The driver-guide combo is a key part of the whole group travel experience, and for some reason I’ve been able to find a connection and resonance with every driver I’ve worked with… so far. It’s a case of knowing what you’re good at and your limitations, respecting what they have to offer and what they need for all the pieces to fit together just right. I hesitate to compare it to a marriage, or indeed the shepherd-sheepdog connection, but it’s certainly a close partnership where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – gestalt.
Occasionally there’s an enthusiastic and capable traveller that becomes part of this gestalt too, and where logic, life skills and liability permit this can enhance the travel experience for everyone. This tour, like several in the past, brought just such an opportunity, hesitant to accept offers of help until I’d got the measure of my guests, then a realisation of the added value to be gained for everyone concerned. Over the years I’ve been helped in so many ways by anyone from army veterans to retired entrepreneurs, people in their 30s to their 90s, some moving bags, some helping coordinate tickets, passports, or simply shepherding the back line to make sure no-one was left behind. I keep coming back to the analogy of one man and his dog – the dog is a partner with a job to do the handler can’t hope to do alone. There’s no thought of superiority or subservience, but a connection that simply works. One day maybe Jackson will come to realise this as a fact – no superiority (of him over me), no subservience (with me as feeder, personal trainer, entertainer), but a firm connection that require no leash, maybe even no conscious thought. One man and his canine companion. I can but hope…
The Belfast ferry was slow but smooth and sunny. Urging people towards teamwork seemed to work indeed, and we hopped on and off relatively unscathed. I slipped away to the drivers’ lounge for a meal and mindfulness at lunchtime, but service had been discontinued and I had to satisfy myself with soup and gateau – let them eat cake! I was surprised by a resourceful traveller from my own group appearing in this private lounge also in search of food and drink. Alas, not only were pickings slim, but the button to leave the room was concealed too, so I guided her away and sought refuge back in the main lounge with the greatly washed and the great unwashed.
Belfast arrived, a short drive to the wonderful Titanic museum, and yes, peace descended as my shipmates explored the conception, creation, uncovering, destruction and rediscovery of this seagoing titan and its emotive stories. Meet in two hours? Not likely. Engrossed and hanging on to the bitter end my fears for punctuality were realised – by one single passenger, whose wife apologetically suggested we leave them behind and meet at the hotel. Drastic measures… but just in the nick of time we righted the ship and sailed off to the hotel, only a little late. A pattern that proved itself, developing a life of its own over the coming week. Minutes became 15, windows would be missed, but we’re on vacation. We? Not me. So it was left to me and the driver to take the flak from the few while the many philosophised that ‘it happens’ and let’s just enjoy the ride.
Things go pear shaped, occasionally pineapple and once or twice turn into an unripe melon or one of life’s lemons. This fruit salad of events is all in a day’s work, and the travellers that take the time to thank, appreciate and empathise are one its the most valuable resources on tour. Travelling independently there’s always yourself to blame, unless of course you’re of a mind to randomly attach it to someone or something else. But when things are organised for the group there are so many possible candidates. …
Sustainability has been the ‘new buzzword’ for the past 40 years. Every hotel group has a policy and its staff even sometimes have the same policy. Sometimes it’s even sustainable. For example, the issue of towels I got hung up on (or not) earlier. “Please help us to help the planet… towels on the floor : I will use it no more; towels on the rail will be left to go stale”. I paraphrase, but you get the point. Fresh towels when you’ve intentionally hung them up… no it doesn’t save laundry bills or water, let alone the planet and that frankly frustrates me. “We give you a key card which switches on the power in your room just when you’re in – this saves megawatts of electricity over the year”. And for your convenience, even in single rooms, we give you two key cards so that you can leave everything on and charging while you’re out and we can all feel warm and fuzzy about saving the planet while we warm the globe that’s plugged in while you get breakfast and then do a city tour. Cynic? Of course. Why not, and yes I can choose to use that electricity or not. But in the great scheme of things is this really a sustainable policy? Does it encourage responsible behaviour patterns or just greenwash? Don’t even get me started on recycling, … but then … maybe I’ll recycle that topic later!
Now back to the tour. Belfast gave way to Galway, Kerry and Dublin City. A sightseeing of Belfast was no trouble at all, with our local guide Paul worth his salt (that’s apparently all we pay him) talking us through a modern vibrant city with a painful past and writhing its way to a less troubled future. The peace wall that still stands, a quarter century after the American-engineered Good Friday Agreement was signed between the various elements in the UK and Ireland, bringing an uneasy but easier peace to the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular. It was said it should be removed after another generation – one that has come and gone without consensus on what to do, except leave it, sign it and remember what it represents, never to be needed again. We saw the Falls and Shankhill roads and the Irish/Unionist values these represent and cherish. The workers who share desks and workplaces during the day return to their various streets but at least no one is throwing things or blowing them up anymore. And the city has so much to offer now, especially for the younger generation, but also a tremendous proud heritage.
