The Palace under the Alps

And over 200 other unusual, unspoiled, and infrequently visited spots in 16 European countries

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Isles of Scilly, Cornwall

Someone said that there was nothing wrong with Britain that couldn't be rectified by taking the whole country and towing it 500 miles south. Anyone looking at a map could be excused for wondering if the Scilly Isles hadn't taken him at his word. Strung out in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cornwall, they give every appearance of trying to slip off the mainland in search of balmier climes. Remarkably, they seem to have achieved it. Although a scan 26 miles from mainland Britain, the Scillies enjoy a climate that is, thanks to a freak trough of the Golf Stream, decidedly un-British, with average winter temperatures warmer than even those of the French Riviera. Daffodils bloom in December and the islanders enjoy several weeks of private spring while the rest of Europe huddles in overcoats.

More than 100 islands constitute the Scillies chain, but only five of them are inhabited, and most of those only just. St. Mary's is the largest, and its modest capital, Hugh Town, is the chain’s principal port and community with 1,700 of the island’s 2,000 inhabitants. The Scillies’ compactness (all together they take up less than 4,500 acres of space) and almost complete absence of traffic make them a walker’s paradise. In fact, apart from taking boat excursions to the “off islands,” as they are known locally, or going out for a bit of sea fishing (sharks of speciality), there’s little to do but ramble along through the hedgerows of the islands’ narrow lanes and footpaths or seek out a secluded beach – never a difficult task.

Nightlife is to be found mostly in pint glasses in islands’ many pubs or hotel bars – at Hugh Town’s Star Castle Hotel, a former Elizabethan fort, you can drink in what were once the dungeons – or by wandering down to watch the fiery sunset over Samson Island.

For those who seek a slower pace still – if that's possible – the neighboring, privately owned and slightly smaller island of Tresco offers it. With just one hotel and one guesthouse, accommodations can be difficult if you don't book a head, but there's a fascinating little museum called Valhalla where you can see more than 70 restored figureheads salvaged from shipwrecks off the islands, plus other maritime artifacts, and the unique Abbey Gardens, which contain an astonishing abundance of palm trees and other plants not normally grown outside the tropics – some 5,000 species from all over the world, many of them brought home by Scillonian seamen.

Spring and fall are the best times for a trip to the islands, yet even in the height of summer they rarely get really crowded, thanks to the limited accommodations. For the same reason, however, I wouldn’t suggest making the crossing in July or August without securing a reservation first. The Scillies are not for those who like to keep busy, but for anyone seeking a few days of peace and relaxation and that rarest of all things in Britain, decent weather, they can't be beat.

Details: there are three ways to the Scillies – by ferry (2½ hours) or helicopter (20 minutes) from Penzance or by airplane from Plymouth, Newquay, or Exeter on Brymon Airways. The islands’ tourist office (Town Hall, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall) can provide a list of guesthouses and hotels. Rates for bed and breakfast range from about £6 for a simple guesthouse in low season to about £25 in the top-class Bell Rock Hotel in high season.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p101-102

https://www.visitislesofscilly.com/ https://star-castle.co.uk/ https://www.tresco.co.uk/enjoying/abbey-garden

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St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall

Most travellers are familiar with Mont St. Michel in France. A steep granite isle off the Normandy coast, surmounted by an ancient Benedictine priory, it is one of the most romantic sites in Europe – and one of the most overrun by tourists. Happily, if a bit inexplicably, far fewer travellers appear to be aware that England possesses a sacred mount of its own that is a mirror image both in name and appearance of its French counterpart.

St. Michel's Mount, which presides from its rugged offshore summit over the majestic sweep of Mount’s Bay on the westernmost tip of England, is every bit as commanding and memorable as its more famous namesake across the channel, but infinitely less commercialised. For about 350 years, from the late eleventh century to early fifteenth centuries, it was a sort of branch priory for Mont St. Michel. Eventually it fell into the hands of the St. Aubyn family, whose members have owned it continuously for 300 years, though since 1954 its commercial interests have been looked after by the National Trust. We can thank this noble charity for the fact that the Mount has none of the insistent street hawkers and kitschy souvenir shops that mar the atmosphere of Mont St. Michel.

