We arrived into Caen on a rainy, gray Monday and had a rest, settling into our hotel. The only redeeming features of this hotel are the 2 minute walk across to the train station and the hot water. Beds were hard, breakfast was woeful and the lobby made me feel like I should be surrendering my phone and emptying my pockets. But it was cheap. Ish. After 3 months in Ireland we now think daylight robbery is cheap… we even say - "Well it's cheaper than Ire...

The Plan? Spending a few days with old friends in the Normandy countryside. We heaved our 4 big bags down our single flight of stairs and 'checked out' of our Cherbourg AirBnB - key - meet keybox - AirBnB at its finest. We met up with Lee and Annie on the dot of 10 am and headed off for a drive around the cape. Highlights? The lighthouse in Goury, the smallest harbour in Europe at Port Racine and the rocky clifftop views from the nose of Jobourg (le nez de job...

We had a splendid final night in Dublin, enjoyed our welcome drinks at the bar and had our first (very small) cooked breakfast in months on Monday morning at the Holiday Inn Express, Dublin city centre. And made a couple of bacon and sausage sandwiches to have for lunch. We arranged a 2 pm check out and ended up nattering with the GM for 10 minutes or so… There was an enormous taxi van in the rank just outside the hotel which was handy but the 15 minute ...

By the time we'd spent 6 weeks in sunny, windy, seaside Dun Laoghaire… it was time to move on. Little did we realise we would end up spending almost 3 months in Ireland. What can we say - we're popular. But we are fully realised adults these days and we've also realised we are 100% city people. We like the buzz, the shops, the walking, the food for the eyes - all of it. We were robbed of it during the four month lockdown in Sydney and are still catching u...

What a trip! Long but good. We could have flown direct from Marrakech to Dublin with Ryanair - but between the 8 hour delay on our incoming flight to Morocco, the ever present threat of strikes and the antisocial hour of the arrival (which would have involved half a night in a hotel as we'd arrive at 1 am or so)… Instead we flew to Istanbul, had a 7 hour layover for a great snooze and a shower in the lounge, and then on to Dublin. Lots of movies, nice food...