To Europe … and Back

Certain sites and attractions in any city deserve a second look, and Dublin is no exception.

Staying in Dublin for two weeks means plenty of time to explore the new and the familiar — although these were new to Declan.

Come for the Crypt, Stay for the Bling

Our first stop is Christ Church Cathedral, an Anglican church that can trace its origins back nearly 1,000 years to the Vikings. In addition to the impressive vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows, you’ll find cool medieval floor tiles. But the main feature is the crypt, reportedly the longest in Britain or Ireland. Dim lighting sets the mood as you walk beneath the curved arches and admire the artifacts and church bling from over the years.

You’ll find a rare copy of the Magna Carta, basically the Bill of Rights for Britain; the final resting place of Strongbow, a Norman-Welsh warlord from the 12^th century; and the heart of St. Laurence O’Toole, the archbishop of Dublin during the Norman invasion. You also can see a mummified cat and rat, found in the bowels of the organ during a 19^th century refurb. They apparently are mentioned in the James Joyce novel “Finnegan’s Wake,” but you’d have to put a gun to my head to get me to read it.

Christ Church plays a central role in the Bolch/Richtarik story, because Marilynn and I visited Christ Church on my very first day in Ireland, in 2000. I’d never traveled internationally and was unaccustomed both to trying to sleep during the overnight flight and to instantly adopting the time of the country one is visiting. A horrific breakfast and still being out at nearly 10 p.m. after a sleepless night didn’t help matters.

Marilynn wanted to show me the crypt, and the church appeared to still be open. There was a conference or something going on, and people were milling around. Since I was the newbie, I stood back while Marilynn approached a priest to find out what was going on. From that viewpoint, I could see the priest’s face as they talked. After about 30 seconds, his eyes grew wide, and he exclaimed, “Mar-lon!” That’s apparently the Irish pronunciation of “Marilynn,” which I now also use. She exclaimed, “Alan!” remembering that they attended the same college at Oxford.

Things like this happen time after time when we’re visiting Ireland, and I never get tired of it.

Historic Kilmainham Gaol Worth a Tour

Another site I hadn’t seen in more than two decades is Kilmainham Gaol, a former prison with a rich (and infamous) history of holding the prisoners of rebellion. Henry Joy McCracken, a leader of the failed 1798 insurgence, was held here for another offense several years before the rising. Leaders of the 1848 rebellion and the 1866 Fenian Uprising were also held in Kilmainham.

However, the gaol is most closely linked to the 1916 Easter Rising, a precursor to the Irish War of Independence that led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. The leaders of the 1916 revolution had no chance; they were outmanned and outgunned, and the rising lasted just a week. A dozen leaders of the rising were executed by firing squad at Kilmainham, including leader Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, who already was dying of his injuries at a local hospital but was transported to Kilmainham and shot.

Access to the gaol interior is through guided tour only, which was relatively cheap (12 Euro total) and surprisingly lively. Our guide traced the history of Kilmainham, outlining its role during the Potato Famine when as many as five people were crammed into a jail cell that had neither running water or windows. There were no separate quarters for men, women, and children, so you can imagine what prison life was like.

During the time of the Famine, laws were strengthened against begging, with people on the verge of starvation swept up. According to the guide, a 3-year-old served two weeks in Kilmainham for begging, with no parents or siblings to care for him. Talk about a tough life.

The gaol was decommissioned in 1924 and sat derelict for more than three decades until a community group received permission to renovate the facility with an eye to turning it into a historic landmark and community gathering space.

From its inception as a landmark, Kilmainham Gaol has been the site of many movies, TV shows, and videos, including 1965’s The Face of Fu Manchu (with Christopher Lee!), 1993’s In the Name of the Father (Daniel-Day Lewis), and 1996’s Michael Collins, which starred Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, and Alan Rickman. Younger tour guests might recognize Kilmainham from Paddington 2 (animated bear!). During my research, I also unearthed a U2 video (A Celebration) that was filmed at the gaol but does not appear on any U2 album.

The iconic image at the top of this column is the most famous feature of Kilmainham Gaol. But you’ll discover many more gems when you visit.

Other Sites Worth a Return Visit

Even with the top floors closed for a lengthy renovation, the Natural History Museum of Ireland (called the Dead Zoo by locals) is always worth a look. As you’d expect, you’ll find taxidermied critters large and small, including the always impressive Irish elk and a whale suspended from the ceiling. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to view the expansive upper floor that stretches 2.5 stories, featuring a central area for larger creatures and even more in cases along the wall.

Just around the corner you’ll find the National Museum of Archaeology. Declan and I always enjoy seeing the bog men who were trapped or buried in peat bogs over the ages. He especially enjoys the Viking bling on display, and there’s even a section of objects from Egypt(!).

Both museums are free to visit, so even if you’re only mildly interested in Irish animals or history, they are dry places to shelter from the rain.

Crypt at Christ Church Dublin.