The mount is a circular island about a mile in circumference and lying about a quarter of a mile offshore. At low tide it can be approached on foot along a causeway. At high tide you might take a bobbing bat from the village of Marazion. In either case, you are greeted by a sheltered harbor and a charming cluster of whitewashed fishermen's cottages. A tearoom and two small shops are the only commercial inclusions. The tour of the island begins with a brief film providing a helpful perspective of the island's history and legends. Then it's a long walk up a steep cobbled path to the manor house 300 feet above. The interiors have the look of a medieval castle, with beamed ceilings, arched doorways, and thick stone walls. But there is also a certain unexpected coziness about them. The explanation is quite simple: most of the present structure was built only a century ago by gifted architect member of the family, Piers St. Alban, who ingeniously grafted a vast extension onto the twelfth century core in what Nigel Nicolson has called one of “the greatest achievements in nineteenth century domestic architecture.” The furnishings and craftsmanship throughout are handsome and beguiling, but you are likely everywhere to find yourself being drawn to the mullioned windows for the stunning and generally precipitous views down to the sea far below. Don't overlook the display case containing a remarkable model of the Mount made entirely of discarded champagne corks by one loyal and patient servant. Outside on the broad terraces are panoramic views out to sea and along the coast from Prussia Cove to Penzance and the splendidly named village of Mousehole (pronounced Mowzzle). Well worth a detour.

Details: St. Michael's Mount is off the coast of Marazion, which can be reached by bus from Penzance. The most memorable approach to it, however, is along the road from St Ives, a small, attractive fishing town and artists’ haunt with narrow streets and many good art galleries. If your itinerary allows, I’d suggest spending the night there and travelling on to the Mount in the morning. The view of it in the bay as you come over the hills behind Penzance is one that will stay with you for a long time.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p100-101

https://www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk/

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Newgrange Burial Chamber, Co. Meath

Newgrange, a vast prehistoric burial chamber high on a ridge overlooking the River Boyne, is the sort of place that would set Erich Van Daniken's heart racing. Apart from the bare facts of its dimensions, almost everything about it is a deep mystery. It is assumed that foreigners built it some 4,000 years ago, since the Irish of the time lacked the necessary skills to make it themselves, and it is known that it took a great effort of will to construct (an estimated 180,000 tons of stone were hauled to the site). But no one knows whose death was important enough to justify such an expenditure of resources and labour, nor why the builders (thought to have come from Brittany) ventured so far from home to build it.

Today what remains is the best preserved, most important, and far and away the most enigmatic burial chamber in Europe. The chamber encompasses about an acre of ground with a dome 44 feet high and 280 feet across. Once, it is thought, it was entirely covered in brilliant white pebbles. Scattered around it are 12 large sculptured stones. You enter the chamber along a passage three feet wide and 62 feet long to emerge at the end in the central chamber, a room about ten feet wide and with a vaulted ceiling 19 feet high. off it R3 recesses that may once have been used for sacrifices. Everywhere the stonework is intriguingly decorated with carved squiggles and zigzags, which in terms of sophistication and craftmanship were centuries ahead of anything else in Europe. And to add the mystery, a hole in the ceiling allows a shaft of light to pierce the chamber for precisely 17 minutes at sunrise every year on December 21, the shortest day of the year.

Also at the site is a small but interesting museum explaining the historical significance of the chamber – insofar as it is explicable. Newgrange is just part of a vast stone age complex spread over three square miles and known collectively as Brugh na Boinne. Nearby are similar chambers at Dowth and Knowth. The latter is said to be even more impressive than Newgrange, but is not open to the public. 

Details: The Newgrange Burial chamber is between Slane and Drogheda, about 20 miles north of Dublin. It is open daily from June 15 to September 30 from 9 to 7, and the rest of the year on Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 1 and 2-5 and on Sundays from 2-5.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p153-154 https://www.newgrange.com

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Croagh Patrick and Connemara, Co. Galway

Croagh Patrick is the holiest spot in Ireland and one of the loveliest. St. Patrick retreated to this pyramid-shaped mountain for 40 days and nights in A.D. 41 and from here drove the snakes out of Ireland – not to mention moles, toads, and about a dozen other species of animals curiously absent in Ireland. There's a famous chapel on the windswept summit, site of a vast annual pilgrimage, but the long, long trudge to the top is rewarded (in good weather at least) with fabulous views over Clew Bay, speckled with islands, and across great stretches of that most beautiful and neglected corner of Ireland – Connemara.

This area of Galway is so unremittingly lovely that you can scarcely put a foot wrong; whatever you follow will almost certainly reveal panoramas of unspoiled grandeur. It's a rough landscape of dark mountains and broad bogs, where Gaelic-speaking farmers must literally scratch living from soil too rocky for ploughs.

Croagh Patrick is easily reached from Westport, a well-preserved Georgian town with a notable mansion, Westport House, and good transportation links to the rest of the country. Even if you don't stop at the holy mountain, the road from Westport along Clew Bay and onward to Clifden is magnificent – the Irish writer James Plunkett has called it “surely the most beautiful in Ireland.” This route takes you through the pleasant town of Louisburgh and then asked the incredible Kylemore Castle, a vast and elaborate Victorian gray-stone mansion that was once one of the grandest houses in Ireland (even though one bathroom served every thirty guests), but since 1920 has been a convent, though still open to the public. Again, even if you don't stop, it's worth the trip just to glimpse this remarkable, sprawling mansion in its incomparable setting. Beyond Kylemore is the Connemara National Park, set in 4,000 acres of countryside under the shadow of a range of mountains known as Twelve Bens. The park’s visitors’ centre is housed in converted farm buildings with exhibitions of traditional Irish furnishings and, more important, an audio-visual presentation explaining the unique history and geography of the area. Very useful for those who regard travel as a learning experience.

