# marienoonan.com > Retirement travel blog ## Posts - [Galicia - Following the Light](https://marienoonan.com/galicia-following-the-light/): Chasing Lighthouses After inland Vilalba with a new car battery and some camping chairs and a camping table, we headed to the coast and the most northerly point in Spain. We went here on the advice of a English woman that we met in Vilalba (the tourist office was really unhelpful here but this woman overheard our queries) who told us that there were some wonderful hikes in this region, and it was sound advice. It’s a beautiful area of winding roads, forests, and little, sand-sand beaches but maybe we should have done more research because there weren’t any campsites – so we ‘wild’ camped in the forest among the eucalyptus trees and ferns. The high swaying branches of the eucalyptus overhead sounded like waves crashing on the sea. It was soothing until some twigs and leaves landed on the tent during the second night when it became windy….and then I hardly slept, my imagination in overdrive….. while Caoimhin snored beside me.   On a bright, breezy day, we walked out to the lighthouse, Faro de Punta Estaco de Bares at the most northly point of the Bares peninsula. The lighthouse was small and ugly with unpainted concrete, but the area was wild and beautiful with pods of dolphins in the rough sea After two nights in the forest, we packed up and headed west (with no set destination apart from the need for a campsite and a shower) until we came to Valdovino, a small, hilly town with a long sweeping beach and a lagoon which was a protected area for wildlife and biodiversity (a bit like Tramore). We liked the feel of the place straight away, looked for a campsite and found A Laguna with views of the sea and hot showers (aah, the simple pleasures). We liked it so much – and the weather was a glorious, sunny 28C every day – that we stayed for three nights. We did some yoga sessions on the beach and we hiked lots of coastal paths and cultivated the art of doing very little(not as easy as you’d think). We trekked to another lighthouse along beaches and trail paths, Faro de Punta Frouxeira, a very modern rectangular building of blue and white blocks in a stunningly beautiful area. Honestly, we got tired of saying ‘Wow!!’ as we rounded another corner. A few days later, we were in A Coruna to look at a very different lighthouse, the Roman lighthouse known as the Tower of Hercules which sits on a headland just at the edge of the city.  This is the oldest surviving lighthouse – it was magnificent both for the building, the location, and the sculptures on the paths leading up to it. I don’t think that it would have the same appeal if it had simply been called the Roman lighthouse instead of the Tower of Hercules. It was so popular an attraction that we had problems finding parking – for a while it seemed that the closest we would get was a distant view from the car window as we drove round and round the streets but eventually we found a parking space. There are some great walks here along the headland near Hercules. After admiring Hercules, we headed off to another campsite still going west….or we tried to… but Google, usually our reliable friend, kept rerouting us around the streets of A Coruna, round and round we went along one-way streets, missing our turn-offs.  We were hot, tired, hungry and a bit frazzled – so much so that we pull over at a Burger King. Junk food never tasted so good or so restorative! And we found our way with ease after that. We keep acquiring things, a clothesline and pegs, a fly swatter, a cool box bought in Ferrol, the birthplace of Franco (his statue is no longer on public display but is confined to a military barracks in the port area). The cool box had a 12-volt socket so that it can be plugged into the back of the car which is great for keeping things chilled – especially the white wine. But we discovered how hard this was on the car battery especially if left plugged in for most of the day and night when we were camping at Camping Balcoba, a hilly campsite shaded by sycamore trees overlooking the sea.  The car battery was dead as a dodo and the car was facing the wrong way – it would need to be pushed uphill first. We looked around – our nearest neighbours were a helpful young couple in a van but they were slight and we needed more muscle and fortunately another couple down the hill spotted our predicament and lent a hand. They were travelling with two dogs (something like pitbulls) and a set of dumbbells and bench press – I think the woman could have pushed the car uphill on her own. Despite the pushing, the engine simply coughed down the hill and refused to turn over – it required jump leads. Hopefully, this will be the end of the car trouble.  Camping in Galicia was great – we camped in three different campsites – all shady – along this stretch of the Galician coast from Fares to Paia Vilcovo, west of A Coruna. We hadn’t booked any of them in advance, but we had no problem finding a site to camp. Prices averaged around €22 euro a night for 2 people, a tent and a car. Walking in Galicia is wonderful – suitable for everyone even those with dodgy knees.  The coastal paths are really amazing with signs, maps, good surfaces, boardwalks, and lots of picnic benches. Most of the beaches have showers, toilets and foot wash taps. In the early mornings, the beaches are raked smooth with tractors and all the rubbish bins are emptied. We didn’t do any established walks but merely walked for two or three hours along the coast from wherever we happened to be. Although we followed our own version of a Lighthouse Camino, there is an established walk called The Lighthouse Way (Camino de Faros), a 200 km hike along the Costa del Morte section of the Galician coast which sounds really interesting – a walk from lighthouse to lighthouse along the coast of death. It begins a little further west from where we were …. And is worth googling. I think that we will have to come back this way again. - [Beyond Bilbao](https://marienoonan.com/beyond-bilbao/): After a few days in Bilbao, it was time to hit the road west and what a road. Jaw-dropping scenery from Bilbao to Santander to Gijon and beyond. The road is high with sea and white sand beaches to the right and forests and mountains to the left. We drove from Basque country through Cantabria to the region of Asturius. The infrastructure was amazing with viaducts, beautiful bridges, long tunnels and best of all, no tolls, on this route – a truly wonderful drive …..and the car kept going although we have taken to parking on hills in case we have a repeat of the episode getting when we were getting on the ferry. We set up camp for the night outside Villaviciousa in Asturias – some other campsites nearer the sea were full and when I say full, I mean jammed – barely room to walk between tents although they would probably have squeezed us in somewhere. It was mid-August and a holiday weekend. We put up the tent under the trees and then discover that we have forgotten to bring the camping chairs and table – we have left them in our garden shed. We had been complimenting ourselves about how well we had packed. Now we knew why everything fitted so well into the car! After one night camping and sitting on the wet grass (it rained all night – the only rain for weeks), we moved on, still following the coast with the blues of sea and sky to our right and the greys and greens of mountains to our left with a mist blowing over the Picos. There were tiny coves with towering cliffs and red tiled houses clinging to sloping mountainsides. We stayed with a relative – my brother in law’s mother, Luz – for a couple of nights in her house about 10kms outside Villalba, an inland town in Galicia but which is on the Camino del Norte. The countryside around here was green with hedgerows of wildflowers (very similar to home) and small farm holdings with a few cows (with enormous horns) and farmers driving old tractors. There were rows of windmills on the horizon and mixed forestry plantations. But the countryside was also dotted with lots of large, deserted houses – substantial buildings with peeling paint. Sometimes there were several clustered together in small, deserted villages. Fine houses that would be habitable with a little TLC are left to crumble and decay where their (usually) elderly inhabitants die. Luz and her partner, Manuel were so welcoming to us. Luz lived in England for about twenty years and has excellent English. She fed us, did our washing (we were travelling fairly lightly and may have packed too few clothes!) and helped us get a new car battery in Villalba, bargaining with gusto so that we got a good price – fingers crossed we won’t need to park on hills any longer and worry about the battery dying. We also bought camping chairs and a table, so the car boot was full again and so we were all set to camp in relative comfort. - [Bilbao - The Masked City](https://marienoonan.com/bilbao-the-masked-city/): Bilbao is a green city, settled into hills and mountains. The centre fits neatly into the horseshoe shape made by the river. Looking up and down many streets, we could see the surrounding mountains in both directions. But the big surprise was that nearly everyone was wearing masks outside – not just indoors or in shops but just walking down the street. However we were never asked to provide our Covid certs anywhere or questioned about covid tests. Tapas bars are everywhere, and wine is gloriously cheap – about €2.50 a glass, (sometimes less) and often accompanied by free plates of cured meat and chorizos…even if you don’t want them.  Vegetarianism is a challenging option here as meat is king and fish is queen. The huge attraction in Bilbao is the Guggenheim and once you lay eyes on it, you see why. This weird floating structure rises out of the river, part boat, part fish and winds under a bridge.  