London Museums

We reached the museums by riding the tube. Riding the London tube is a lot like riding MAX except the trains are a LOT longer and run a **LOT** more frequently. The longest wait for a train I ever saw on one of their reader boards was 3 minutes and when Carol and I were coming back from Victoria and Albert Museum the train was really crowded so we waited for the next one and it pulled in almost before the last one exited the station.

Our first destination was the Museum of childhood. When we got there a school group was also arriving.

As befitting a museum of childhood there were lots of toys such as the vintage doll house containing this room.

isplays.

There are also interactive displays. This girl is doing a computer driven dance game. The squares under her feet provide feedback to the program.

There was also this thought provoking sign

Our next stop was the Victoria and Albert Museum or simply the V&A. The museum is connected to the nearby tube stop through a tunnel so off the tube, through the tunnel and directly into the museum. You enter through the sculpture gallery

Dianna the Huntress

This is far and away the largest and most comprehensive museum I’ve ever visited. We were there a few hours and didn’t hardly scratch the surface. The museum is in the shape of an open square with a wading pool in the center courtyard. This photo is of the museum from the courtyard.

Tom

Travel day

Should have been uneventful, should being the operative word.

Taxi from hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon to train station.
Train to London.

Holly had arranged for transport from train to hotel in London but she had the transfer time wrong; 2:21 instead of 1:30 so we hung around the station expecting our ride to show up around 2:15. Well 2:15 came and went and 2:30 and 2:45 and no ride. Carol went to ask if we could call and confirm driver had been dispatched – Oops Holly also had the date wrong, 29 Jun, not 27 Jun. Took a taxi to hotel. Gave the drive a 5 pound note for tip; gave it back to me; too much he said, round up and add a pound or two; 5 too much.

Registered! Have the same room as we will have for tour. Won’t need to re-register as we did in Dublin. Wifi access is 15 pound/day. Why is it that the common hotels offer free wifi but the posh ones charge usurious fees? I wouldn’t have gotten wifi but I needed to write Holly and have her cancel the driver and get a refund.

Tom

Stratford-upon-Avon

Today we took a tour bus around Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a hop on hop off tour so we could get off at any of its 11 stops and get the next one to continue on. We were at the visitor center by 9:30 AM so as to get on the first bus. As we had already visited Shakespeare’s birthplace we stopped first at Nash’s house. Thomas Nash was the first husband of Shakespeare’s grand daughter.

Our next stop was at Trinity Church. Trinity is a glorious church whether you are looking at it from outside

or from the inside

Our last hop off was at Mary Arden’s farm. Mary Arden was Shakespeare’s mother and this farm belonged to her parents. This is a wonderfully kept Tudor period farm. We spent quite a bit of time here.

We arrived back at the visitor center at 4:30, walked back to the hotel and had supper. A thoroughly satisfactory day.

Tom

Visit to an English country home.

Dawn Law, who organized this year’s festival had invited everyone staying over today to her home for tea. I asked Carol if I ought to take my camera and we decided for an afternoon tea we’d not. Occasionally I do something which turns out to be just incredibly stupid and this was one of them. Dawn and Tim live on a 30 acre farm in the countryside in a renovated barn. When I think of an English country home the image I conjure up is much like this. On the drive to and from the Laws we passed through old villages and beautiful countryside traveling on secondary roads totally unsuitable for a tour bus. As frosting on the cake Dawn has a magnificent collection of dolls featuring several Sashas and even studio and coarse dolls. Oh well there will be more days.

Tom

Sunday in Stratford upon Avon

The last festival activity was the brunch where Heidi Wheeler gave us a short preview of next year’s festival at Cincinnati, Dawn thanked those who assisted with this festival and all the raffle results were announced.

The Sashas waited patiently. Everyone else was more excited. We didn’t bring a Sasha with us so Carol has been missing a Sasha to carry around. The girl in the red dress and the long black hair is our newest addition.

There were nearly 200 helper gifts to distribute so that took a while.Yesterday I shared with you the special Gregor doll. This is a Cora with a co-ordinated red/white/blue wardrobe.

She was won by Laura Horner. Think she’s surprised?

With the festival now over Carol and I spent the remaining day exploring Stratford upon Avon. We took a boat tour on the Avon River

and browsed an open air craft fair on the waterfront.

The downside is that we really really don’t have room in our luggage for a doll and gifts so tomorrow we will need to find somewhere to pack and ship some things home for us…

Tom

Festival Day-3- Programs

Our programs this year revolved around the English production of Sashas at the Trendon Factory. The featured speaker at the banquet was Anna Doggart, daughter of the factory owners. She spent time with Sasha in Switzerland and became good friends with her. She told us that when she was invited to speak at the festival she hesitated because she pictured people who kept their Sashas in glass cases which is not what Sasha would have wanted for the dolls. When she did arrive at the festival she said the first thing she saw was little girls playing with the dolls and thought how happy that would have made Sasha.