From Clifden, an agreeable coastal town about five miles to the south, the road runs on for about 50 miles to Galway, where train and bus connections link up with the rest of the country. But if time allows, consider continuing along the winding coastal roads, which take you through some lovely little resorts of whitewashed cottages like Kielkieran and Roundstone. All along this coast account are countless rocky coves and deserted beaches of fine white sand, with views across to the Aran Islands and a commanding Cliffs of Moher  beyond. It's a more circuitous means of reaching Galway and could add at least a day to your travelling time – perhaps more if you're hitching – but it's also one of the best detours in Ireland. 

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p151-153

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Aran Islands

Someone once observed that the world's historians owe a great debt for building an independent civilization and preserving it almost intact into modern times. Nowhere perhaps is that true than on the Aran Islands. Although a bit of tourism and television have brought the twentieth century creeping in, these three hunks of rock struck 30 miles out in the steely grey waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Galway remain a very much of another time, one of the last outposts of the real Irish culture. Gaelic for instance, remains the first – and for many islanders the only – language. 

The three Islands – Inishmore, Inisheer, and Inishmaan – are home to about 2,000 people, though they have little more than 18 square miles of area between them. For scholars they are notable for their prehistoric monuments – the great stone complex of Dun Aengus on Inishmore is perhaps the finest prehistoric fort in Europe – but for many others the appeal lies in their bleak and elementary beauty. Few landscapes can have offered a more forbidding prospect to their early settlers or been more painstakingly conquered. The early Christian hermits who were the island's first inhabitants found a terrain not only treeless but soilless. The earth that today nurtures the island's animals and crops is entirely manmade, compounded of alternating layers of sand and seaweed and sustained by generations of patients. The only thing the Arans possess in abundance is rocks, which are everywhere piled in a dense network of sheltering, waist-high, dry stone walls, making the islands look from every vantage point like outsized jigsaw puzzles. 

Of the three islands, only Inishmore has a harbour that can accommodate ferries. To reach the other two islands, the ferry heaves to as near the shore as it can and the islanders come out in curraghs – frail-looking canvas-covered boats – to bring ashore passengers and provisions. For anyone really trying to get away from it all, the two small islands are perhaps the more rewarding – not only for the excitement that coming ashore in one of the featherweight curraghs but also because there are fewer visitors. On the other hand, Inishmore has better attractions – and comforts.

No hotels exist on any of the islands, but Inishmore has a number of pleasant guesthouses, mostly clustered around the little harbour at Kilronan. There are also three pubs, a restaurant, a tearoom/fish and chip shop, and, invitably, a few souvenir shops, some of them selling quite good island handicrafts. You can be taken around the island on a pony and trap or you can rent bicycles for only about £2.50 at the harbor. Inishmore is a cyclist’s paradise thanks to the almost complete absence of traffic, the island's surprisingly mild climate, compact size, and wealth of dramatic vistas. The stone thought of Dun Aengus, perched on a sheer cliff 265 feet above the sea, provides a memorable destination, that's wherever you go a gratifying and prospect of hardy thatched cottages, abundant wildflowers, and steep descents to a crashing sea will confront you.

Details: There are daily air services throughout the year to all three Aran Islands (it's about a 20-minute flight from Galway), but most people cross by ferry from Galway. There are two calories a day and the trip takes about three hours.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p150-151 https://www.aranislands.ie

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Birr, Co. Offaly

There is a thriving and attractive little market town of about 3,600 people in the very center of Ireland, with a large market square and a wealth of good Georgian architecture. It's a splendid place for strolling, but especially so if you direct your ambling up Emmet Street, off the main square, and then along the handsome, tree-lined Oxmantown Mall to the grounds of Birr Castle. The castle, home of the Earl and Countess of Rosse, is a striking edifice, a mostly nineteenth-century gothic building whose large and rather stern exterior is softened by creeping vines. The castle is not open to the public, but don't lose heart. The grounds are, and their 100 acres of trees, shrubs, and flowers are nothing short of wonderful. More than a thousand species of trees and shrubs flourished here, including the two tallest box hedges in the world, more than 30 feet high and a century old. There’s also an arboretum, a lake and landscaped park, a river garden with two waterfalls, and one of the first suspension bridges in the world across the little river.

This last is a relic of the period in the nineteenth century when the Rosses had a brief flowering of their own as scientists. The third earl was an astronomer of international repute, as was one of his sons. Another son invented the steam turbine. In 1843, Lord Rosse built on the grounds the largest telescope in the world – so large, in fact, that it would be almost 80 years before anyone built a larger one. The telescope's working mechanisms are long since gone but the 56-foot-long walls and cylinder that housed it remain, along with a display of drawings, photographs, and other astronomical odds and ends. There's an interesting working scale model of the original telescope and a brief taped commentary on its history and significance.