Buskers were playing classical music outside which only added to the gentle craziness of the whole experience. There’s a enormous colourful sculpture of a puppy, planted with real flowers on the plaza outside…defying all perspective. The website said that tickets must be bought online but we decided to see if we could get in anyway – there was a short queue and after about 10 minutes, we were in without issue (again no checking of covid certs). The building inside is just as disorientating as you’d expect – we had difficulty finding the exit. The old town on the right bank of the river is full of cobbled winding streets with dishevelled buildings and tables set out along the streets. It’s a great area to just wander around, browse the shops, people watch and get lost in…and we ate great seafood here. Our hotel was a ‘no frills’ option called the Ibis Budget Bilbao City which we picked because it had parking but when we arrived, it didn’t have any parking left anyway so we had to drive a few streets over to find parking. This was a budget hotel in all aspects apart from price – it was €130 a night without breakfast (or parking). The room was small, the towels were thin and tiny, Caoimhin kept hitting his head on a shelf, we were on the sixth floor and looked directly into another room across a small courtyard – we could even see their toothbrushes lined up by the sink. We really liked Bilbao and the weather was perfect for wandering around – about 26C during the day with cool evenings. - [Let the Adventure Begin!](https://marienoonan.com/let-the-adventure-begin/): It’s was a dirty, misty morning on the way to Rosslare for the 10.15 am ferry. There was a reasonable amount of work traffic and we sympathised with all the poor devils making their way to offices and factories. We arrived at check-in gate in Rosslare, handed over passports, Covid Certs, Spanish QR Health Code Cert that we had got the day before. We thought that we were all organised but there was a problem! We had filled in a group form to get the Spanish QR CODE, inputted both our details on this FCS form and the Spanish Authorities had sent us the QR code which we presumed covered the two of us….not so. It only covered Caoimhin. So I had to fill out a form to get my code sent to me. This form is not the most straightforward as the drop down boxes kept sticking …we had arrived on plenty of time but I was still panicking and my fingers were sticky…with hand cream and sweat but eventually i got the QR code on my phone. But if you are a couple or group, fill out individual FCS forms and ignore the group option to get your Spanish QR code. Before I could recover from all that excitement, we had more …. we were in the ferry queue and the car wouldn’t start, the battery seemed to be dead😯. Luckily, three burly bikers from Cork and a barefoot German in a campervan gave us a push so we got on the boat. At this stage, I was devouring the food supplies that we brought with us for the journey with the stress. The boat, the Connemara, was described as a ‘no frills’ service. This ‘no frills’ was on the website and on the tickets. We had to book a cabin, no option to just get a seat or portion of floor. Our cabin was a 4 Beth but the other top bunk beds were folded away giving us plenty of space with a porthole which gave lots of light and views of the ocean. The sheets were clean, the pillows were good and the beds were comfy. Towels were supplied and the ensuite shower was hot and powerful. There was a bar, self service restaurant and a little shop that only opened at a few selected hours and sold souvenirs, wine, spirits and perfume. But not bad for ‘no frills.’ There was no WiFi (there was an option to pay between €5 and €25 depending on data) This slow transitioning from one country to another was restful. We looked at Google maps and followed our relatively slow progress, a blue dot in the ocean. The rocking motion of the boat and the dull sound of the engine was soothing and it was even restful not to feel the urge to look at our phones. We were lucky that the weather was good, the sea was calm with hardly a ripple except for the dolphins that somersaulted near the bow on the second morning in the Bay of Biscay. There was a little flutter of unease as we sat into our car after almost thirty hours on board. Would the car start? But the engine turned over without a bother and we negotiated the steep ramp to disembark and head into Bilbao driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. - [The Big 'R' Retirement](https://marienoonan.com/the-big-r-retirement/): June 2021 So the day has finally come to cross the line and move to the farside of my working life to the land of retirement where everyday is a Friday. I’m excited, delighted and sad at the same time. The French intellectual Anatole France said: ‘All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.’ After working in the same place (although it has changed names – Ardkeen Hospital, Waterford Regional Hospital, University Hospital Waterford) for most of my working life, it’s a wrench to go and leave friends and colleagues behind. I started working almost forty years ago in the Biochemistry Laboratory of Ardkeen Hospital and although I have come and gone with numerous leaves for travel, education, more travel and child-rearing, I have always come back. I’m sixty years old and one of the questions that I ask myself is ‘How can I possibly be this age?’ but I am, and consider myself so lucky to have got this far. That big number was looming on the horizon like a black cloud all year but now that I’m here, its all sunshine and rainbows and even a little pot of gold! Travel is a huge passion – I love the thrill of going to new places and meeting new people. I don’t like to plan too much or have a detailed itinerary – that feels like being sewn into a straitjacket. And luckily I have a husband who feels the same way. I traveled a lot in South East Asia in my twenties and we took a year off in 2007/2008 and traveled around South America, Australia, Vietnam, China and Russia with our three children who were eight, ten and eleven at the time – a journey that evolved as we went along, having started with one-way tickets from Dublin to Buenos Aires, Argentina because this was the cheapest flight we could find to South or Central America. Now my husband, Caoimhin, is going to take another year out from work (he’s four years younger than me) – he’s calling it his gap-year. So with precious time and some money(I don’t have a huge pension because of all the leave I had), we can hit the road. But this is 2021, the second year of the Covid pandemic and there are restrictions and quarantining associated with travel. So we decided to travel in Europe to begin with. We investigated buying a campervan but they are expensive and in high demand at the moment. Ideally we would love to buy and convert a small electric van. We already have an electric car – a 2015 Nissan Leaf – which we love but the range of 125 kilometres on a full change is a bit limiting for long haul travel. So for now we are going to go in our other car (nine year old Kia Ceed which we call the guzzler) with a tent. Keep it simple is our motto. We have booked a ferry from Rosslare to Bilbao (one way) in Northern Spain departing on August 10. We have vague notions of walking part of the Portuguese Camino and maybe driving to Greece and I feel myself drawn o the Balkans but we’ll see what happens. Time will tell But first we will do some camping in Ireland - [All Together Now](https://marienoonan.com/all-together-now/): It was our first time at All Together Now (ATN), the music festival held at Curraghmore Estate outside Portlaw on the August Bank Holiday weekend since 2018. As we hadn’t been to a multi-day festival in at least thirty years and only go to concerts infrequently, we weren’t sure what to expect. Would we be out of place as sixty somethings at this celebrated ‘cool’ music event. So what was it like? Driving to the festival on Thursday in the early afternoon in our van, we stopped at the well-stocked Centra in Portlaw to buy a multi-bag of crisps and some […] - [St Finbarr's Pilgrim Path: Saints and Sunshine](https://marienoonan.com/st-finbarrs-pilgrim-path-saints-and-sunshine/): Nobody warned us about the horseflies. They were out in marauding gangs, mainly attacking from behind. The pain was instant as the female used her scissor-like mouthparts to tear our flesh and lap up the pooling blood. I have an impressive selection of red bumps and lumps on the backs of my legs which I’m trying – unsuccessfully – not to scratch. They were particularly ferocious on the second day of the two-day St Finbarr’s Pilgrim Way in West Cork, a thirty-seven-kilometre walk from Drimoleague to Gougane Barra. The hike follows the footsteps of the sixth-century saint on ancient paths and […] - [Great Blasket Island: Sleeping with Seals](https://marienoonan.com/great-blasket-island-sleeping-with-seals/): The path wound steeply down to the little pier at Dún Chaoin (Dunquin), with its dramatic cliffside setting and views of azure-turquoise water. I wiped away the sweat trickling down my face, waving my sunhat to generate a breeze, and wondered if we were really in Kerry – it felt and looked like Greece. There wasn’t a scrap of shade on the pier, the sun beating down on the rocky, kelp-strewn waters. We watched the shimmer of the white beach (Trá Bán) of the Great Blasket Island in the distance, three miles across the bay and chatted to a fair-haired boy […] - [Clare Island: A Room with a View](https://marienoonan.com/clare-island-a-room-with-a-view/): The ferry to Clare Island was much smaller than we expected. It bobbed in the waters at Roonagh Pier in County Mayo on a June morning under dark, threatening skies.  A couple of Eir workers in high-vis jackets and tool boxes huddled together on deck. A female passenger in a thick jacket carried a cardboard box containing six sliced pans and three large leeks onboard and perched on an inside bench. The skipper was just about to pull away when someone shouted, ‘Hold on. There are a few more coming.’ Four middle-aged women wearing walking boots rushed on board with backpacks […] - [Malaysia/Turkey: Homeward Bound](https://marienoonan.com/malaysia-turkey-homeward-bound/): Kuala Lumpur felt different this time around. Six weeks previously, we had flown in from Dublin and now we were returning to spend a few more days there before getting a flight back to Ireland via Istanbul…..unless the drones and bombing raids in the Middle East cancelled our Turkish Airlines flight. The huge city felt a little intimidating – we had just spent almost a week on a small island with no cars (Perhentian Islands) and a few days in a little village, (on the edge of a 130 million year old rainforest, Tman Negara), a place with virtually no food […] - [Thailand/Malaysia: Long Journey to Paradise](https://marienoonan.com/thailand-malaysia-long-journey-to-paradise/): In the train station in Surat thani in Thailand, the woman behind the ticket counter was almost asleep, her head was resting on her folded arms with one bleary eye on her phone  A few passengers dozed on the hard benches, using their bags as pillows. It was almost midnight and we were early for the overnight sleeper train, which we had booked online the night before to take us on the nine-hour journey to the Malaysian border town of  Sunglai Kolok.  