to experience a great meal for only €30, which included 4 courses, wine, and rakiya, a traditional (and strong) appertif traditionally served with salad (we later learned it was historically served with salad to kill the germs hiding in the lettuce).

The next morning we woke up to an amazing sunshine that normally escapes us in both Ireland and during our eastern europe trips, but we were blessed with sunshine and took a couple hours before Rila monestary to buy some gum at this little store. As you can see, there are many stores you literally have to crouch to make your purchases, don't think it would fly in the US due to handicap inaccessbility...
Note that when traveling to Bulgaria, it might be a good idea to write down the cyrillic name of the restaurants and bars you want to check out, or at least have a guide book with both the roman and cyrillic names in them, as all the names are in cyrillic in Sofia (naturally). Our guidebook had only the roman names, but we lucklily had the address numbers of the places and a pair of good navigators.

On a factual note, Sofia is the highest elevated capital in all of europe as it is sitting in a large mountain valley, its even higher than Bern!

There is also a riff between the gov't and the rubbage collectors, so we ran into a few of these.
After checking out the piles of garbage we saw the two cool sights of Sofia (there may be a couple more, but you are stretching to say so...the best thing about Sofia are its people and its food), Alexander Nesky church, and the Russian Orthadox church.

After our trip to Rila, we went to the Butcher's Cafe, a little spot that looks like a shotty meat counter from the outside, very simplistic, but once you get past the simplified meat counter, you go to the back and find one of the most charming little restaurants around. The owner is very friendly and just lists off the menu for you (thankfully his english was good enough to make it work). We had a nice charcuterie board, followed by a spanish egg and potato dish and then a peruvian meat and rice dish. This was all washed down with a nice Bulgarian wine (which is amazing by the way and very affordable of course). Desert completed a great meal, which we walked off by checking out the cathedral at night;

then going to a great bar called apartment, in which you enter an old loft, make your way to the fridge in the kitchen and help yourself to some beer, homemade wine or rakiya and a selection of finger food of your liking. It was probably one of the most laid back bars I have ever been too, very very cool.

The next morning it was off to Plovdiv. Sofia is definitely worth a visit, but only if you combine Plovdiv or a day trip to the countryside as you run out of sights relatively quickly. However, the food was terrific and the price was even better. Cheapest drinks since Prague circa 2001 (30 cent pints with Jordan and Dann cannot be beat).

Bray, Enniskerry and Powerscourt

Without a car, we sometimes get sucked into doing the same thing on the weekends, walking around Dublin city-center using the same route to get into town, going to the same spots, etc.

Yesterday we got up early and grabbed the DART train out to Bray, a suburb of Dublin about 10-15 miles down the coast from Dublin. Bray reached the height of its prosperity in the mid-1800's when the train line was built from Dublin and victorian hotels were built aside its boardwalk. Unfortunately the boardwalk hasn't changed much and today the coastal part of the town is a bit run-down. However, if you look to the east you see only the nice pebble beach and cliffs surrounding the town.

The old-town off the beach is much nicer, with a quait, lively main street with coffee shops, pubs, and even a bowling alley that we scoped out for a future night out.

After Bray, we took the bus to Enniskerry, a little village that is no more than a main roundabout with a few shops scattered from the circle. We saw the first Irish version of the English red phone booth as well...though not quite as cool.

Beyond the cute shops is Powerscourt, which is an old manor house dating from the 1500's that has been turned over to the public. The gardens are really beautiful and a bit like those on Isa Bella (see July 2008 post), just not quite as fancy (as you would imagine a palace in the Italian Lake district would have the upper hand). Erin and I grabbed lunch from the cafe there and sat on the terrace overlooking the gardens.

We then wandered through the gardens, checking out the japanese garden, rolling down the terraced hills and just hanging out for a couple hours before heading back on the bus to the city.

On the way back, we spotted these two nooks that were deprived of statues, so we made up for it by becoming flute players ourselves!

It was great to get out and has us excited for next weekend's trip to Bulgaria!

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Erin and I woke up with a bit of a headache after Ireland's triumph over England in the six nations rugby tournament, but forced ourselves to get some early fresh air as the sun was shining for a change! We aimlessly wandered for a couple hours, here are the results.

The sunshine doesn't last very long in Ireland. It started pouring shortly after this photo.

A recent night in to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Proof that it snowed once while we lived here. That is Erin walking outside our flat.