Cider

I enjoy England for many reasons and one of those reasons is Cider!!  They have a fantastic variety of cider.  Every bar/pub will have at least one on tap.  I started my taste testing adventure in London and ended it in Dublin...skipping most of the cities in between those two.  

First up....Rekorderlig Strawberry Lime.  This is a Swedish cider with 4% alcohol.  This was very tasty...if you are looking for a refreshing beverage like a wine cooler.  However, much better than a wine cooler.  I very much enjoyed this one and wish I had gotten it more than once.  I think the strawberry lime flavor was quite good!!  I really like the twist of lime in my drinks.

Savanna Dry.  A South African Cider with 5.5% alcohol.  This was very dry and tasted too watery for me.  Normally dry would be a quality that I appreciate and look for, but not this one.  This was easily the worst one I had.

Bulmers Pear.  Irish Cider with 4.5% alcohol.  This was tasty and beats most US ciders however not my first choice.

Strongbow.  My old friend.  English Cider with 5% alcohol (this varies depending where you are getting it.)  On tap it may be higher, bottled it is generally 5%.  This is the Miller Lite of Ciders when in England.  It is on tap almost anywhere and it is the cheapest option.  I think the pint (20 oz) of Strongbow was cheaper than the beers on tap.  A note on pints, in the US a pint is 16 oz in the UK/Ireland a pint is 20 oz, in the rest of Western Europe they are sold mostly by the liter (34 oz) or 1/2 liter (17 oz).

This was easily my favorite night in London.  We started the evening with some delicious pub grub, then saw Wicked and ended the night with pints of Strongbow at a pub near our apartment.  Great night!!

To show how Strongbow is readily available.  At the market near our apartment here was a 2 liter of Strongbow for £3.79 ($5.87)...this volume is close to the size of our 6 pack of beer.  

This was just a funny beer glass.  I don't recall the size, but it was a very large and awkward glass of wheat beer while in Geneva.

Bulmers Berry. Irish Cider again.  This was tasty but not as good as the Rekorderlig.  I'd drink this often if it was available in the US.  

Bulmers Original.  I had a good deal of this in Ireland.  Like the Strongbow of Ireland.  Not as good as Strongbow. ;)

Kopparberg Mixed Fruit.  Another Swedish Cider with 5.3% alcohol.  This was another great refreshing cider.  I would buy this regularly if available in the US.  

Overall, I like the fruit ciders, but I also really enjoy the traditional Strongbow and Bulmers.  I enjoy Woodchuck in the US, but most other US ciders are not as delicious to me.  

Cheers!!

Cliffs of Moher day trip

Consider that we had to take a bus for 3 hours each way to get from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher, it was a surprisingly quick trip!!  Our tour guide was AMAZING!!  He sang and told stories the nearly the whole time!!  Except for 45 min each way which he called the "snooze cruise."  He told the story about the salmon of knowledge.

Of all the things we saw in Europe, this was the most anticipated for me.  I have been anxious to see the cliffs for years!!  It was fantastic.  If you have been to the grand canyon you know that there are no pictures or descriptions that to it any justice.  This is no different.  Just breathtaking!!

Below is the Burren, a rocky area just north of the Cliffs of Moher.  I was pretending to be a warrior or something.  

This is our bus driver sitting like a crazy fool about 200 feet over the water at the Burren!!  He was very witty!!  At the Cliffs there was a group of 3 people that didn't get back to the bus on time, so he circled the parking lot a few times to get their attention.  When he could see them run towards the bus in the distance he started to leave.  They caught up to us down the street a little ways.  It was hilarious to everyone that was already on the bus.  That group of people wasn't late again!  

This reminded me of the castle in Made of Honor, but I'm pretty sure that was Scotland not Ireland.

An abbey ruin on the west coast of Ireland.

Barack Obama visited this pub in Moneygall.  I guess he has ancestors from Moneygall.  You can see his photo on the outside of the building.

Dublin

Final destination: Dublin!!

Dublin is great.  Definitely in the top two cities on the trip.  I'm glad it was last.  It was certainly the most friendly and after 3 weeks of travel, we needed friendly!!  

First night we found the Book of Kells.  We arrived only 30 minutes before closing, so they only charged us 1/2 price for the tickets!!  Insider tip if you are going there.

This is a night time photo of the O'Connell Bridge and the Spire of Dublin in the back ground.  The locals call this the "Stiletto in the Ghetto."  LOL!!  The Irish  have a nickname for everything!!

The first evening we went to dinner and a show at the Irish House Party.  It was a lot of fun. Great music, Irish Dancing and a nice meal.  Oh and I had some cider again...hadn't found any since London!