Our train wasn’t due for at least another seventy minutes, scheduled for the ungodly hour of 01.16. Although we […] - [Thailand: All Together Again](https://marienoonan.com/thailand-all-together-again/): Some reviews said that the ferry to the tropical island of Koh Phangan was a rusty tub that was always late and  also home to families of cockroaches. While it was a little behind schedule leaving Donsak Pier on the Thai mainland,  there was no sign of any cockroach onboard. The boat was large, clean and comfortable with two decks of  air-conditioned inside seating as well as a top open deck which was sweltering despite the sea breeze. We knew that Thailand was a very popular holiday destination and that the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan attracted an abundance […] - [Malaysia/Thailand: Monkeys Everywhere](https://marienoonan.com/malaysia-thailand-monkeys-everywhere/): After enjoying a few days in George Town, the largest town in Penang Island, we were keen to explore more of the island so we booked three night in Tony’s Guesthouse, a hostel with great reviews in the village of Teluk Behang on the northern coast of the island. It was about an hour by local bus from downtown George Town, passing lots of high rise buildings and enormous shopping malls on the way. Tony’s Guesthouse was down a dusty laneway, backed by forest and jungle. Ceiling fans whirred over the hammocks and the selection of battered sofas in the communal […] - [Malaysia: Tea and Scones](https://marienoonan.com/malaysia-tea-and-scones/): When my phone alarm went off at 5.45am, we were already awake, woken by the torrential rain which was loud enough to drown out the sound of the bedroom air-com in our guesthouse on Pangkor Island.  Sometimes the ceiling fan was enough for sleep but more often, we turned on the aircon at some stage during the night, when the nighttime temperatures hovered around 27C.  In the pre-dawn darkness, the rain was literally like turning a bucket upside down. We finished our packing, hoping it would ease but it only intensified. Caoimhin ran around the corner to get one of the […] - [Malaysia: Pink Taxis and Mischievous Monkeys](https://marienoonan.com/malaysia-pink-taxis-and-mischievous-monkeys/): Pangkor is a little island, about a 20 minute ferry ride off the western coast of Malaysia. Although our bus journey there took over seven hours instead of the scheduled four with no apparent reason for the delay, we were delighted to have arrived. We were met at the port by a bevy of flamingo-pink taxis. It was an easy-going place of battered pink taxis, narrow roads and scooters,  a place where roosters strutted along the beaches and the sea was tranquil and warm as bathwater. Most mornings a Hornbill, a bird that looked like it carried a spare bill, watched […] - [Malaysia: Another Journey Begins](https://marienoonan.com/malaysia-another-journey-begins/): WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION 😮....but please read on It was a wonderful morning …….to head to the airport and leave the country, one of those dreary dark January days when the wind slanted the rain sideways and the sun seemed far away. The bus from Waterford to Dublin airport sloshed through puddles and the windscreen wipers worked overtime. All was well until we stopped in Dublin City Centre for what seemed an excessively long time …before the driver gave us the news that there was a problem with the bus’s engine cover and that he had called for a replacement coach.  This […] - [Electric Travels: Highs and Lows](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-highs-and-lows/): The night before we left home for our two-month roadtrip from Ireland to Morocco in our  completely-electric van, I had a dream -more a nightmare – that camels were towing us through the desert because we had run out of charge. Thankfully that didn’t happen…..although at one stage in Central Morocco, it was looking like a very real possibility. But we survived – both us and the van arrived back home, delighted and exhilarated by our travels. This final post is a brief summary and some trip highlights. We left home on the first of October, sailing with Brittany Ferries boat […] - [Electric Travels: Closing the Loop](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-closing-the-loop/): Spain in November was much colder than we expected. Our week in the Sierra Nevada was gorgeous with mainly bright sunny days and cold nights (as low as 2C), Although the daytime temperatures rarely climbed above 13C, it felt much warmer in the sunshine and it was perfect weather for hiking. As we packed up the van last Monday, there was a change….clouds were dimming the brilliant blue skies of the previous week. We headed north, skirting around the city of Granada, stopping to charge the van, outside a Burger King with little else around which meant that we felt compelled […] - [Electric Travels: A Pause (paws) in Spain.](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-a-pause-paws-in-spain/): Most days, the air was crisp and clear…except when the locals burnt their mounds of tree clipping , wafting plumes of smoke into the air. The sky was a blinding blue and we were surrounded by a craggy silhouette of mountains in almost every direction. In the distance was the glittering white of the first snows, which had fallen the day before we arrived. We spent eight days in Niguelas, a small village in the Sierra Nevada, about an half-hour drive outside the city of Granada, staying in a little Airbnb apartment on the edge of the village which we had […] - [Electric Travels: Out of Morocco](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-out-of-morocco/): I was jittery, unable to eat anything. Caoimhin had no such qualms tucking into fried eggs and hunks of bread for breakfast in our little apartment in Cabo Negro, a little seaside town in Morocco on the Mediterranean coast, about thirty minutes from the border. Our entry into Morocco in the opposite direction three weeks previously had been dramatic. At first we were denied entry because we didn’t have the correct paperwork for the Buzz, entirely our fault. It was only after much pleading and several hours that we were allowed to enter by the skin of tour teeth and issued […] - [Electric Roadtrip: From the Mountains to the Sea](https://marienoonan.com/electric-roadtrip-from-the-mountains-to-the-sea/): Our washing danced in the breeze on the clothes-line strung up between two olive trees in the rustic campsite in the Rif Mountains in Morocco. The figs had been harvested, and so had the chillies but two lemon trees were full of green skinned fruit although the few avocadoes were still small and hard.  The resident dog befriended us…..all it took was a bit of chicken….he slept beside the van and followed us to the river, as if guarding us or more likely, hoping for scraps.  We chatted to the other few campers who came for a night and then departed, […] - [Electric Roadtrip: Blue Days in Morocco](https://marienoonan.com/electric-roadtrip-blue-days-in-morocco/): Fes was different,  As we drove into the imperial city in the heart of Morocco, our priority was to get the Buzz charged. Following the map directions for a Kilowatt EV charger, a man on a motorbike pulled up beside us in the traffic and, noticing the van’s registration, shouted in English ‘Are you from Ireland?’ We nodded,  replying  that we were making our way to charge the van. He raced ahead and directed us to the EV chargers on the side of a busy wide street. Unfortunately neither was functioning but our motorbike ‘friend’ was now bombarding us about talk […] - [Electric Roadtrip: The Charging Saga](https://marienoonan.com/electric-roadtrip-the-charging-saga/): Leaving our camping cocoon in Tangier was hard but it had to be done. Waving goodbye to Said, the manager, we headed off in search of EV chargers, making a minor detour to Carrefour Supermarket (Socco Alto branch) to stock up on a few beers and a bottle of wine. Alcohol is not widely available in Morocco, but you can find it…. if you know where to look or have inside information from a walking tour guide.  It’s relatively expensive, especially compared to Spain. We stop at a fuel station which has Fast Volt Chargers, which again look well maintained. Caoimhin […] - [Electric Travels: Onwards to Morocco](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-onwards-to-morocco/): When I left you last, we were waiting to enter the Picasso Museum in Malaga. Picasso was truly a genius, could turn his hand at anything from pottery to sculpture to iron works and was constantly working. I love his quote ‘Everyone knows that art is not truth. Art is a lie that allows us to realize the truth. Definitely worth a visit. Malaga was gorgeous but too crowded and hectic for us so we continued along the Costa del Sol, past the high-rise holiday complexes to the western side of Marbella where we found a lovely campsite with good facilities, […] - [Electric Travels: Into the Sun](https://marienoonan.com/electric-travels-into-the-sun/): The days flew by, sun-drowsy, as we made our way south through Spain. After leaving Salamanca, where we were dazzled by the town’s beauty, not just in the famed main plaza, regarded as the most magnificent in all of Spain, where visitors and locals alike burst into spontaneous applause at dusk when the lights were turned on.  Although the city was full of visitors, it was still possible to find shady corners and quiet courtyards where there was only the chirping of birds, which nested in the nooks and crannies of the sandstone facades of old buildings. Driving through the Extramadura […] - [Electric Road Trip: The Journey Begins](https://marienoonan.com/electric-road-trip-the-journey-begins/): The night before we left home for our nine-week roadtrip from Ireland to Morocco in our all-electric van, I dreamt that camels were towing us through the desert because we had run out of charge. Range anxiety in my dreams…..hopefully not an omen. The journey to the ferry port in Rosslare was short and the crossing to Bilbao was smooth.  Taking the ferry was such a comfortable, relaxing way to travel, a slow transitioning to holiday mode. Wi-Fi was only available for a fee and our mobile data only kicked in briefly when we sailed near the tip of England and […] - [Campervanning in North Mayo: A Scenic Adventure](https://marienoonan.com/campervanning-in-north-mayo-a-scenic-adventure/): It was a week to remember, a week in late August, spent campervanning around Mayo, a week of spectacular walking on stunning coastal paths, pristine white-sand beaches, lonely bogs and remote mountains and even a pilgrimage route, Tóchar Phádraig,  an ancient druidic path to reach Croagh Patrick. We started at Portocloy Beach on the far North-West Mayo Coast in a Gaeltacht area. If ever the phrase ‘off the beaten track’ was appropriate, it was here. We watched a lone gull, the only sign of life, gliding and swooping over the calm harbour waters.  There were no crowds, cafes, shops or bars, […] - [A Tale of Two Islands, Sherkin and Cape Clear](https://marienoonan.com/a-tale-of-two-islands-sherkin-and-cape-clear/): There’s something appealing about visiting islands. Maybe it’s the isolation, the idea of ‘getting away from it all’, the rugged beauty of most islands or the desire to experience  a simpler rhythm of life based on sea and tide. Ireland has a plethora of islands scattered about its coast, more than eighty in total with about twenty of them  inhabited. A few years ago, we pledged to visit all of them, or at least the inhabited ones, and we have been slowly ticking them off our list.  