Galway. I adore Galway. Except the bottleneck and the property prices – I’d move there in a shot if I could afford the pricetag. 15th century castles, streets and harbour. Lynchings (the original) and seafood lunches. Cobbles, Spanish connections and street corner claddagh jewellers to point people in the right direction. And along the coast to even pricier Salthill, thriving year round on entertainments of all kinds and the terrific Trad on the Prom show with Irish dancers, folk and Eurovision talent, and multi-talented musicians. Its not-to-be-missed charm keeps your toes tapping all night, and I mean all night. I think I hardly slept afterwards, hearing those instruments and drum beats for hours after they’d finished playing. The music’s contagious. Getting to Galway we explored and had explained the workings of a sheep farm, Rathbaun Farm, the one-man (and his dog) band living close to the way generations of sheep farmers have lived, worked, connected with the land, but somehow modernising with educational tours, food and drink supplementing the tough business. From Galway to Kylemore and Connemara with abbey and awesome scenery – some of the best in Ireland. And the Dingle peninsula with signs of millennia of human habitation that make a 3 hour circuit or 30 minutes to grab a quick sandwich or fish and chip lunch in Dingle less than a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.
Alternative forms of transport crop up on tour but nothing compares to Killarney’s Jaunting Cars, those horse-drawn wagons of joy that lift the spirit come rain or shine, even for the grumpiest or stingiest traveller. Always a highlight, the ‘jarvies’ that drive the jaunts must have a chunk of personal Blarney Stone to kiss goodnight, because each time they bring something new to the experience, from leprechaun stories to natural history, local history and myth, all with a smile, and amazing accent and an eye-twinkle. A brief example would be the Jarvie who pointed out the trees along the way – this one’s an oak, that one’s an ash, the big one’s a beech and the little one behind it is a son of a beech.
As I check out of hotels another thing I reflect on is housekeeping – in the bedrooms in particular but in the hotels in general too. Bedmaking for example. Why oh why do they make up the bed with a duvet or sheet so neatly, tightly tucked in that you have to completely disasssemble the bed as you get in. There’s no way you could get yourself in unless you used a photocopy of yourself (or for the privileged classes a limited edition print) to slip between the sheets. And then clearly we’re expected to be as incontinent as we are intercontinental because you suddenly find there’s a plastic sheet between the mattress and that lovely soft envelope you finally opened. Cosy turns to toasty to sweaty in short order, but we don’t admit to being uncomfortable – we just keep clammy and carry on. The comfort conundrum continues as we decide which pillow to choose – the options available can be mind-boggling, yet seldom can you get the right combination not to give you a stiff neck by morning, this becoming a bone of contention if you have company – at least that little challenge is crossed off travelling alone as a tour director.
Lighting control feels like a test of logic … until you realise logic has no place in hotel room design. As I’ve already said, hotel rooms can be gloomy places, with ‘mood’ lighting the order of the day. And, though lumens don’t generally loom large, there’s the question of how to control what little light there is, and what’s controlled from where? If there’s a reading light it’s usually within reach, and can maybe even be pointed where you want it to go. Any desk is likely to be lit by a window (near useless) or by a spotlight that makes all the work a stage, leaving the worker somewhat in the dark. Other lights can be at best a conundrum, at worst a battle of wills. On here, off there. Off together or one at a time. At bedtime though it seems the interior designers (or the electricians) have a sense of humour… or chaos… or no idea at all. It feels like an orienteering course without a map. Suffice it so say sleeping with the light on may be an option.
Finally, on to Dublin for capital craic and the black stuff, Guinness. Oh, and Temple Bar, Trinity College, O’Connell and Grafton streets and a certain Oscar Wilde. Georgian frontages, some of which turned out to be ‘backages’ to save Queen Vic from the sight of back yards and working class washing out to dry. In short, and I’m sure I’ll return in these pages to Dublin, a city of past and present diversity and of struggle for liberty ending for some and perhaps starting for others at the General Post Office. Dublin passed fast – a whistle-stop tour and then hopping on a plane back to Glasgow. You’d think the fun would stop there, but Jeff Goldblum happened to have been headlining in Dublin and heading for Glasgow with the Mildred Snitzler Orchestra, and I found myself sharing an overheated plane with them. Even inspired to spend the next evening memorably engaged and serendipitously entertained… or maybe viceversa.
A week before the next tour, the next group, and the next generation it turned out. A week to prepare for more challenges, more celebrations and more stupid questions. Questions vary from the the inquisitive to the inquisition, and the downright inane or ill-informed. There seems to be a fascination with numbers for a start: “How much would that house cost?”, expecting a detailed knowledge of the real estate market ; “How far is it from X to Y?”, a quite understandable enquiry; “How high are the mountains around here, and why are they called mountains when they are lower than my home town?, the sort of question that makes you pause and reflect on the smallness of the UK ; or “Why do they divide up the big fields with little stone fences?”, mistaking centuries of uniquely traditional cultivation for contemporary cutification. But then perhaps these are city dwellers who think a ‘smallholding’ means a minor stocks and shares investment portfolio.
International-Eyes.org 