Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Ruins

One of my favourite things about being back in Ireland is being able to show my boys the beautiful sights in our lovely little country. They are particularly interested in "really old stuff" and love going to see old ruins. We usually combine these outings with a hike and a stop off for lunch afterwards.

A few weeks ago we were staying over at my parents' house and my Dad and I brought them to Monasterboice, the ruins of an early Christian settlement in County Louth. There is a really old graveyard, a round tower, some beautiful high crosses and the ruins of an old church, plenty for little people to explore. Of course, they quickly turned things competitive trying to see who could find the oldest grave.










Naturally all the mischief and questions worked up an appetite and we went to a nice Irish pub for a hearty lunch afterwards before going to meet up with their cousins for more mischief. 


On the way back we passed by Newgrange, an ancient passage tomb originally constructed over 5,000 years ago. I'm looking forward to bringing the boys to see it another time, hopefully in the Summer.

A couple of weeks ago after a very windy rainy January we decided to dust off the cobwebs and take advantage of a nice sunny day to hike up to the Hellfire Club in the Dublin Mountains not far from where we live.





The boys had great fun exploring the spooky ruins, there are many urban myths and tales of paranormal activity associated with the Hellfire Club, the most popular one when I was little was that "if you walk around the hellfire club at midnight in an anti-clockwise direction the devil will appear!!!" 





It didn't look too scary on this nice sunny day though.



There are beautiful views all over Dublin from the top of Montpelier Hill where the ruins are located.




Rather than walking the main track back down I would recommend losing yourself in the beautiful woods, we even saw some moo cows!

We stopped off at The Merry Ploughboy for lunch, I highly recommend it, the food was yummy and they have a really nice kids menu :-)

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Paris with the kids :-)

Well, we finally did it! We brought our kids to our absolute favourite place in the world for a week and it was the BEST WEEK EVER!!!

Yep, we brought the boys to Paris! We reckoned they might finally be at the age where they could be brought on the long walks we love taking around the city, into the little bistros and cafes we love to eat at and of course we knew it was definitely time to bring them you know where ;-) Yep Disneyland!!!

Here are a few snaps of our holiday...




We used airbnb.com to rent a lovely 2 bedroomed apartment in Montmartre for the week, it was just gorgeous, really quirky and French with floor to ceiling windows looking out at the buildings and rooftops across the road, we were on a nice quiet street yet a couple of minutes from all the cafes and restaurants and a 15 minute walk from the beautiful Sacré Couer which is where we brought the boys on our first evening. Our middle munchkin, who just loves buildings of every sort, was particularly impressed, and we had beautiful views all over Paris from the top of Montmartre.







The following morning we got the train out to Disneyland. The train journey is only about 40 minutes from the centre of Paris. We decided to get a "4 for the price of 3 day park pass" which had to be used within the week, it gave us the flexibility of going to Disney on the days that suited us and breaking up the holiday with sightseeing on the days we felt like chilling a bit more.















These are just a random selection of snaps of our 3 separate days at Disneyland, we spent the first day at Disneyland Park, the next time we visited we went to Disney Studios and the last visit we revisited our favourite rides in each park aswell as trying some of the few rides we hadn't already been on. The big hits were Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor, Crush's Coaster, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the Studio Tram Tower, Ratatouille the Adventure (absolutely brilliant!!!) and of course the brilliant cars and motorbikes stunt show!! 

We went on pretty much everything else too, the weather was amazing while we were there and of course at this time of year Disneyland is really busy but because we have a child with special needs we were given a Priority Card which gave us instant access to all rides and attractions, i.e. NO QUEUEING!!! This was a godsend for us, it meant a really relaxed time, just being able to amble up to attractions stress-free and take relaxed food and drink breaks when needed. Considering the wait time for a lot of the bigger rides was 40-75 minutes this was amazing and very much appreciated, thank you Disneyland!!! 













The days we weren't at Disneyland involved lovely relaxed mornings at the apartment, my eldest and I would go out to the local Boulangerie and bring back pastries for everyone, I loved food shopping in Paris with my biggest boy, he is a fellow-cheese lover and loved browsing all the "smelly cheeses" at the local fromagerie before we decided on a nice mixed platter :-)

It was so much fun showing our boys all the sights, they were thrilled to see the Eiffel Tower and to visit our favourite sweet shop "La Cure Gourmande" where we stocked up on goodies to bring home. My middle son, as I mentioned, is obsessed with buildings and was in awe of the Notre Dame Cathedral and all the other stunning buildings around Paris.

Our boys were fantastic along the long walks we took, interested in everything we showed them and we even found a favourite restaurant with a lovely waiter the boys all got on great with :-) As my eldest said "everyone here is so nice", this just after the local baker gave him a free donut!

It was a really lovely week and I just can't wait for our next trip!