Last year, we visited Tory, Ireland’s most northerly, inhabited island and last week, we […] - [Mexico: Highlights](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-highlights/): Mexico is beautiful, an enormous country (about 23 times the size of Ireland) with something to enchant every visitor – palm-fringed beaches, red-sand deserts,  lush jungles, mountain ranges, coastlines along the turquoise Caribbean Sea, the blue Pacific Ocean and of course the Gulf of Mexico as well as a plethora of archaeological ruins, colourful colonial towns and world-renowned holiday resorts.   Despite all that, the question that we were asked most often about Mexico, and especially when we said that we were hiring a car and driving around was ‘Is it safe?’ In our five weeks of meandering around the Southern part […] - [Mexico: Completing the Loop](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-completing-the-loop/): Time in Mexico flew by and we found ourselves back in the Yucatan driving away from the Gulf of Mexico (definitely still called that), heading inland towards Cancun to complete the last part of our large loop. Swallows flew around the quadrangle flanked on all sides by the ruins of ancient monuments.   Bats were hanging upside down in the dark recesses of the buildings while giant iguanas snoozed on the hot stones. We were in Uxmal, another archaeological site where most of the buildings dated from the seventh to tenth century AD and were unlike anything that we had seen before […] - [Mexico: Driving by the Gulf](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-driving-by-the-gulf/): Everything was pink, flamingo pink. Flamingoes were painted on the walls, plastic birds lurked in the foliage of gardens and even the bridge into the little town of Celestun was painted a soft dusky pink.  Celestun was mainly a sleepy, dusty fishing village, sunbaked and sandwiched between a large lagoon and the turquoise water of the Gulf of Mexico. The combination of salt water from the Gulf and fresh water from the estuary made it a perfect habitat for flamingoes and waterfowl but the flamingoes were the real attraction. The Reserva de la Biosfera Ría Celestún was  a large coastal wetland […] - [Mexico: Then and Now](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-then-and-now/): Inhaling clear air, we felt slightly dizzy from the altitude at 3100m and the breathtaking scenery of pine-clad forests. The distant tinkling of bells, worn around the necks of goats and sheep, drifted upwards on a light breeze. We could have been in some Alpine town in Switzerland but this wasn’t Europe, it was the Sierre Norte, a mountain range in the Oaxaca region of Southern Mexico. The idea to visit this remote village was planted in our minds only two days before when we visited Mount Alban, an impressive archaeological site which overlooked the colonial city of  Oaxaca. Mexico is […] - [Mexico: Gone to the Beach](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-gone-to-the-beach/): It was the start of a long day, a very long day. It was barely ten degrees, a bright, chilly and pine-scented morning in the gorgeous, mountain-town of San Christobel de Las Casas. Leaving the town behind us with some regret, we travelled on a wide tolled road, the first toll road we have encountered so far.  Descending rapidly to the lowlands, the temperature ascended just as rapidly and we were reaching for the car air-con within forty minutes.     We hadn’t a definite destination in mind, just headed in the general direction of the beaches on the Pacific coast of […] - [Mexico....Ruins and Ruinous Roads](https://marienoonan.com/mexico-ruins-and-ruinous-roads/): The first rain came in a violent downpour just after Ireland had beaten Scotland in the rugby match which we watched on the laptop in our little apartment in Bacalar, a little town just shy of the Belize border.  It was still midmorning as Mexico is five hours behind Ireland. The morning had been warm, about 28odegrees, but cloudier than usual so we weren’t too surprised when the heavens opened. The rain didn’t last long but increased the humidity. We love the temperatures here in the Southern Yucatan. Although it can get a little uncomfortable in the afternoon especially if the […] - [Hola, Mexico](https://marienoonan.com/hola-mexico/): Our journey to Mexico was longer than expected…much longer. The first seven-hour leg from Dublin to Toronto was very pleasant. The Air Canada flight was more than half empty, leaving plenty of space to spread out, the food was good, the drinks were complimentary and there was an endless supply of chocolate biscuits and pretzels. ‘Take as many as you want,’ said the steward and we took her at her word. There was a long wait (about six hours) in Toronto for our connecting flight to Cancun in Mexico but this was scheduled, part of our cheap, last-minute flight deal and […] - [Japan: Highs and Lows](https://marienoonan.com/japan-highs-and-lows/): Now that we are back home from our six-week trip in a campervan around fascinating Japan, it’s  time to reflect on our experience. We flew into and out of Osaka and in between travelled a circuitous route in South Western Japan  through the large islands of Sikoku and Kyushu, often changing course because of the weather. Japan is about five and a half times the size of Ireland but feels much bigger, stretching from within touching distance of Russia in the extreme north to islands in the East China Sea that almost nudge Taiwan. I’ve included a dozen highlights but I could […] - [Japan: Kyoto, City of Crowded Charms](https://marienoonan.com/japan-kyoto-city-of-crowded-charms/): We  arrived in Kyoto  in the dark after a six-hour journey from the Sandan Gorge. We hadn’t planned on such a long drive, thinking that we would stop somewhere along the way but we just kept going. Driving conditions were good (no rain) and the lure of Kyoto, a place that is on the itinerary of every visitor to Japan, enticed us on until we found ourselves in an empty carpark in Arashiyama, a western neighbourhood of Kyoto and near several tourist attractions. It was a cool, bright morning, just after 7am, as we hurried over the bridge of the wide, […] - [Japan: Holy Mountains and Glorious Gorges](https://marienoonan.com/japan-holy-mountains-and-glorious-gorges/): Our visit to Fukuoka didn’t start well. The traffic was horrendous as we made our way into the city from Nagasaki. Fukuoka is the largest city in Kyushu (one of the main four islands in Japan) and is one of Japan’s ten most populated cities…and it certainly felt like it when we were there.  With its closeness to the Asian mainland (closer to Seoul than to Tokyo), Fukuoka has been an important harbor city for many centuries and was chosen by the Mongol invasion forces as their landing point in the 13th century. It is often called a ‘mini’ Tokyo, it even has a […] - [Japan: War and Peace](https://marienoonan.com/japan-war-and-peace/): In my last post, I said that we were hoping to leave Amami Island, a small island in the East China Sea a few days early because there was a risk of a typhoon coming in our direction. The bad news was that we couldn’t change the ferry return date because of lack of availability for the campervan  and the good news was that the typhoon changed direction and headed in a more southerly path towards Taiwan and North Korea. The tail of the hurricane still lashed Amami with rain  so we booked into a really comfortable hotel -The Wa,  enjoyed […] - [Japan: Chasing the Dream (aka Running from the Rain)](https://marienoonan.com/japan-chasing-the-dream-aka-running-from-the-rain/): We are in the terminal building standing in a queue to buy tickets  for the ferry to Beppu in Kyushu when several phones, including Caoimhin’s, start making strange sounds simultaneously. It’s an emergency alert but it doesn’t say what for …more information coming is the ominous text.  The noise echoes around the high ceilings of the building.  People glance at their phones but nobody seems too bothered and the queue shuffles on as if such alerts are frequent.  It’s a reminder that we are in a country where natural disasters are common with a history of typhoons, tsunamis,  volcanic eruptions and […] - [Japan in a Van](https://marienoonan.com/japan-in-a-van/): Japan is a country of surprises. We are enthralled by its natural beauty, the tree-clad mountains and the numerous Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines nestling among cedar trees above swirling clouds. On a much more practical level, we are surprised by the impressive number of public toilets. This abundance of toilets is great for us because our ‘no frills’ camper does not come equipped with one.  They are everywhere – in parks and beaches, by the roadside and in most of the ubiquitous, convenience stores (like 7Elevens and Lawsons.). All these toilets are free, open 24/7 and  spotlessly clean.  Many have  a […] - [Journey to Japan✈️✈️](https://marienoonan.com/journey-to-japan%e2%9c%88%ef%b8%8f%e2%9c%88%ef%b8%8f/): Our journey was longer than expected. We flew Qatar Airlines from Dublin to Doha (Qatar) and onwards to Osaka in Japan but delays leaving Dublin meant that we missed our connecting flight in Doha. We weren’t the only ones with missed flight connections. The escalating situation and volatile skies over the Middle East meant that lots of flights were delayed, cancelled or diverted. Doha is a big international hub with connecting flights radiating in all directions and that night it was chaotic with hundreds (maybe thousands) of passengers milling around, all wanting to be somewhere else. After queueing for hours at […] - [Tory Island - Timeless and Tantalising❤️](https://marienoonan.com/tory-island-timeless-and-tantalising%e2%9d%a4%ef%b8%8f/): On a sunny July Sunday, we parked our van in Magheroarty in North West Donegal and walked down the pier to the small passenger ferry to take us to Tory Island, the most remote inhabited island off the Irish coast.  We were laden down with bags, mainly of rattling provisions (i.e. wine😀) for our three night/four day stay on the island. Although we had read online that there was a shop on Tory, it was recommended to bring as much as possible with us.  As we walked to the boat, Caoimhin kicked his sandal vigorously to release a pebble lodged under […] - [Old Rail Trail Greenway - Cycling in the Midlands](https://marienoonan.com/old-rail-trail-greenway-cycling-in-the-midlands/): The Midlands is an area of Ireland that is seldom a destination in itself, usually it’s just a region to pass through on the way to somewhere more exciting. But the heart of Ireland has a lot to offer as we discovered when we visited the area and cycled the Old Rail Trail Greenway which links the River Shannon in Athlone to the Royal Canal in Mullingar this week. This greenway is 43kms on a flat paved and wide path along a converted stretch of the Midlands Great Western Railway which makes for lovely leisurely cycling or walking and is suitable […] - [Colombia: Highlights❤️](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-highlights%e2%9d%a4%ef%b8%8f/): Now that we are back home, it’s time to reflect on our Colombian odyssey and our three months of backpacking around this jaw-droppingly beautiful country. Colombia is a very large country, almost 17 times the size of Ireland (with a population 53 million) so even in three months, we didn’t see it all …or even most of it.  