Spring is the best time to visit the gardens when the countless magnolia and cherry trees are in bloom, but the abundance of variegated foliage everywhere and handsome landscaping make it a winner throughout most of the year.

Details: The grounds of their Castle are open year-round from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 6 p.m. (dusk if earlier). Admission is £2 for adults, £1.50 for children.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p149-150 https://birrcastle.com

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Golfing in Ireland

Every year tens of thousands of people make a pilgrimage to Scotland to hack their way around such famous golf courses as St Andrews, Turnberry, and Gleneagles. But only the tiniest portion of them take the trouble to cross the Irish sea to try their hand on the courses of Eire. It's an unfortunate oversight. Golfing in Ireland is a splendid experience. The courses may not be as historic as in Scotland, but the better ones are every bit as beautiful and challenging – and occasionally even more so they also tend to be less crowded and almost always are cheaper, especially when you consider that green fees in Ireland are per day rather than per round.

Ireland has 180 courses, compared with Scotland's 400. Two in particular, Lahinch and Killiney, are notable, partly because they are very beautiful as well as challenging and partly because their settings offer a number of alternative attractions for any nongolfers in your party.

Lahinch, lying along the Atlantic coast in County Clare, is an old course with an easy-going air – a fact that becomes evident as soon as you try to consult the barometer hanging just inside the clubhouse door. Where the hands should be is instead a simple note saying: “See Goats” – a reference to the small herd cropping the grass just outside. If the goats are standing on the hilltop you can count on fine weather, if they are clustered near the clubhouse, expect rain. The Old Course, founded in 1892 by the members of a Scottish army regiment, is a links course – that is, one built on a sandy plain along the sea, where the fairways can be nearly as rough as a North American rough and the roughs are simply unspeakable. To call it a challenging course would be putting it mildly. Playing here is an experience that wavers between the exhilarating and the intimidating with long periods of deep confusion in between. The ocean provides not only scenic grandeur, but also whipping winds that can carry the trueist of drives halfway to Limerick, and the cliffs are a constant invitation to suicide, especially when you encounter such challenges at the 156-yard, par 3 hole with a completely blind green. Take along a club to break or confine your activities to the shorter, easier New Course.

For a complete contrast, there's the Killarney Golf and Fishing Club, on the outskirts of the town of Killarney. It has two championship courses, Mahony’s Point and the slightly longer Killeen. Although both are formidable, you may feel on more equal terms with them since both are park courses, more similar in layout to those of America. The real appeal here is that they are two of the most spectacularly beautiful courses in the world. Both spread out amid woodlands along the banks of Lough Leane with a verdant backdrop of mountains. The biggest challenge is to maintain your concentration amid such awesome scenery.

 Green fees in Ireland range from about £4-£8 a day and clubs rent for about £5. Most courses are very easy to get on (weekends excepted), but it's worth checking to be sure that there aren't any tournaments or events that would keep you from getting a starting time. The Irish Tourist Board produces a very useful Visitors’ Guide to Irish Golf Courses. 

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p148-149 https://lahinchgolf.com https://killarneygolfclub.ie

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Glengarriff, Co. Cork

This little resort, tucked away in a beautiful glen on Bantry Bay, is quite simply a jewel. The Gulf Stream, which keeps the weather in this part of Ireland surprisingly mild, has been especially kind to Glengarriff, allowing subtropical vegetation to flourish here as almost nowhere else in northern Europe. Here you can hole up for a couple of days in one of the several comfortable hotels and guesthouses scattered about the village, and indulge yourself with unhurried walks around the bay – to Lady Bantry’s Lookout and the Eagle's Nest beyond, for instance – or just laze in the mild, warm sunshine on the beach at Biddy's Cove. One must for every visitor is a trip to the remarkable gardens at Ilnacullin, or Garinish Island, which were constructed about 50 years ago by John Annan Bryce. When you see the exotic vegetation growing in fabulous luxuriance here – fuchsias up to 25 feet high, for example, and plants and shrubs from as far away as the Himalayas, Amazonia, and Asia – you'll never believe that every speck of dirt on this once-barren island had to be imported from the mainland. There are Japanese and alpine gardens, an Italian garden clustered around a rectangular lilly pool massed with flowers, and a Greek temple, all framing magnificent views of the bay; a lookout tower stands at the summit of the island. Among the island's eminent visitors was George Bernard Shaw, who wrote part of Saint Joan here.

