Europe Holiday: July 2009

NICE

After travelling around Ireland for 9 days we headed off to sunny Nice to meet up with Jill & Denis.

We had a great time exploring the city and dining in some good restaurants. When you are away from home for as long as we have been, it is nice to see some familiar faces.

We took the train from Nice to Monaco and spent a day looking around Monaco & Monte Carlo.

It is a very expensive area - we certainly couldn't afford to buy a flat here with prices around 4 million euro for a 67 sq metres flat.

Monte Carlo

Principality of Monaco

Less than 2 square km in size it is the mostly densely populated country in the world. We didn't see any of the royal family but did a tour of the palace and watched the changing of the Guard in front of the palace.

Ireland

Wet, narrow winding roads, green, full of wild flowers and fantastic old buildings and castles.

We landed in Dublin late in the afternoon, got the hire car and drove north to Newgrange for our first night in a pre-booked guest house.

The next day after visiting Newgrange monument we headed west to the coast, followed the coast south for the next few days visiting the Cliffs of Moher, the Dingle Peninsular, The Ring of Kerry then Waterford (crystal factory) before hitting the east coast again. Then we headed north to Dublin. We stayed at B&B's of different standards; most were excellent, one was a bit dodgy, but it was getting late and we were in the seaside town of Tramere which was very busy.

We travelled about 1500 km of which more than 1000 were on single lane winding roads with 2 metre hedges on both sides. Nothing like rounding a bend on a narrow road and wondering if anything is coming around the bend towards you. We brushed the side of the car a few times but it already had lots of scratches on it so it didn't matter, TIP if you are hiring a car in Ireland try and get one that is already scratched.

Had a great time and took lots of pictures some of which are below.