It is also a very varied with  snow-capped mountains, smouldering volcanoes, sweltering jungle, lush rainforest, white-sand beaches on two coastlines (Pacific and Caribbean), lunar-landscape deserts,  coffee plantations, vibrant cities and colourful mountain towns. For all its beauty, Colombia suffers from an image problem, […] - [Colombia –  Ruins, Rivers and Desert Rain🌵](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-ruins-rivers-and-desert-rain%f0%9f%8c%b5/): Sometimes it’s an adventure just getting to a destination.  Popayan, with its many churches and white buildings, was full of religious visitors for the many Pascal processions and Easter ceremonies but we left its busy streets to head to San Agustin, a small town not far from the border with Ecuador.  Why did we want to go to San Augustin, a place that was slightly off the Gringo Trail? Well, a young Swiss couple and an older American couple that we met along our travels, both told us that it was their favorite place in all of Colombia, so we felt […] - [Colombia - Coffee, Clouds and Condors](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-coffee-clouds-and-condors/): If you like to wake up and smell the coffee, then the colourful little Colombian town of Salento set amid green Andean mountains and coffee plantations may be your dream destination. Colombia has a reputation for producing excellent coffee and is the third largest grower of coffee after Brazil and Vietnam, so we were surprised to find that drinking coffee in most of the country was a real disappointment.🤨 I must admit that coffee isn’t really my cup of tea but Caoimhin, a coffee connoisseur, was disgusted with the coffee and even switched to drinking tea, water or some of the […] - [Colombia - Tragedy and Transformation](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-tragedy-and-transformation/): Medellin was the most fascinating and interesting city we visited in Colombia. It is also probably the most well-known Colombian city, famous for all the wrong reasons because of the popular Netflix series, Narcos, a story of corruption, violence, and Pablo Escobar.  Two words sum up Medellin – tragedy and transformation.  It was once the most dangerous city in the world, topping the tables for the highest rate of murder and kidnappings in the 1980s and 1990’s but now it regarded as the most fashionable Colombian city and the one with the best quality of life, attracting tourists and digital nomads. […] - [Colombia- Cartagena and Beyond🏖️](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-cartagena-and-beyond%f0%9f%8f%96%ef%b8%8f/): Cartagena on the Caribbean coast is the fifth largest city in Colombia with a population of two million. It is also the most touristy and considered the most expensive to visit. We had heard mixed reports before we went there but we enjoyed our visit. We stayed in Getsemani, a lively area of street art, bars and restaurants and near the old walled city.  The big attraction for tourists is the old quarter which oozes history with gorgeous colonial houses, small shady plazas and a clock tower built in 1601which once had a drawbridge over a moat that connected Getsemani with […] - [Colombia - Touring the Desert](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-touring-the-desert/): La Guajira is a remote area in the extreme north-east of Colombia, bordered by  the Caribbean Sea on one side and  Venezuela on the other. It is famous for its surreal desert landscapes, beautiful beaches, giant sand dunes and remote fishing villages of the indigenous Wayuu people.  It also boasts the most northerly point in South America, Punta Gallinas.  In Riohache, the capital of the region, we signed up for a 3-day, 2 night jeep tour to explore the area although we are not generally fans of organized tours but we thought it might be restful and educational. Although Riohache was […] - [Colombia - Looking for Paradise](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-looking-for-paradise/): Palomino is a small town on the Colombian Caribbean coast, nestled between two rivers, Rio Palomino and the Rio Salvador. Both rivers flow from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the sea on both sides of the town. It has developed a reputation as a mecca for backpackers with lots of cheap accommodation and good restaurants. It sounded like an ideal spot for some relaxation after our exertions during the Lost City Trek. The bus from Santa Marta (two hours away), dropped us on the main road, with roaring traffic, motorbikes, buses, fumes and deafening noise. Palomino itself was just off this […] - [Colombia - The Lost City](https://marienoonan.com/colombia-the-lost-city/): Everyone has heard of Machu Picchu in Peru but Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Columbia is far less well known despite being 650 years older and also shrouded in mystery. Unlike Machu  Picchu, Ciudad Perdida does not have a bustling town at the base of the mountain with hotels to suit every taste and a bevy of tour buses to ferry tourists to the entrance. There is only one way to get to the Lost City in Columbia……and that is, by foot on ancient paths and tracks hiking through protected indigenous land…and it can only be done as part of […] - [Beyond Bogota...the roads less travelled.](https://marienoonan.com/beyond-bogota-the-roads-less-travelled/): Leaving Bogota, we headed for the hills – literally. Bogota is a huge city, the Uber taking us from the historic district of Candelaria drove nineteen kilometres in relatively heavy traffic to the bus station, Terminal del Norte. The bus to the little town of Ville de Leyva was surprisingly comfortable with assigned seats, plenty of legroom, air-con and phone charging points. Time is elastic here in Colombia – the bus journey was supposed to take a very precise two hours and twenty two minutes, but it was well over three hours before we reached our destination. Strong sunshine and mountain […] - [Colombia Calling](https://marienoonan.com/columbia-calling%f0%9f%87%a8%f0%9f%87%b4%f0%9f%87%a8%f0%9f%87%b4/): Colombia, one of the most beautiful and diverse countries in the world,  suffers from an image problem. Mention Colombia and a few people may think ‘coffee’ but most will automatically conjure images of drugs and violence….thanks in part to the series Narcos. While there was  truth  to this,  rumour has it that things have changed in the last decade. Lets hope so as this is our first but long-anticipated visit to Colombia. Our Iberian Airline  plane touched down in Bogota El Dorado International Airport at the ungodly hour of  4.30am after a cramped eleven hour flight from Madrid (preceded by  a two […] - [Portuguese Camino - Walking Backwards😁](https://marienoonan.com/portuguese-camino-walking-backwards%f0%9f%98%81/): All Caminos seem to lead to Santiago de Compostela.  Three Portuguese Caminos – the Coastal Route, the Central Route and the Liturgical Route – all travel through Portugal towards Santiago and all three routes converge in Tui, a Spanish town on the border with Portugal, separated by the Mino River which forms a natural boundary between the two countries. After our spectacular Camino del Faro along the Galician Coast in Spain (http://marienoonan.com/2023/09/17/camino-del-faro-the-lighthouse-way/), we wanted to hike some more before flying back home from Lisbon. The Portuguese Central Route seemed interesting although we would be trekking in the ‘wrong’ direction, away from […] - [Camino del Faro- The Lighthouse Way](https://marienoonan.com/camino-del-faro-the-lighthouse-way/): Mention the words ‘Camino’ and ‘Spain’ in the same sentence and most people will think about the Camino de Santiago, the incredibly popular pilgrimage way of St James. But there are others far less trodden paths🥾.  We have just completed the spectacular Camino del Faro (The Lighthouse Way), a 200 Kms trek in Galicia along the Coste del Morte (Death Coast), linking the towns of Malpica and Finisterre and walking from lighthouse to lighthouse. Our journey began with a late Ryanair flight from Dublin to Santiago de Compostela, arriving at about 11.30pm. Yellow bus signs on the ground at the airport […] - [Scotland - Midges, Clouds and Bright Water](https://marienoonan.com/scotland-midges-clouds-and-bright-water/): Some place-names exert a kind of magnetic pull and the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland is one of them, hinting at a wild and romantic remoteness. It has been on our list of places to visit for a while so when some friends rented a cottage there and suggested that we join them for a few days, we jumped at the chance. On a rainy August Saturday, we set off  on the four hour journey from Waterford for Larne with Storm Anthony buffeting the car along the motorway and rain lashing the windscreen. The only real indication […] - [Philippines - the Highs and Lows](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-the-highs-and-lows/): We are home – back after more than ten weeks wandering around the Philippines. Adjusting slowly to the dramatic change in temperature, wearing jumpers and jackets in a cool, breezy Irish May but loving the soft light and the long evenings, enjoying the bluebells and the golden fields of rapeseed. The Philippines is a country of islands – more than seven thousand, six hundred of them. It is a country blessed by beauty (our photos only give a pale imitation of the reality).  It is also blessed by soil fertility, capable of several rice crops a year and a  myriad of […] - [Philippines - Burial Rites and Birthdays](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-burial-rites-and-birthdays/): After our hugely enjoyable trekking in the rice terraces around Banaue in Northern Luzon, we were on the move again to  another mountain town about a three hour van-ride away. As soon as we stepped from the van in hilly Sagada, there was the scent of fragrant pine from the tree clad mountains all around. There were signs advertising lemon pie, the local specially and also etag, pork which was cured, air-dried and smoked. A layer of maggots enhanced the flavour of the etag, apparently, but we were far too squeamish to try it. The houses were multi-story and far more […] - [Philippines - Mountains of Rice](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-mountains-of-rice/): Our ferry was due to leave Coron for Manila at the very precise time of 11.59pm and lo and behold, before the stroke of midnight, we were on our way. A punctual departure hadn’t seemed likely. The security at the port was tight with much checking of bags for sharp objects and lighters. A mango that Caoimhin had in the side pocket of his backpack was confiscated with no explanation….perhaps the official liked mangoes, as much as we did. Once we entered the main departure area, all bags had to be placed in a single row on the floor so that […] - [Philippines- The Lost Week](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-the-lost-week/): There’s a reason why some places are so popular. The Philippines is so astonishingly beautiful that we had almost become jaded to beauty, but our first glimpse of the Bacuit Archipelago still managed to take our breath away. We were squashed in a little white van, whose speedometer didn’t work and the driver was cautious on the hills when we saw a dreamy landscape of islands spread before us through the rain splattered, dirt splotched windscreen. It was just a tantalising glimpse through a break in the trees. It reminded me of island-studded Clew Bay, another dreamy landscape, when viewed from […] - [Philippines...An Island to Ourselves.