Farther afield, but easily reached from Glengarriff, is the Beara Peninsula, as beautiful as the famous Ring of Kerry nearby, but much quieter. A circular signposted tour takes you around the mountainous, 30-mile-long peninsula and through the stunning Healy Pass. Near Castletownbere is the ruined Dunboy Castle – the last stronghold of the Irish rebellion of 1602 – and there are excellent beaches near here and farther down the peninsula at Ballydonegan. All in all, a perfect way to spend a couple of days.

Details: Glengarriff (pop. 250) is 68 miles west of Cork and can be reached by bus from there. Garinish Island, reached by ferry from the town, is open from March 1 to October 31 from 9:45 to 5:30 Monday through Saturday and from 12:45 to 6 on Sunday. 

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p147-148 

https://visitglengarriff.ie

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Kinsale, Co. Cork

Kinsale is a charming, attractive, slightly raffish waterfront town of mostly Georgian houses lining narrow hilly streets. An important naval centre in the eighteenth century (the hapless Andrew Selkirk sailed off from here to an unwelcome shipwreck, providing the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe), it is now a fishing port and yachting haven. This is one of those curious places that act as a magnet for upscale dropouts – refugees from city life you came for a visit and end up staying for years – which, with the yachting fraternity, gives it an air of nonchalant worldliness out of all proportion to its size. An agreeable side effect is that many of the interlopers open restaurants. There are 18 in Kinsale for a resident population of less than 1,800. Most are very good and a few – Man Friday, The Bistro, Gino's, and the Circle – outstanding. In line with the general tone of relaxed amiability, the restaurateurs work out a rota of opening hours among themselves so that competition doesn't become too fierce. 

Kinsale also has two friendly and atmospheric pubs – the Bullman on the quayside, filled with fishermen and yachting people in bulky sweaters, and, high on a hill overlooking the town, the Spaniard, with chairs outside so you can watch the sun setting over the Bandon River estuary and see beyond – a perfect place to pass a summer’s evening. There are good walks near the town, in particular to Summer Cove and Charles Fort (a large and impressive star-shaped battlement dating from the late seventeenth century and still in use as recently as 1922). But if the weather is fine, consider a more ambitious trek to the promontory known as the Head of Kinsale, with magnificent cliffs and views across the sea. Somewhere out there, about ten miles offshore, lies the wreck of the Lusitania, which went down with 1,500 people after being torpedoed by a German submarine just off the headland in 1915. A bit farther on are the very pretty resorts of Garrettstown and Courtmacsherry, both offering good beaches and splendid settings. Finally, if you're still somehow at a loose end, there's some of the best sea fishing in Ireland, boat trips up the Bandon River to Innishannon, and a surprisingly good little municipal museum in the town’s Courthouse with model ships and relics celebrating Kinsale days of greatness as a seafaring community.

Like Glengarriff a bit farther along the coast (see next entry), Kinsale is an appealing place to wind down for a couple of days. But be careful – you could end up staying for years.

Details: Kinsale is 18 miles south of Cork that can be reached by frequent buses from there.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p146-147 

https://www.manfridaykinsale.ie

https://www.kinsale.ie

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Galley Cruising restaurants, Co. Wexford

You couldn't really blame the proprietors of this cruising restaurant if all they served you was a slab of gnarled roast beef, a couple of lukewarm roast potatoes, and a bit of indistinguishable foliage masquerading as asparagus. After all, the tiny kitchen of a river cruiser is hardly the environment but producing haute cuisine. And in any case the real attraction of a dinner cruise is the passing scenery along the riverbanks, isn't it?

Fortunately, in this case the answer is no. Somehow, amazingly, the Galley’s cramped cooking quarters bring forth quite exceptional meals (smoked ham and cheese soup followed by roast guinea fowl and topped off with chocolate profiteroles in double cream, for example) twice a day for up to 70 passengers – meals of equality rarely encountered even on dry land in the British Isles and good enough to merit the praise of such worthies as Michelin and Egon Ronay. The food alone guarantees you a memorable experience. The gentle passing scenery simply makes it sublime.

Galley’s dinner cruises depart from New Ross every Tuesday to Saturday from April to September for a three-hour, 20-mile cruise up the Barrow or Nore River. Meals are generally served after the boat turns around to begin the unhurried homeward journey, allowing you to enjoy the first half of the trip sitting on the open top deck drink in hand, watching the villages, farms, and densely wooded countryside slip off into that most enchanted time of a summer's day, twilight. Dusk, particularly in June, lingers for hours in this part of the world and there can't be any more magical way of experiencing it than from the prow of a churning boat.

There are also daily two-hour lunch and cruises and, for those who cannot afford either the calories or the cost of a full meal, two-hour tea cruises departing at 3 p.m. Alternatively – or even in addition – the Galley has a separate river cruiser a few miles south in Waterford, which offers two-hour tea cruises and two-hour high tea (i.e. supper) excursions. It is also possible to go for the cruise alone, subject to space availability.

