We made short work of the Victoria lock and swinging bridge and made it into Portumna with serious thirsts all round. We had a bit of a squiz at the Priory and Castle and then It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in a pub with a name no one could pronounce, run very well by Cieran. We like Cieran. He laughed at our jokes. After dinner, we went back to Cierans pub.
We went back to the marina and drank whiskey.
We awoke to the miserable weather that is summer in Ireland and after consulting google maps, we decided to jump on the pushies and make the ride to Banagher as google said the route was mostly flat. We locked in Macintyre’s pub as our half way stop and peddled the short rise out of the river valley.
The short rise turned into a long rise and after a few rest stops, arrived at the pub in Shannon harbour only to find it closed. My bewilderment was turning to despair when the door opened and the publican asked if I was alright. I turned my tear stained red eyes to her and sobbed "beer".
She took pity on us and allowed us to have a limited amount of Guinness outside in the miserableIrish summer. We sulked through our pints while I tried to convince my fellow cyclists the all the hill climbing was behind us. We then set off uphill towards Banagher and we were continually surprised when we rounded each corner to discover a new hill ahead of us.
Nevertheless, we eventually made it into Banagher and joined the rest of the party at a pub and moaned into our drinks for sometime.
We dined in our private room at the pub then made lots of noise later that evening back at the marina.
Awoke Sunday morning and made short work of the lock then headed downriver towards Shannon Bridge. On the way we checked out the old Christian site of Clonmacnoise.
We arrived in Shannon Bridge in good order and set about drinking at the local pub.
Later we drank at another pub.
I think this holiday is taking a familiar pattern.
Burge made Judy wear a Tiara
We scored a train from Dublin to Athlone and met up with the rest of the unguided tour group. We squealed delightedly through our boat orientation and chatted incessantly during the safety video. We are thoroughly prepared for our week on the Shannon.
Our first stop was Athlone Marina. We alighted and picked up essentials from the local off license then tried to find a pub that had room for 13 for dinner. We settled on a restaurant that had room for us on a vacant outdoor setting. It was free because it was around 10deg C.
Nevertheless we had a good meal and a good catch up then slipped into Sean’s Bar (apparently one of the many oldest pubs in Ireland) for a couple of bevies.
We got back around to the boars around midnight and wedged ourselves into our cots.
The flight from Singers to Munich was tolerable in Lufthansa Premium Economy and we landed reasonably well rested with dangerous thirsts at 5:30AM. Whilst most the airport restaurants chose not to open to welcome us, we did find a cafe adjacent to our departure gate willing to serve us half litres of Erdinger wiesbeir.
Noel and myself were pretty stoked I can tell you.
A short 3 hours later we were bussed out to a chockers Lufthansa flying school bus and whisked to Dublin where they let us have a room at the Academy Plaza Hotel for the equivalent of the price of a small automobile per night.
We pretty much wandered aimlessly around Dublin drinking Guinness for a couple of day. We chose to opt out of the Taylor Swift concert.
We fullly embraced all the delights of Singapore.
Tapas with cocktails and Heineken’s.