(Almost)](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-an-island-to-ourselves-almost/): The sea was navy-blue and choppy as the boat made its way out from Port Barton to a little resort on a private island. The water rose over the bow and splashed my face like a warm salty shower – even out in the sea, the water wasn’t cold. After about an hour, the boat turned in the direction of a pale cream strip of sand backed by a wall of greenery. We had arrived at Coconut Garden Resort. We waded ashore where we were welcomed by Melody and the boatman carried out packs on his shoulders to our bungalow. The […] - [Philippines - Slow Boats, Slow Travel](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-slow-boats-slow-travel/): The signs were ominous from the beginning, there was very little information online about the ferry from Iloilo in Panay that sails across the Sula Sea to the island of Palawan, the most westerly region in the Philippines. The scant information available was contradictory, it went twice a week or maybe once a week,  it left at midday or 3pm or maybe 8pm. It seemed to depend on mood or wind and tide. We went to Iloilo on a Friday hoping to sail on Saturday or Sunday and went in search of tickets for the Montenegro ferry. On a hot crowded […] - [Philippines - Boracay, the Paradise Island](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-boracay-the-paradise-island/): Just the whisper of some place-names is like a promise of paradise. One such place is the island of Boracay in the Western Visayas in the Philippines, which has been called one of the most perfect islands in the world on many ‘must-visit’ lists ,  the pinnacle of white- sand, palm fringed beaches where the waters are warm and teeming with fish. But there was trouble in paradise. Lured by photogenic beauty and the quest for perfection, so many people flocked to this tiny island (15kilometres long and less than a kilometre wide at its narrowest) that the delicate balance of […] - [Philippines_ Visas and Chocolate](https://marienoonan.com/philippines_-visas-and-chocolate/): This week was all about extending our visa. On arrival at the airport in Manila, we received a free thirty day visa but  this wasn’t long enough for us as our flight home was in over ten weeks time. The immigration official at the airport told us that it wouldn’t be a problem to extend, we just couldn’t do it there but it could be done in any of the many Immigration Offices scattered around the country. So when we found ourselves in Panglao  where there was an office, we pointed our rented motorbike in that direction  and set off to […] - [Island Hopping in the Philippines😎](https://marienoonan.com/island-hopping-in-the-philippines%f0%9f%98%8e/): There is no shortage of islands in the Philippines. There are over seven thousand to choose from. After our stay in Manila with its crowded chaos, relentless noise, fumes and poverty, we were eager for fresh air, forests, deserted beaches – basically anywhere that was ‘far from the madding crowd.’ But with a population of 120 million and lots of tourists, maybe we were looking for the unattainable? Siquijor, an island in the Central Visayas appealed to us mainly because our guide book told us it was small and quiet. On a sunny Monday morning, we left our hostel in Dumaguete(we […] - [Philippines - Poverty and Plenty](https://marienoonan.com/philippines-poverty-and-plenty/): Of course, there was last minute drama at the very start of our journey😮. All was going really well until we were at the boarding gate in Dublin for our flight to Istanbul – the first leg of our Turkish Airlines flight to Manila. The steward asked me what was our final destination and when I said ‘Manila’, he wanted to see my Covid vaccination cert and my e-travel document. I had the vaccination cert but I didn’t have the e-travel, didn’t even know I needed one. Meanwhile, Caoimhin who was in a different queue was allowed through with just the […] - [On the Move Again...](https://marienoonan.com/on-the-move-again/): Just a quick post to let you know that our bags are packed (very lightly🤣) and we are heading to the Philippines tomorrow for a few months. We have never been there before but really looking forward the trip. We know very little about the Philippines – but that’s about to change🤞 We have been told that it’s one of the most beautiful country in the world with more than 7000 islands with stunning white- sand beaches and warm turquoise waters. It’s people are also renowned for their warmth and friendliness. But we have also been told that it’s very ‘americanised’, […] - [Central America....highlights](https://marienoonan.com/central-america-highlights/): Eleven Weeks, six Countries, (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua), two hurricanes, many boat trips, numerous bus journeys, eye-watering natural beauty, some minor stomach upsets, lots of rice and beans and adventures. Central America is a region shaped by fire and still has several active volcanoes, it has been devastated by many earthquakes and is lashed by annual hurricanes and tropical storms. The tempestuous weather matches the turbulent history and political instability of the area and some say it mirrors the character of the people. We barely scratched the surface of this fascinating region whose reputation had us quaking […] - [Costa Rica... Hummingbirds and Homeward Bound.](https://marienoonan.com/costa-rica-hummingbirds-and-homeward-bound/): We couldn’t drag ourselves away from Nicaragua so we lingered for another day in San Juan del Sur before heading to Costa Rica and home. The joys of flexibility when traveling😎. After our experiences entering Nicaragua (army searches, long delays, forensic scrutiny), we booked a shuttle bus to take us to Liberia in Costa Rica from a lovely young man in an office in San Juan. A shuttle was usually a small minibus that took passengers (mainly tourists) door to door but not this time. It started well enough -a taxi collected us at our accomodation in San Juan and then drove […] - [Nicaragua -Wildlife and Waves](https://marienoonan.com/nicaragua-wildlife-and-waves/): In the last post, we were just about to set off on a hike to Volcan Maderas on the tropical island of Ometepe. It was quite an experience – far more challenging than expected. We considered ourselves reasonably fit and thought it would be ‘a walk in the park’but pride comes before a fall, and there was a lot of falling – or at least slipping and sliding on this hike. The roundtrip, walking from our tree house took over eight and a half hours with very few breaks. We trekked with our guide, Enrico, through dry forest with bananas, cacao […] - [Nicaragua - Covid and Contradictions](https://marienoonan.com/nicaragua-covid-and-contradictions/): It was our last morning in El Salvador before heading to Nicaragua by boat. As we hoisted our bags onto our backs at about 6.30am, the sun was already hot. The caged parrot who had talked and mumbled outside our door for much of the night, seemed to be glad to be rid of us, squawking what sounded like curses. Martha, our landlady, called us for a photo before she left for work at the local hospital. She was a small good-humoured dynamo who worked as a nurse, made bracelets and craftworks in the evening and ran the guest house called […] - [Macaws, Mountains and Men with Guns](https://marienoonan.com/macaws-mountains-and-men-with-guns/): Honduras has been the ‘bad boy’ of Central America for a long time, topping the tables for all the wrong reasons – murders, poverty, corruption and extortion. After the crowds and chaos at the borders with queues of people leaving Honduras, we walked up the hill and found a clapped-out minibus which was going to Copan Ruinas, our destination. We had a wad of lempera in our sweaty hands, changed at the border on the black market – i.e.men with satchels of cash giving a very competitive rate. The currency of Honduras was named after Lempera, a national hero because of […] - [Leaving Belize - Crossings](https://marienoonan.com/leaving-belize-crossings/): The first person we met in Punta Gorda, a small, rambling port town in Southern Belize, was Delphin, a Garifuna man who swore  that Queen Elizabeth appeared to him on the day she died. Queen Elizabeth seemed to be universally loved in Belize but this was ‘devotion’ at a higher level. He even showed us the very spot by the sea where this event happened.The Garifuna are descendents of kidnapped West Africans brought to the New World on slave ships and Punta Gorda had a high density of Garifunas. Punta Gorda was a town at the end of the road- literally, […] - [Beautiful Belize - Waiting for a Hurricane](https://marienoonan.com/beautiful-belize-waiting-for-a-hurricane/): Another early morning when we were up before dawn in Flores to get the bus to take us to Belize. It was 5.30am but the town was anything but quiet. There was a ferocious racket coming from the trees on the causeway side of the island, this wasn’t a tuneful dawn chorus but an ear-splitting, raucous party that make the trees shake and ensured that all windows in the area were firmly shut. We couldn’t see the birds in the dense foliage, but it was probably Grackles, slender, long tailed black birds who are loud and raucous most of the time. […] - [Lakes and Lost Cities in Guatemala](https://marienoonan.com/lakes-and-lost-cities-in-guatemala/): The bus creaked, stalled and missed a gear on the first hill outside Panajachel – not a good start on a nine-hour journey that would take us from the shores of gorgeous Lake Atitlan through the mountainous highlands to Lanquin. We drove through small villages with tiny shops selling everything from crisps to plastic basins, along by tree-clad mountains, fields of cabbages and rows of onions drying on sackcloth outside humble shacks. Everywhere there were chickens crossing the road 🤣and docile dogs that looked half-starved. The road was twisty but the surface was