Details: From New Ross, lunch and cruises depart at 12:30 p.m. from April 1 to early October and cost £9 (£4.50 for children); tea cruises depart from June to August at 3 p.m. and cost £4; dinner cruises start at 7 p.m. from April 1 to August 31 and at 6 p.m. in September and cost £12-£16. On most Mondays there are no cruises. From Waterford, cruises depart at 3 p.m. and cost £4; high tea cruises depart at 5:10 p.m. and cost £8. Both are available from June to August only and both are closed on Sundays and Mondays. Cruises only from both New Ross and Waterford cost £3-£6. Reservations are recommended. Write to Galley Cruising Restaurants, New Ross, Co. Wexford, Eire, or telephone [phone]. 

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p145-146

As per https://rivercruises.ie, The Galley, New Ross is no longer operating

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Dan Donnelly’s Arm, Co. Kildare

This isn't one I suggest you travel halfway around the world for, but if you happen to be in the general neighbourhood of Kilcullen and crave a life-sustaining pint of Guinness and a bit of grisly diversions, then read on. The story begins on a chilly December afternoon in 1815 with thousands of shouting people gathered around a grassy hollow (now marked by a stone obelisk) just outside Kilcullen to watch two large, bare-chested men try to beat the bejesus out of each other. The men were Dan Donnelly, the all-Ireland boxing champion, and George Cooper, England's top pugilist.For two hours the two pummelled each other with bare fists until at last the bloody Cooper threw in the towel. Donnelly was carried off to lasting fame and an eventual knighthood. Today, even among his countrymen, he is largely forgotten. But he lives on – after a fashion – in the Hideout Pub, just down the road in Kilcullen. There, reverently preserved in a glass case, like the great boxer’s right arm – black and grizzled, but intact from shoulder blade to fingertips – pointing a bit disturbingly at the food counter. It is a big arm: supposedly Donnelly could scratch his shins without bending over. But how it became detached from his body and ended up enshrined in a drinking parlor is a mystery to which there is – happily, I think – no answer. The Hideout is a big, friendly pub spread over several rooms, with glowing fireplaces and an eclectic assortment of stuffed animals and fish and historical odds and ends. If you're looking for a genuine country pub, or even just something to write home about, this is the place.

Details: Kilcullen is on the River Liffey, Four miles south of Droichead Nua and about 30 miles from Dublin. Unlike English pubs, Irish pubs are open all day except for what is jocularly known as the “holy hour” (from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m). They close at 10 p.m. on Sundays and at 11:30 p.m. the rest of the time. 

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p144

http://hideoutpub.ie

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Powerscourt Gardens, Co. Wicklow

In 1974, Powerscourt House, one of Ireland’s stateliest homes, was devastated by fire. At the risk of sounding undiplomatic, the loss was more the Irish nation’s than the modern traveler’s Powerscourt House had never been open to the public. The appeal here was, and always has been, the huge garden, which remains one of the most glorious in Europe.

Like Bodnant in Wales, the grounds of Powerscourt enjoy every natural advantage: a hillside setting, natural lake, and a sweeping view across an undulating green landscape to the hazy blue Wicklow hills and Sugar Loaf Mountain. With so much to work with, the man who designed it all need not have exerted himself much - and in fact he didn’t. Named Daniel Robertson, he was a chronic sufferer of gout, brought on by an even more chronic affection for alcohol, and he spent his days sprawled in a wheelbarrow, a bottle of port on his lap, laconically supervising the work as an apprentice wheeled him around the site. Another apprentice was posted to keep a lookout for debt collectors, whose appearance would produce in Robertson an uncharacteristic agility and send him scampering off to hide in one of the cellars or outbuildings. Once even he had to be helped down from the roof.

Despite these distractions and drawbacks, Robertson evidently retained a spark of genius because the gardens at Powerscourt are one of the most assured and masterly creations of the nineteenth century. Laid out in a series of vast formal terraces, up to 800 feet wide, they lead down to the little lake-once called Juggy’s Pond, but hastily rechristened the Triton Pool. Overlooking it is the focal point of the garden, the perron - an elevated viewing platform enclosed with a delicate wrought-iron balustrade and paved in bold geometrical patterns with white and gray pebbles from a nearby beach. Here and throughout the garden, carefully scattered among the trees and formal flowerbeds, is a wealth of fountains and statuary, sundials and giant urns, some of them up to eight feet high. The whole effect suggests the elegant formality of a French garden, but wonderfully softened by the gentle, unsubdued countryside at its feet. This is, in short, one of the great gardens of the world - and the last in Europe to be built in the grand style.