Anna shows us one of her studio dolls.

Today the speaker was Brenda who was a manager at the Trendon factory. She showed us photos of the production equipment and operators and described the process. She also showed a video clip that BBC made following a little girl who had a portrait doll made for her at Trendon.

I believe that this is an advertising image to promote the dolls but it was never formally described to us. There are three on display here.

Marie Morgan shared her studio dolls with us. These two are Eskimo children

The CFA auction brought in 6580 British Pounds or about 10,000 US dollars.

Tomorrow we’ll learn who won the helper items raffle and the special raffles. The most widely watched special raffle will be “Gregor goes to boarding school” Gregor has his wardrobe, luggage and toys.

Tom

Festival–Day 2

Anyone who’s followed my blogs of earlier festivals knows that  “Dress a Sasha” is one of my favorite events. No change this year so most of the imagery today is from there. As usual there were multiple categories. As the winners won’t be announced until later I have no idea if these will be among the winners but they are among my favorites.

From the Mother Goose category, this is “Little Polly Flinders”

Also from the nursery rhyme category “Kate on the Garden gate.

From the Shakespearean character category this Gregor in his tartan and mail is, I believe, Macbeth.

In the afternoon our tour of the Cotswalds took us to Chipping Campden where the Sashas had a chance to play on the green'

Tom

Sasha Festival – 1

Here we are in Stratford-upon-Avon but registration isn’t until 4:00 so we walked down to the village and looked around. As this is the village of Shakespeare his home is a major attraction.

Shakespeare home

As is so often the case there was a street musician entertaining. It seemed completely appropriate for her to be a classical violinist although her instrument was pure 21st century.

Back at the hotel we waited for 4:00 and registration. As the Festival theme is “Midsummer Night’s Dream” there was a group of sashas performing that work in the hotel lobby.

At the meet and greet there were old friends to catch up with and new ones to meet. Many of the dolls were in their finest. This little repaint came as Pippy Longstockings.

Tom

Travel travails

We had a ferry ticket to Holyhead. Train tickets from Holyhead to Crewe and from Crewe to Stratford upon Avon. Seemed simple enough, one ferry, two trains…

Our car picked us up at the motel and started out of town. The friendly driver chatted away with us and at one point asked us what airline we were flying. Not flying we told him, taking ferry. Oops, were on our way to airport. We showed him our agreement with the car company and our ferry ticket which was good from either of two ports near Dublin. Which, he asked. Like we would know. Told him we thought it was Dublin Port which is where he took us and proved to be correct but it was a harbinger of the day.

Got to Holyhead which is actually in Wales. Bonus! Didn’t think we would be in Wales so we will be in all of the countries in the isles. Asked at the train information about our train to Crewe and he told us that it was on platform 2. Went out to platform 2 and since we had reserved seats we asked the platform agent which car we needed. “That’s not your train” he told us. “Yours will be a big red one.” We presumed that it would be on the same platform so we watched for it and it got close to the time when we ought to be leaving so we went out and found our big red train on a different platform, not visible from the waiting room. Got on the wrong car but a nice gentleman pointed us in the right direction and we got to coach L and found our seats. Here, to our great good fortune we ran into the most useful person we met all day. The nice ticket checker lady on coach L of Virgin Rail service from Holyhead to London. Our connection at Crewe allowed for 6 minutes between trains and the Crewe station web page says to allow a minimum of 10. I know this and had been worrying about whether we’d be able to make it schlepping our bags along with us. Nice lady printed us off three options. If we made the connection and two for if we missed it.

A digression here, our train from Holyhead to Crewe was Virgin Rail. When we changed at Crewe we not only changed trains, we changed operating companies. The rest of the trip was BritRail (British Rail) much more spartan. And our ticket from Crewe to Stratford upon Avon was a bit misleading as while one ticket it was for three different trains. In addition to changing trains at Crewe we had to change again at Wolverhampton and yet again at Smethwick. The only tight one was the one at Crewe. The nice lady in Coach L had told us what platform we would need at Crewe so we went up the lift, across the bridge to the platform 5 access, down the lift, and as we stepped off the lift here came our train. Incredible timing. Anyhow we are here in Stratford upon Avon. Registration for the Sasha Festival is this afternoon and we’ll be here a week so we can relax and enjoy…

So many thanks to all the helpful folks who offered to assist two very lost and confused travelers.

I did grab a couple of shots off the ferry dock in Holyhead so as to have at least one photo from Wales.

Tom

Farewell, Ireland

As today was our last day we sort of took it easy. Tomorrow is our hardest travel day. We will take a car from our hotel here to the docks where we catch a ferry to England. Once there we take a train from Holyhead to Crewe and change trains at Crewe. That second train will take us to Stratford-upon-Avon. Thursday the Sasha festival registration is in the afternoon but we should have the morning free. But back to today…

Our hotel is on the Grand Canal. It links the Liffe River here in Dublin to the Shannon River at Shannon Harbour. Construction started in 1756 and the canal was completed in 1779, It carried both freight and passengers. The last working cargo barges ceased operating in 1960. It is still maintained for recreational traffic.