We like to say that all vacation destinations have three things in common: something to climb, something to ride, and a drunkie cab. I am happy to report not a single drunkie cab spotting in nearly three weeks on the road, but we have ridden funiculars in Baden-Baden and Heidelberg.

Declan taught me the word “funicular” in 2017 when we were living in Belfast and traveling extensively in Europe. In the U.S., we’re more likely to call them an incline, such as the Incline Railway in Lookout Mountain, Tenn.

After dinner in Baden-Baden, we took a bus to the funicular on Merkur Mountain, which is supposed to offer stunning views of the city. While looking over the funicular schedule, a helpful (albeit a tad creepy) man who was on the bus with us said the bus would stop running to this location in a few minutes and that we’d have to either walk home or call a taxi. Undeterred, we bought our tickets and climbed aboard.

At first, it looks like a quick jaunt to a station just up the hill. Then the funicular makes a right-hand turn, and the real climb begins almost straight up. This is the longest and most spectacular funicular we’ve been on. And yes, the views were stunning, and we spent 30 minutes or so walking around the mountaintop, relaxing on chaise lounges and enjoying the scenery with the handful of people who also had made the trip.

On the return journey, we had a decision to make: walk or take a taxi. The same man who spoke to us earlier was still there (more creepy!) and explained that the walk would be a few kilometers but he knew a scenic shortcut (creepiest!). He started walking and we purposefully fell several steps behind, stopping to grab apples out of Marilynn’s bag.

But he was waiting for us in a clearing, where he showed us the Paradies, a wide path of concrete, stone, steps, and waterfalls that cuts through residential areas into the Baden-Baden business district. We all were reminded of the Bom Jesus do Monte (Good Jesus of the Mount) church in Portugal, although on a lesser scale. It wasn’t as well maintained as the path in Braga, but it still was neat to find this hidden gem that indeed cut 15 or so minutes off our walk back.

Functional Funicular in Heidelberg

Two days later found us on another funicular, this time to Heidelberg Palace. This one proved more utilitarian, transporting as many tourists as possible to the palace. We could have ridden a second, historic funicular to the top of the mountain, but we decided to concentrate our efforts on the palace.

Heidelberg Palace enjoyed its heyday between the 13^th and 16^th centuries as one of the grandest palaces of the Renaissance. It sustained heavy damage during the Thirty Years’ War and lightning damage in 1764 before its destruction in the Nine Years’ War.

Some parts of the palace have been returned to their former glory, but most of the site remains a ruin. In addition to the grounds and a palace tour, you should also visit the German Apothecary Museum, with several displays of shops with pastilles and potions, quack remedies and lotions in glass jars along the walls and in wooden pullout drawers in front of each expansive display.

Heidelberg also has a history of producing enormous wine vats, including what’s called the Heidelberg Tun, which can store nearly 58,000 gallons of wine—the equivalent of 292,000 bottles of wine. When entering the cellar, you will first notice what is likely the largest vat you’ve ever seen. But walk a little farther and you’ll see the truly impressive Tun.

And all this fun started with a funicular.

How did we wind up in a spa in Baden-Baden when we were supposed to be in France? And where are my trousers? Traveling sometimes throws you a curveball, and it’s important to go with the flow. And since this diversion finds us in a thermal spa in our bathing suits, I mean that literally.

The plan was to travel from Tübingen to Baden-Baden, have a quick look around, stay the night, then slip into France for a day trip to Strasbourg before moving on to Heidelberg. But after heavy travel three days out of four, I couldn’t take it anymore. In the words of Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

That’s how we wound up spending a splendid afternoon at Caracalla Spa (Caracalla Therme) in Baden-Baden, which I know from researching U.S. thermal spring spas has already spoiled me. It would be like visiting the Great Wall, then looking at your neighbor’s back fence. Or in a water sense, visiting this palatial bastion of relaxation versus being offered a soak in a water trough with a trolling motor for bubbles.

The expansive spa features huge connected indoor and outdoor pools of various temperatures, with whirlpools, an outdoor lazy river that gently propels one through the pool, waterfalls, a steam room, cold spa, two solariums, and plenty of indoor and outdoor lounging space. There is also an area upstairs that contains I don’t know what, because this American Southerner doesn’t go au natural with his 18-year-old in tow. Prices were quite reasonable, and we spent a glorious three hours trying out the different pools and saunas. The pools truly are huge, so it didn’t feel like an American water park during summer.

Donge-Swingen Definitely Not for Me

Playgrounds for the rich and famous often spring up around thermal water sources, which is the case for Baden-Baden. A block away from Caracalla is Friedrichsbad, which the website describes as “textile-free,” a euphemism for what Southerners call “nekkid.”

The idea of the modern bath started with a County Cork physician, Richard Barter, who built the first such facility in Ireland or Britain in 1856 near Blarney (no kidding!). The Friedrichsbad followed two decades later, preserving the remains of a genuine Roman Bath House. It certainly is beautiful to see from the outside. Bathers partake in a nearly three-hour, 17-stage bathing process of gradual heating and cooling, moving from one bliss-inducing station to the next.