This is inside of Kilmainham Gaol.  Once a prison now a historic site as well as the occasional recording studio for U2.  Check out this video.

Not the biggest Jameson fan, but when in Dublin...

John was selected to do a blind whiskey tasting.  We found out in the end that the three choices were Jack Daniels, Jameson, Johnny Walker (not a super fancy one).  John was the only one in the group to pick the Jack Daniels!!  I don't think the rest of them were really whiskey drinkers.

Finally the iconic photo of the Temple Bar in Temple Bar.  The night life in Dublin is healthy.  See my Cliffs of Moher blog for more about Ireland outside of Dublin.

Venice, Italy

This was on Monday, July 16th.  Again...most of Italy is closed on Monday, however Venice is always open!! :)  Considering that most its economy is reliant on tourists, it can't close on Mondays.  We didn't plan to visit Venice on this trip however we figured out after learning how easy train travel is, that it was only going to be a 2.5 hour train ride from Milan to Venice and the cost wasn't too bad either.  This was my 3rd visit to Venice.  I have only been to Europe three times and EVERY time I end up in London, Paris, and Venice...maybe next time I'll skip the later two.  London is my favorite, I'll be back there for sure!!

This was a legitimate walk way.  As you can see John is almost too tall to walk through there.

The streets really are water...and there are many of them.  John's comment was, "The streets really are water it isn't just unicorn talk."  I think he figured that there was one main water street and the rest was just normal city life.  NOT TRUE!!  There are many of these narrow waterways all over the city.

Here is the famous Ponte di Rialto over the Grand Canal.

This picture is attempting the show the mosaic work on Saint Mark's Basilica.  

Another one of the narrow waterways.

Cremona, Italy

It has been over a month since I was in Cremona, but I think I can cover the highlights.  We were there on July 15th.

This is a photo of the Torrazzo next to the Duomo di Cremona.  It is the tallest pre-modern tower in Italy. I climbed to the top...I think it was about 500 steps and it was warm that day.  The wind at the top was very powerful.

Here is an up close photo of the clock on the Torrazzo.  This is the larges astronomical clock in the world built in the 1580s.  It shows not only day and time, but date, as well as sun and moon location and probably more.  It was impressive.

 

Here is the view from the top of the Torrazzo.  Like I said earlier it was windy and it was like standing in a bird cage at the top.  

These two instruments were at the Stradivari Museum.  I believe that I collected the correct photos here.  John would be able to confirm.  The first one is the Hellier Stradivari violin (1679) and the second one is the Sunrise Stradivari violin (1677).  They have been consigned to the Stradivari Foundation in Cremona as part of its "Friends of Stradivari" project and is on display at the Museo Civico in Cremona

While in Cremona we had a private tour guide.  She showed us around the city as well as a few different collections that have important instruments.  She also scheduled a handful of visits with local makers.  There are 130 string instrument makers in Cremona and the city itself is only about ~75,000 people.  That has to be the largest per capita violin maker population in the world!!  This photo was taken at the shop of Stefano Conia and son.  We meet the son also Stefano Conia.  

  

We were there on a Sunday when nothing was open.  In Italy nearly everything closes on Sunday and Monday.  We struggled just to find lunch...I never would have guessed that the population was 75,000 on that day because it felt more like a population of 5,000.  We saw this on our way out of town.  A Pharmacy vending machine!!  

Milan

Milan was nice, but I didn't realize that Italy is very quiet on Sundays and Mondays.  We arrived on Friday and left on Tuesday...we had to be a little creative with our time.  We visited Cremona for on day and Venice for another to keep ourselves busy.  I'll write separate blogs for those two cities.


Here are the highlights of Milan:


Duomo...up close

St Bartholomew who was skinned alive.  This sculpture by Marco d'Agrate (1562) shows him with his skin wrapped around like a robe.

A tradition says that if you put your right heel on this hole and turn on yourself three times, this will bring you good luck.

Teatro alla Scala.  We did see the inside but photos were not allowed.

Sforza Castle view of the moat. 

The Last Supper.  We did see the real fresco but photos were not allowed.  This is a large poster outside of the real thing.

Geneva to Milan: Train

We arrived in Milan by train from Geneva.  The 4 hour train ride was the most breathtaking ride I've every witnessed.  We left Geneva and went around the north side of the lake.  The through Montreux right past the Chateau de Chillon on the lake with lovely mountain views behind.  After that we were riding through some of the best mountain views I've seen.  Then towards the end of the ride we went past Lake Maggiore via Stresa.  I noted this area as a must stop for another trip.  Just lovely!!  Here are the photos from this ride...