Details: Powerscourt is just outside the very pretty village of Enniskerry, about 12 miles south of Dublin and connected by bus services. The estate - which covers 14,000 acres and contains a 400-foot-high waterfall, the highest in the British Isles - and garden are open every day from 10 am to 5:30pm between Easter and October 31.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p142-143

https://powerscourt.com

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Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Villa, Lake Garda

Gabriele D’Annunzio was a man of many parts, most of them private. Although short, scrawny, bald as a pebble, and with only one eye after the other was shot out in World War I, he was irresistible to women. At a conservative estimate, he slept with 1,000 in his life, ranging from peasants to countesses, and treated most like dirt. In between he found time to be a poet and author, fascist, spendthrift, war hero, adventurer, bon vivant, and brute. His whole life was a succession of flamboyant outbursts, Outraged by the settlement terms of the war, for instance, he organized a private army and captured the Yugoslavian town of Fiume, which he ruled dictatorially for a year. Such activities brought him to the attention of the ascendant Benito Mussolini, who made D’Annunzio a prince and gave him a villa (confiscated from a hapless German professor) on the banks of Lake Garda and the wherewithal to decorate it.

This house, called Vittoriale, is open to the public and has to be one of the most incredible residences in the world. As flamboyant as its owner, it is absolutely packed with objects - books, letters, weaponry, army tunics, pieces of statuary (some of them decked out in little velvet jackets and sporting necklaces), oriental boxes, photographs, stained-glass windows, a huge globe of the world, masks, ancient friezes, and innumerable clutter. An airplane - a real one - hangs from a ceiling; an Austrian machine gun graces a desk. There are stairs that lead nowhere, doors too small to walk through without stooping, columns that give no support to the ceilings.

Every room is a masterpiece of excess, but the summit of D’Annunzio’s decorative achievements is the Music Room, which is done up like a cross between a sultan’s harem and an opium den, and filled with Persian rugs, piles of cushions, ornate furniture, and vaguely Oriental objects. Here D’Annunzio, dressed in a monk’s robe, would receive visitors or show movies (The Bengal Lancers was a perennial favorite). On nights when music was to be played, he would hang the room with red or black silk to suit his mood.

Outside the extravagance continues. Among the pools, waterfalls, statuary, and quite attractive flowerbeds, you’ll find a bridge decorated with artillery shells, a World War I field gun, and - a classic touch - a full-sized ocean cruiser from the Italian navy, the Puglia, half buried in a hillside.

Details: Vittoriale is near Brescia, from which there are frequent buses. It is open daily except Monday mornings from 8:30 to 12 and from 2 to 6.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p158-159

http://www.vittoriale.it/en/

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National Playing Card Museum, Turnhout

Since 1826, Turnhout’s modest claim to fame has been as the playing card capital of Belgium, if not the world. Four factories (there were once six) produce playing cards by the billion. In 1977, the directors of the remaining factories decided to capitalize on this civiv expertise by opening a National Playing Card Museum. Don’t cancel all plans to get there, but if you’re in the neighborhood on one of the three days each week that the museum is open, it offers a diverting and possibly unique way to pass an hour.

Playing cards have been distracting humanity from more serious matters since the second half of the fourteenth century. Originally they were painted by hand, often on blocks of wood, but it wasn’t until the invention of lithography in the late eighteenth century that they really took off. The museum at Turnhout contains many rare examples of the earliest playing cards, including some from as far away as America and China, and the machinery used to make them. Although the traditional division of decks into four suits of 13 cards was a long time coming (and even now is by no means universal) it is remarkable that a 400-year-old jack of spades is clearly recognizable. If you’ve ever wondered why we have a jack of spades and king of diamonds instead of, say, an earl of rubies or a lord of roses, here’s the place to find out.

Details: The National Playing Card Museum (National Museum van de Speelkaart) is in central Turnhout at Begijnenstraat 28, just north of the Grand-Place. It’s open only 11 hours a week - on Sundays from 10-12 and 2-5, and on Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 2-5. Admission is 20 francs for adults and 15 francs for children. Turnhout is in northeastern Belgium about 6 miles from the Dutch border and only about 12 miles from Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau (see page 192).

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p17-18

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The Annual Mardi Gras at Binche

Every year just before Shrove Tuesday, the ancient community of Binche takes on the air of a city under siege. Shopkeepers and residents board up their windows. Mounted police arrive. A hushed air of expectancy descends over this town of 11,000 people midway between Mons and Charlerois. Very soon, everyone knows, there will be an attack by the Gilles - an army of 1,000 preposterously attired men with rhythm in their feet and a touch of malice in their hearts. The occasion is the annual Mardi Gras, the largest, noisiest, and in some ways most painful celebration in Europes. If you like your spectables laced with physical abuse, the Binche on Shrove Tuesday is the place for you.

For more than four centuries, since a feast in 1549 to mark Pizarro’s victory over the Incas in Peru, people have been congregating in Binche each year for three days of music and revelry. The highlight comes on Tuesday with the procession of Gilles, or clowns. As many as 1,000 of them dressed in intensely gaudy costumes with bells around their waists and four-foot-high plumed headdresses dance their way through the streets to the main square to the ceaseless cacophony of brass bands. An advance party of youth sprint ahead whacking the hapless with inflated sheeps’ bladders (yes, it stings).