Portland prides itself on being bicycle friendly but Dublin may be one up on them. How many 2 way bike paths do you see in Portland?

Today Carol and I had soup and sandwich at a pub just down the block from our hotel

I ordered the ham salad sandwich and got a big surprise. The sandwich had two slices of bread and two slices of ham and in between lettuce leaves, tomato slices and onion. An absolutely perfect ham salad sandwich but not at all what I had expected.

This afternoon we took the bus across town to O’Connell street. Like many Irish citys Dublin’s main street is named for Daniel O’Connell who did much to further the cause of religious freedom and Irish independence while serving in Parliament in the early 1800s. This last photo is of the Millennium Spire, one of many monuments and memorials along the pedestrian walk on that street.

Tom'

As we will be mostly traveling tomorrow I may not get an update up.

Day–10–In Dublin’s fair city…

sits a statue of sweet Molly Malone.

As this is one of the sights I had wanted to photograph we set out today and walked from our hotel to downtown Dublin. Our walk took us through the Georgian quarter of the city.

When these homes were built they were all private residences with similar floorplans. The main floor contained living room and dining room with the scullery and chief servant’s quarters below. The master bedroom and sitting room on the second floor, children’s bedrooms on the third and remaining servant quarters on the fourth. Most are now offices though a few are still private homes.

One of our destinations was St. Stephen’s Square, a public park near Dublin city center. This is the Victorian Garden in that park.

When we left the park we were nearly to Molly so we got a photo of the famous fish monger.

Valerie had told Carol about a doll shop with a small museum so we had to find that. They mostly sell doll houses, furnishings and accessories. 1/12 scale but their collection of old dolls and bears was interesting.

When we had finished downtown we walked back past Merrion Square to get a photo of the statue of Yeats in that park. Though I did get that photo of Yeats, the statue there that captivated me more was Eire by Jerome Connor.

Tom

Day – 09–Back to Dublin

Well, our formal tour of Ireland is over today. Carol and I are staying over in Dublin two more days and we’ll probably take a city tour and walk around the area where this hotel is.

The tour company encourages the tour directors to take their people to little spots off the beaten track and not normally visited by the bus tours. “Hidden treasures” is what they call them. Today Valerie took us to one such hidden treasure, a shrine called Tobernalt, the Holy Well, where local Catholics met and worshipped in secret when they were being persecuted for their faith.

Carol and I had signed up for a scenic cruise on the River Shannon. Shannon is the longest river in Ireland, England or Scotland; 260 miles long and navigable for 230. The cruise was fun and the musicians aboard were good but “scenic”? not particularly. Ireland is pretty flat in the Shannon Valley so not much to see. Here is a shot of Carrick on Shannon where we began and ended our cruise.

We came straight down M4, the main road from Sligo to Dublin making a stop at an overlook for Arrow Lake. There is a metal sculpture there representing an ancient Celtic Chieftain.

Our last stop was at the Abbey at Boyle. A ruined Celestine Abbey.

Tom

Day - 08

If it was not for the weavers, what would you do?
You wouldn'a hae the clothes that's made of wool
You wouldn'a hae a coat of the black or the blue
If it was not for the work of the weavers

At one time there were hundreds of weavers in County Donegal turning out handwoven Tweed. Today there are 4 and they work at Triona Design where they are weaving their fabrics the old way and creating fine fashions for men and women from the fabric

With a pleasant rolling sea and the herring running free
And the fleet all riding gently through the foam
When the boats are loaded down, there'll be singing in the town
When the boys of Killybegs come rolling home

Fishing is still big in Killybegs but it isn’t Herring they are catching these days; it’s mackerel or even lobster.

We had lunch and then spent some time in Donegal. They were having a market in the square with crafts and food. We took some photos including this one of the Catholic church. I have several photos of old churches. This one is very modern yet reflects the traditional.

Tonight we had a scenic drive around the Mulloughmore Peninsula with its picturesque castle and had a great dinner at a country pub. Fun trip.

Tom

Day - 7

We started out this morning from Limerick. The weather did not look promising…

Thanks to the invasion by Cromwell’s forces in the 1640s there are a large number of derelict churches throughout Ireland.

Our primary scenery stop this morning was at the Cliffs of Moher. 600 vertical feet to the ocean. Fortunately the weather co-operated and we even had some sun breaks. This is a really impressive sight. I’m sure you’ve seen photos but they do not do this place justice. You must experience it.

We stopped for lunch in Galway. Valerie said we were fortunate in that the city was not crowded today. It didn't seem that way to Carol and I.

I’ll close today with a bonus photo. This is a group of Irish street musicians, buskers, playing bluegrass music for American tourists in the streets of Galway.

Tom