Earlier in Tübingen, Declan and I discovered that the German word for silhouette filmmaking is something like “silhouettefilming.” My sense of humor and pidgin German got the better of me that day, calling a CBD dispensary with a full window display of bongs a “bonge-smoken.”

So amid our glorious day out at Caracalla Spa, relaxing and soaking to our supreme contentment, I couldn’t help but think of the “textile-free” areas of both spas as “donge-swingen.”

Regardless of what one calls it, donge-swingen isn’t for me. Maybe next time … and there definitely will be a next time.

To say the trip Declan and I made to Manchester was part of a whirlwind tour is a vast understatement, because Tübingen, Germany, was our next stop. It’s been a university town since 1477, and Eberhard Karls University is one of the oldest universities in central Europe. Roughly one-third of its 90,000 residents are students, with most housed amid picturesque ancient buildings along cobbled streets embedded in the hills.

Marilynn was invited to give a paper at an Irish Studies conference at the university, so it was a no-brainer to add this stop to our itinerary. She flew directly to Frankfurt and took a mostly direct train there, but Declan and I weren’t so lucky.

We couldn’t find cheap flights into Frankfurt or Stuttgart from Manchester, so we flew on Ryanair to Cologne. The day started with a 4:35 a.m. wakeup call and a 7 a.m. flight, followed by at least four train transfers and most of the day. You must really want to get to Tübingen from Cologne.

The silver lining is that the train traveled along the Rhine River Valley, with stunning mountain views and literally dozens of castles — both current and ruins — dotting the hilltop scenery. The arduous journey was worth it to see this quaint city, which grew up on both sides of the Neckar River from the 12^th century.

Top sites include St. George’s Collegiate Church (Stiftskirche), built in the 15^th century and a central feature of Tübingen’s skyline. The church was one of the first to convert from Catholicism to Martin Luther’s Protestantism, and the structure retains many features usually associated with the Catholic Church. If history isn’t your thing, stop in for the stained-glass windows.

One unexpected delight was the City Museum of Tübingen exhibit devoted to early film silhouette artist and director Lotte Reiniger. When you were a kid, you may have gone to a puppet show with moving shapes behind a backlit white screen. That’s silhouette artistry, and Reiniger was best known for her ambitious film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” in the 1920s. We visited the museum to escape the rain, but we’re glad we went.

Walking the hilly streets of Tübingen and seeing the sights were the best parts of our adventure. The city escaped Allied bombing during World War II, so the city doesn’t have that discordant architecture from the ‘60s spoiling the view of the buildings that are hundreds of years old. Colorful side-by-side Bavarian-style timbered houses and quaint shops line the streets, delighting the senses.

On the day we visited, a morning street market sprang up in front of the historic City Hall that featured local meats and cheeses, fruits and vegetables (including white asparagus), and other delights. Even a brief but torrid downpour could not stop market day, as people ducked under awnings or donned their rain jackets.

The river that flows through town at various points provides a great diversion. We particularly enjoyed watching eight baby ducks slalom through a set of rapids under mama duck’s watchful eyes, moving back and forth over the obstacles to reach the quiet pool at the bottom. Yes, it took 10 hours of travel time to reach Tubingen, but the views more than made up for the hassle.

Marilynn Richtarik’s talks in Belfast were the academic equivalent of a sold-out arena hosting a semi-famous rock band — albeit without cellphone flashlights aloft or the pungent smell of marijuana.

Audiences that require more than the fingers on two hands to count are considered good by scholarly standards, so it was quite refreshing to host 70 people Tuesday at Queen’s University Belfast’s Institute of Irish Studies (including 40+ online viewers) and about 40 on Thursday at the Linen Hall Library across from Belfast City Hall. The audiences were enthusiastic, and discussion after the presentations was lively.

Just like touring with that semi-famous rock band, celebrity sightings were also common. David Park’s novel “The Truth Commissioner” and Michael Longley’s poem “Ceasefire” both feature in Marilynn’s book. Park was on hand, as was Michael’s wife, Edna Longley, herself an accomplished scholar.

Anne Devlin and Rosemary Jenkinson, both playwrights and short story writers, attended the Thursday event, as did a journalist from Shared Future News and more than a dozen people from a cross-community initiative in north Belfast that strives to bridge the sectarian divide. That group asked particularly probing questions about how the Good Friday Agreement changed (or, rather, did not change) the lives of common folks in Northern Ireland, especially disaffected young men.

It was fantastic to see so many friends at both events and to make new ones along the way. We also are grateful to people at the Queen’s Institute of Irish Studies and the Linen Hall for making the necessary arrangements, and to No Alibis Bookstore in Belfast for selling copies of Marilynn’s book at both events.

Finally, while I wish I had come up with the headline for this post, that honor belongs to Dana Miller, a former grad student of Marilynn’s who tuned in while covering the SXSW Music Festival in Austin. She wrote, “What a brilliant talk you have given, and it is such a joy to watch you talk about your incredible work.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.