resonable most of the time except where there […] - [Lolling by the Lake](https://marienoonan.com/lolling-by-the-lake/): The last time I posted, we had booked transport to take us from historic Antigua to the shores of Lake Atitlan. The transport was a ‘shared shuttle’, a minibus that picks you up and drops you door to door. It was a bit more expensive than public transport but was more comfortable and widely used by visitors to get around the popular areas in Guatamala. The downside was that we spent about an hour driving in the pouring rain around Antigua’s one-way system on rough cobbled stones to pick up passengers. When we arrived in Panajachel, the largest of the lakeside […] - [A Tale of Two Countries](https://marienoonan.com/a-tale-of-two-countries/): The last time I posted, we were in Puerta Viejo on the southern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica with all its steamy lushness and its tropical air, dense with humidity. We had brainfog from fitful sleeping under noisy fans and insistent mosquitoes buzzing around the bedroom who became silent when we decided to ‘get them’ but started up again as soon as we lay down😫. But in reality, there were surprisingly few bugs which – in spite of my moaning – is not a good thing in an environmental context. There were enormous spiders creating their art in the trees and […] - [Costa Rica....getting there](https://marienoonan.com/costa-rica-getting-there/): We left home in the dead early hours of Thursday, Sept 29 – at about 4 am. The first leg of our journey to Costa Rica was a lift into Waterford (Thanks, Aonghus👏) to get the airport bus. The road was dark and eerily quiet without a car or person to be seen until we got into town. The airport bus dropped us on schedule at 07.50 for our Air Canada 10.45 flight. Dublin Airport had an alarming number of holding pens outside the building (which were thankfully empty)but lots of people in high vis vests were shouting instructions (that were […] - [The Call of the Wild](https://marienoonan.com/the-call-of-the-wild/): Just like the swallows and other migratory birds, it’s time for us to fly away. After a great summer at home (lots of sunshine, a minor knee op, campervan trips (in a borrowed van), a wedding and other celebrations), the cool mornings whisper that winter is coming. The apples are fermenting, the leaves are dropping …like the temperatures….and we are busy packing and getting ready to leave. You might wonder where we are going? We didn’t really know ourselves until we booked our flights as we kept changing our minds -there are so many wonderful places in the world that we […] - [Copper Coast - Waterford 's Treasure](https://marienoonan.com/copper-coast-waterford-s-treasure/): On the August Bank holiday, Spuds. (the campervan that we had borrowed to tour Mayo) was still parked outside our house waiting to be collected. It seemed such a waste not to use it again – it was almost begging us to go for a spin! So we set off on Saturday with Rolo, our dog, who has become a very enthusiastic campervanner, not really sure where to go. Waterford city was crowded with families enjoying Spraoi – we stopped for a wander around to look at the acrobats, the dancers and street entertainers. Great atmosphere but the sunshine disappeared, swallowed […] - [The Yellow Odyssey - Mayo by campervan](https://marienoonan.com/the-yellow-odyssey-mayo-by-campervan/): Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel in a campervan? Although we have been long-time campers of the ‘pitch a tent’ variety, we had never toured in a campervan and we were curious. We were fortunate to borrow one (thanks, Alan), a 1991 left-hand drive VW model LT28 called Spuds, complete with cooker, fridge, pull-out bed, toilet and shower. Spuds was parked in Ballyshannon where we were welcomed by Bernie and Michael (Alan’s parents). The following morning was atmospherically misty – damp with shades of grey as the three of us (Caoimhin, our dog, Rolo and I) […] - [Stunning Saltees](https://marienoonan.com/stunning-saltees/): A day on the Saltees - a 'Good for the Soul' kind of day - [Cycling the Royal Canal](https://marienoonan.com/cycling-the-royal-canal/): On a grey, drizzly July morning last year, Caoimhín and I drove towards Maynooth. We were on our way to cycle the Royal Canal Greenway, which had opened a few months before in March 2021, 130 kms of canal towpath from Maynooth to Longford We were wearing our padded cycling shorts; the bikes were in the boot and I had packed ‘deep heat’ and band-aids…. just in case…as we hadn’t been doing much cycling.  The rain just kept getting heavier as we drove along and the forecast on the radio wasn’t very promising. Maybe the rain would keep the crowds away…there […] - [Canary Islands, the Magical Eight](https://marienoonan.com/canary-islands-the-magical-eight/): Leaving Ireland on February 2 2022, we had no fixed plans except a vague notion of island hopping around the Canaries for a few months. The Canaries were very much a second, compromise choice for us. We didn’t know anything about these islands except that they were popular holiday destinations with families during the summer and extremely popular with (mainly) old people during the winter who flee the cold winters of Northern Europe like migratory birds. They didn’t sound that exciting to be honest but Covid was still slamming shut borders in more exotic destinations. We returned home three months later […] - [La Graciosa, the Blondest Island](https://marienoonan.com/la-graciosa-the-blondest-island/): It was one of those stunningly blue mornings with blue sea and blue sky. We waited for the ferry in Ozsola (pronounced Ursula) in Northern Lanzarote with the sun warming our backs and a light breeze…..a real ‘good to be alive’ day. Black coffee and sugary doughnuts (the ones that just dissolve in your mouth) never tasted better. It felt even more special because we were nearly at the end of our three month trip around the Canaries. We were about to visit La Graciosa, our eight and final island. During the thirty-minutes ferry ride across the Strait of El Rio, […] - [Lanzarote, the Final Leg😎](https://marienoonan.com/lanzarote-the-final-leg%f0%9f%98%8e/): We were on the final leg of our three month ‘island hop’ around the Canaries Thirty minutes on the ferry brought us from Corralejo in Fuerteventura to Playa Blanca in Lanzarote, our seventh island, The ferries between the two islands are very regular and its a popular day trip. The port of Playa Blanca in Lanzarote, was teeming with diggers and cranes as a new terminal building was being constructed. Coffee was calling us so we stopped at a café just opposite the port for our first taste of Lanzarote where we were surrounded by British voices. Not only were all […] - [Fuerteventura, Life's a Beach⛱.](https://marienoonan.com/fuerteventura-lifes-a-beach%e2%9b%b1/): Fuerteventura where life's a beach⛱ - [Gran Canaria, Paradise lost and found🤔](https://marienoonan.com/gran-canaria-paradise-lost-and-found-maybe/): We arrived in Gran Canaria on March 16 and our first impressions weren’t good. It was very windy (even by Canarian standards) with a damp drizzle in the air. Our ground floor apartment was comfortable but the only window had opaque glass so we had to have lights on all the time, There was no outside space except for a small roof terrace that was a wind tunnel with fake grass and no sun. We had picked the apartment in Playa Burrero on the east coast because it was near the beach in a little seaside town -we didn’t want to […] - [La Palma, the Island of Fire and Starlight⭐](https://marienoonan.com/la-palma-the-island-of-fire-and-starlight/): La Palma in the Canaries is known as Isla Bonita – the Beautiful Island – and as soon as we stepped off the ferry from La Gomera into Santa Cruz de la Palma, the capital and principal town, we were inclined to agree. There was a pleasant breeze carrying the smell of orange blossom and fried fish, flowers cascaded over the wooden balconies of the seafront houses, the palm trees swayed and the guy in the Tourist Information kiosk at the port was really helpful. We were clattering our suitcases (10kg pull-along) through the cobbled streets of the old town towards […] - [La Gomera, the Hikers Guide to the Galaxy](https://marienoonan.com/la-gomera-the-hikers-guide-to-the-galaxy/): La Gomera is certainly the place to visit if you like hiking – its a walkers paradise. It is very easy to get there from Tenerife – there are at least 5 ferries a day from Los Cristianos in Tenerife and the short crossing takes less than an hour but is expensive at €50 for a one-way trip- but costs far less if are a resident of the Canaries. There were no direct ferries from El Hierro to La Gomera so we had to first get a ferry from El Hierro to Tenerife and then get a second ferry to La […] - [El Hierro, the Island at the end of the World](https://marienoonan.com/el-hierro-the-island-at-the-end-of-the-world/): El Hierro is the smallest and most westerly of the Canary Islands – it was once considered the end of the earth (it was the zero meridian before that was moved to Greenwich). Columbus sailed by here into the unknown to ‘discover’ new lands. It still retains that wild frontier feel – windswept, remote, beautiful. The ferry boat  from San Cristianos in Tenerife to El Hierro was surprisingly big for a destination of about 11,000 inhabitants. There were queues of lorries and trucks waiting to board the daily two and half hour crossing..but very few passengers. The crossing was also surprisingly […] - [Tenerife - Electric Dreams!](https://marienoonan.com/tenerife-electric-dreams/): The February sky was tinged pink and cool as we waited in Waterford for JJ Kavanagh’s bus to take us to Dublin airport….our first visit to any airport since our trip to Ethiopia in 2019. All trips since then then were confined to Ireland or else by ferry with the Guzzler. We were missing the Guzzler already – we had to be far more disciplined with our packing without the luxury of throwing things in the back of the car ‘just in case.’ Dublin Airport was eerily quiet on Wednesday morning, Feb 2 without queues or bustle. JJ dropped us at […] - [A Little Luxury - Ashford Castle](https://marienoonan.com/a-little-luxury-ashford-castle/): The Guzzler might not have been the oldest car parked outside Ashford Castle in County Mayo – there was an older Jag – but it was certainly the dirtiest. Frank, the hotel valet simply smiled after parking it, , dusted himself down and asked us if we had come far. We could have excused the car by saying that it had been to Greece and back without a wash but we simply answered ‘Waterford’…..’ Ah, a long way’, nodded Frank. We were staying for two nights in Ashford Castle – a huge step up from our usual standard of accommodation – […] - [Road Trip 2021 - Ireland to Greece and Back.](https://marienoonan.com/road-trip-2021-ireland-to-greece-and-back/): “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?” Rumi Quote What do you do when you retire during a pandemic and you love to travel? Well, we just sat into our car and headed to Rosslare in early August to get a ferry to Spain and took it from there, returning home in December after four months, four ferries and nine countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy again, France). We enjoyed it all but here are some of the highlights – a baker’s dozen of them. Our Highlights (in no particular […] - [Driving Home for Christmas](https://marienoonan.com/driving-home-for-christmas/): The last time I posted we were in Split, Croatia, now, a week later, we are home. The wind is screaming around our house in Crooke and bending the trees in the garden as Storm Barra, a ‘weather bomb’ lashes out across the country. In Split, a man coughed all night in an adjoining apartment, racking, hacking coughs that sounded like he was in the room with us. We had been surprised that all windows along the stairway and landings were wedged open because the evening was cold and wet but now we knew why. The news on our phones was […] - [Montenegro and Beyond (Borders)](https://marienoonan.com/montenegro-and-beyond-borders/): We spent out last Albanian night in Shkoder, an historic town about 40 minutes from the Montenegro border and although there was incessant rain for most of the time, we really liked the feel of the place with cobbled streets, nice restaurants and relaxed feel. Maybe the music being played everywhere had something to do with the good vibe – a mix of jazz, blues, light rock with some opera thrown in and Shkoder is also known as the Albanian capital of culture. We were feeling very positive about Albania and its great people when we were pulled over by two […] - [Hello from Albania](https://marienoonan.com/hello-from-albania/): The morning was dirty and damp as we crossed the mountains in Northern Greece on our way to the Albanian border on Monday, November 15 – very like the weather on our arrival by ferry to Greece all those weeks ago(although we had storms, floods and gorgeous sunshine in between). The first border official looked at our passports, asked if the car was ours and waved us on. At the next check, we handed in our passports again and were asked for car documents,..we looked blankly….car registration, he said. Now we should have brought the car registration documents with us but […] - [The Oracle at Delphi said.....](https://marienoonan.com/the-oracle-at-delphi-said/): Dragging ourselves away from stunning Hydra wasn’t easy. We waited on the cobble-stoned port for the 7.20am ferry to Piraeus with a soft early-morning light over the water, the smell of bread wafting from the nearby bakeries and the sound of a donkey braying. It was a smooth two-hour crossing on a calm blue sea but after five days on Hydra, the blaring noise and belching fumes of traffic – cars, buses, lorries, taxis – as we walked up the streets in Piraeus to collect the Guzzler, was absolutely alarming. It was 21 degrees as we skirted around Athens heading north […] - [Glorious Greece - multi-faceted](https://marienoonan.com/glorious-greece-multi-faceted/): Greetings from jaw-droppingly, beautiful Hydra, a small Greek island and adopted home of Leonard Cohen for many years. Our ferry from Pireaus (2 hours, €30 each one way) sailed in gorgeous sunshine into a crescent-shaped harbour with hills sloping upwards like an amphitheatre. As we waited to disembark, we could alreday smell the taxis that were waiting on the quayside, flicking flies with their tails -no vehicles or scotters are allowed on the island so the main mode of transport is donkey (and shank’s mare). We hoisted our small packs on our own backs and walked between donkeys, moored luxury yachts, […] - [THIS is Greece](https://marienoonan.com/this-is-greece/): This post comes with a warning. STOP. Do not read further unless you want to turn green and feel compelled to jump on a plane (or ferry). Remember that when we first arrived in Greece, we had days (without end) of torrential rain, hailstones as big as fists, thunder and lightening storms when day was night, bedroom walls that wept water, rainwater that cascaded down electrical light fittings and leaky roofs. But all that is in the past. Elafonisis is a beautiful Greek island that lies off the coast of Malea – its small, less than 20km2 and only a short […] - [Hello Greece](https://marienoonan.com/hello-greece/): On our last night in Italy, we stayed in a tiny cute house in the very heart of Ostuni, usually called the White City as its white-washed buildings glow like beacons on a scrubby hillside about fifteen kilometres inland from the Adriatic Coast. It has acquired another name, SalentoShire, (Salento after the region) and shire because of the huge number of Brits who have moved there in the last 10 years. And the sound of English accents was everywhere…it almost felt that we had already left Italy. We were usually up and about early in the morning but as it was […] - [The Adriatic Coast](https://marienoonan.com/the-adriatic-coast/): Travelling through the spine of Italy, we felt dwarfed by the majestic high mountains of the Apennines all about us and awed by the long tunnels that we drove  through – some a couple of kilometres -blinking back into the sunlight. There were fruit and veg roadside stalls as soon as we came down from the mountains selling plums, tomatoes, peppers and huge peaches. Our first glimpse of the Adriatic Sea was a gorgeous glittering  turquoise in the distance just south of Pescara. The road from here hugged the coast and we used Google search to find any campsites.  One looked […] - [Adios Spain, Ciao Italy](https://marienoonan.com/adios-spain-ciao-italy/): Our last days in Spain were wet and the temperatures which up to then had rarely dropped below 23 degrees even at night, plummeted to 15 degrees during the day. It rained for hours (not the short, furious thunderstorms that we had earlier) but continuous heavy rain for three consecutive mornings until 2pm each afternoon when (like clockwork) the rain stopped, the sun came out and the temperatures increased…perfect for sunbathing and eating out. The Guzzler required new tyres (the thread on the front tyres were just about legal) and we have many miles to go (we hope)… so we got […] - [Moving in](https://marienoonan.com/moving-in/): It was time to move inland – it was already August 27 – and make our way to the other side of Spain to Catalonia where we had rented a holiday house with Ciaran and Christina, Caoimhin’s brother and wife and Louise, a South African friend of theirs for most of September. The morning in Galicia was grey and hazy – sea and sky were one – unlike the vivid blues and greens that we were used to and the temperature was a cool (almost goose bumpy) 18 degrees. We packed up the tent and decided to head inland. We stopped […] ## Pages - [My account](https://marienoonan.com/my-account/) - [Checkout](https://marienoonan.com/checkout/) - [Basket](https://marienoonan.com/basket/) - [Shop](https://marienoonan.com/shop/) - [Blog](https://marienoonan.com/blog/) - [Bradt guide](https://marienoonan.com/bradt-guide/): Kidding Around (Travel Literature) Tales of Travel with Childrenby Dervla Murphy Published:  24th Oct 2019 Includes short story Chinese Blessings by Marie Noonan - [Writing.ie](https://marienoonan.com/writing-ie/): Short story - [Newspapers](https://marienoonan.com/newspapers/): Irish Independent Japan in a van – one retired Irish couple’s surprisingly affordable adventure of a lifetime |  New Irish Writing: Blue Days by Marie Noonan April’s winning story People say Ireland is expensive, but we took a week-long road trip in Mayo for €500 - [Radio](https://marienoonan.com/radio/): Brendan O’Connor Show I’m listening to Holidays Of A Lifetime “If you’re dreaming about it, just go” on RTÉ Radio 1  - [Media](https://marienoonan.com/media/) - [Books](https://marienoonan.com/): A Powerful Historical Novel Based on True Events €13.99 (Including postage), Ireland only, signed copy €14.99 €4.09 One man’s dream leads to a devastating tragedy. Journey back to 1926 to a small town in rural Ireland, where Babe O’Connor is a man with a plan. Despite his illegitimate birth and physical deformity, he is determined to make a name for himself. As a hot, dry summer grips the town, Babe sees an opportunity to make some money by organising a picture show in a timber loft on a Sunday night in early September. His plans are met with resistance from the […] - [signup for blog updates](https://marienoonan.com/signup-for-blog-updates/) - [Travel Tips](https://marienoonan.com/travel-tips/): 1 Travel Lightly We are all guilty of it…..overpacking. We know that we don’t need a third of the stuff that we put into our bags. Carrying your luggage on your back is one way of dramatically reducing it…its amazing what becomes non-essential. We don’t want to be dragging big suitcases or sagging under the weight of a hefty backpack…..we need to look after our backs and our posture. Most things can be bought abroad for a fraction of the price they’d cost at home. Usually, we only bring carry-on luggage even if our flight comes with a 30 kilo allowance. […] - [Writing news](https://marienoonan.com/writing-news/): Coming soon my first novel “A Widow’s Son.” A novel based on true events - [Travel News](https://marienoonan.com/travel-news/): Heading to Ko Pha Ngan Feb 16 to meet the family - [News](https://marienoonan.com/news/) - [About Me](https://marienoonan.com/about/): A little about me…… I live in the picturesque village of Passage East, County Waterford in the sunny south-east of Ireland with my husband, Caoimhin but I grew up in the town of Dromcollogher, Co Limerick. The tragic events that occured in my hometown a century ago have inspired my first novel, A Widow’s Son. I’m a retired Medical Scientist who has morphed into a travel enthusiast and blogger, writing about my travels at https://marienoonan.com/. My husband, Caoimhín, and I are fans of slow, independent travel, without too much planning. We prefer to make up our itinerary as we go along […] ## Products - [A Widow's son: Powerful Historical Novel Based On True Events](https://marienoonan.com/product/a-widows-son-irish-historical-novel-tiktok%c2%b7live95limerick/): "One man's dream leads to a devastating tragedy." Set during a sweltering summer in 1926 rural Ireland, A Widow's Son is an emotionally gripping and atmospheric Irish historical novel based on true events. When Babe O'Connor decides to stage a picture show in a cramped timber loft, he ignores the warnings of local authority figures. No one could predict the appalling disaster waiting at the top of that rickety ladder. For fans of deeply emotional historical fiction, this haunting narrative uncovers the psychological aftermath, small-town guilt, and profound tragedy that shook an Irish community to its core. ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/marienoonan.com/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)