The Gilles themselves carry baskets full of oranges (Incas’ gold) that they hurl - not lob - at the crowds as they pass. This explains the boarded windows and why people remove their eyeglasses and shelter small children as the procession approaches.

Depending on your inclination, the Binche Mardi Gras can be seen as an occasion for a bit of wanton revelry or as providing insight into a rather alarming side of the Walloon character. In any event, there’s nothing to rival it this side of Rio.

Details: Binche is about 40 miles (or an hour’s train trip) south of Brussels, near the French border. It’s an interesting and historic old town enclosed by a twelfth-century fortified wall. If you miss the carnival, the Gilles’ costumes can be seen at the International Carnival Museum (Le Musse International du Carneval et du Masque) just off the Grand-Place in the heart of Binche. As its name suggests, the museum displays costumes not only from the local carnival but from carnivals throughout the world. If you do attends the carnival, watch your step. Squashed oranges are very slippery.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p15-16

http://www.carnavaldebinche.be/home-eng.html

http://www.museedumasque.be/en/

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Belgium’s Oldest Cathedral, Tournai

The Romanesque Cathedrale de Notre-Dame in Tournai is one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical structures in northern Europe. That it exists at all is something of a miracle since concentrated German bombing in World War II destroyed more than a thousand ancient buildings in Tournai - virtually the whole town. But Belgium’s loss is the modern tourist’s gain. After the war the city decreed that none of the surrounding buildings could be more than one story high. Thus the gray cathedral with its five towers (the tallest is 272 feet) escapes the claustrophobic clustering that obscures so many European churches.

The cathedral, built in 1110-1170, is the oldest in Belgium. Inside, you are struck immediately by the beauty of the stained glass windows and by how much vaster the structure seems from inside than out. (Portico to ambulatory is 440 feet.) Two other treasures are the restored Rubens painting Souls in Purgatory and the very ornate Renaissance rood screen, carved in colored marble by Cornelis de Vriendt in 1570-73. Note that in one of the reliefs a naked Jonah is seen disappearing into the mouth of the whale, but in the next emerges with his shirt on.

The real treasures of Tournai are, appropriately, to be found in the Treasury. These include some exquisite gold and silver chalices, carved ivories, a fifteenth-century Aras tapestry, a reliquary cross from the sixth or seventh century, are rare illuminated manuscripts.

Details: Tournai (pop. 70,000) is in the province of Hainaut about 40 miles west of Brussels near the French border and on the main road and rail line to Lille. Also of interest in town is a twelfth-century belfry, oldest in the country, at the far end of the main square across from the cathedral. It’s a 260-step climb to the top, but the view is rewarding. At the Museum of Fine Arts can be found paintings by Breughel, Van Gogh, Manet, and David.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p14-15

http://www.cathedraledetournai.be/

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Bicycling Along the Bruges-Sluis Canal

For anyone who wants to savor the Belgian countryside - not always easy in a country as densely populated as this one - there is no better place to do it than on the Bruges-Sluis Canal and no better way than on bicycle. This tree-lined waterway runs through some tranquil (and blessedly flat) countryside and connects two of Belgium’s loveliest towns, Bruges and Damme. The trip is only 8 kilometers but the energetic can follow the canal 5 kilometers farther into Holland to the market town of Sluis.

Bruges (Flemish: Brugge) is justly famous for its canals and medieval atmosphere and should be included on any Belgian itinerary. Damme, however, is now largely and surprisingly forgotten. The legendary home of Tijl Uilenspiegel, it is today a sleepy community of about 1,000 people, but its massive Church of Our Lady and Stadhuis (Town Hall) stand testimony to the fact that it was once one of the most important towns in northern Europe.

Renting bicycles is a breeze almost anywhere in Belgium. Thanks to a commendable scheme run by the national railways, you can rent a bike at any of 44 stations around the coutnry and return it at any of 149, sparing you the necessity of retracing your steps. There are some curious omissions - you can, for instance, return a bike in Antwerp but you can’t rent one there, and you can neither rent nor return in Brussels - but on the whole the country is well served by the arrangement. Damme, unfortunately, is not part of the system, so you’ll either have to return the bike to Bruges or cycle on about six miles to the coastal resort of Knokke-Heist.

Details: Tourist offices throughout Belgium have leaflets on renting bicycles. The cost is 80-125 francs a day depending on how many days you’re renting for. There are additional discounts for those with a valid rail ticket or rail pass. You can both hire and return in Bruges. Alternatively, but more expensively, bicycles can also be rented in Bruges from ‘t Koffiebootje, a tea room on Hallestraat, alongside the belfry tower near the market square. The cost is 180 francs a day plus a refundable deposit of 320 francs.

William Bryson, The Palace Under the Alps, p13-14