Our 10 Most Popular Posts

Here's the travel blogging catch-22.  Most people are looking for information about places they plan to visit.  So, millions of people search for things about Tuscany, Paris or Amsterdam's canals.  The most amazing place on earth won't receive much traffic if nobody knows about it.  The problem is, the more popular a place is, the more bloggers there are writing about it.  The chance that someone reads your post about the Acropolis? Slim.

Predicting which of our 700 (plus) posts would get read was almost impossible.  Some of the best things we wrote didn't even get read by our own parents.  Some of our silliest or worst-written bits have became enormously (and embarrassingly) popular.

Our 10 most popular posts (based on Google analytics data and Blogger.com traffic reports) are a mixed bag.  Some are good (number one, thankfully), some began their online life as throwaways (see number nine), some are just weird (number five).  Only one of these posts was specifically designed to attract traffic (number two).

10. Cihangir

Sometimes we just hit upon something. Cihangir is a hip, young Istanbul neighborhood.  It reminded us of a Turkish Williamsburg and confirmed our belief that renting an apartment is the best way to see a city.  The best neighborhoods are often the best because they don't have any hotels.  Don't get us wrong, the center of Istanbul is as gobsmacking is you'd expect and we never tired of tooling around in search of balik ekmek or The Mussel Man (who we wind up finding in Cihangir anyway).  But the best cities are great because of their ever-changing qualities, their momentum and the neighborhoods defined by the young people there at a given time. 

9. Not Taking Pictures of The Sistine Chapel

As bloggers, we found ourselves in a jam.  Here we were in Vatican City, two whole weeks of posting about a very, very small microstate and the pièce de résistance was off limits.  No photos in the Sistine Chapel.  Seriously?  If this were a rule decreed by the pope, the security guards would probably have worked a little harder - or at all - to enforce it.  As it turns out, a Japanese TV company owns the exclusive rights to some of the art world's most famous images because they funded its restoration. (This is after NBC turned down the deal.  Probably because they were too busy fine-tuning  Joey, the Friends spin-off).  Anyway, the whole thing was ridiculous, made only more so by the fact that everyone. was. taking. pictures.  So, we decided to half break the rules and snap some shots, too.  Just not of the ceiling.  We're sure this gets traffic because people are searching to see if photos are allowed in the Sistine Chapel.  Not that finding out is going to stop them.  

8. Georgian Food
We can vouch for the fact that it is very difficult to search for anything about Georgia, in English, without being directed to the state instead of the country.  Using the word "Georgian" helps matters a lot.  This one makes us happy because Georgian food really did feel like a revelation.  The textures and flavors were consistently surprising and delicious.  Pomegranate seeds, crushed walnuts, cilantro,  the best bread of our lives.  And then there were khinkali, the soup dumpling like concoctions pictured above.  In the tiny town of Mestia, at the time the most remote place we'd been, the only restaurant in town basically only served khinkali   We discovered, quickly, that they are so delicious you don't need anything more.

7. The Bright Spots

Amazingly, this is only our second most-popular Albanian post (see below!)  

Sometimes we know exactly why people are reading a specific post.  After a TED Blog writer used our photos of Tirana's painted buildings we got a sudden surge of visitors.

The story of Edi Rama (painter turned Minister of Culture turned mayor) and his brilliant idea to transform ugly communist-era cement blocks into bold, bright works of art is a great one.  It's no wonder it's garnered some attention.  We're just happy that our own piece focuses more on the story of the city today and of Malvin, a young man who served us dinner one night and was showing us around the next.  Maybe he'll stumble upon the post himself and shoot us an email.  We wonder if he ever made it to that bioengineering school in Canada.

6. Castle Hunting: Trakai Castle
Island castles are a little bit of a trend (see number 4).
We remember this castle most for the speeding ticket we got nearby.  Lithuanian police take road safety very seriously.  For the record, if you should ever find yourself stopped by an officer in Lithuania, be prepared to pay your fine in cash on the spot.  If you don't have the money, he/she will drive you to the nearest bank to withdraw the amount.  Don't be scared.  This is absolutely normal.  Well, you can still be scared.  As we were.

5. Sleeping In Soviet Style
This little Belarusian piece has always baffled us.  For almost a year it was our number two most-viewed post, second only to this, about Belarusian tractors (which now ranks about 12th).  It would make sense if people were only landing here while looking for lodging in Belarus - which is hard to find - but that didn't seem to be the case.  Inexplicably, thousands of people showed up after searching for "armenian elevator buttons."  The internet is a weird, weird place.
(Thanks to one visitor, we learned that what we thought was a very cool smoke detector was actually an even cooler single-channel radio from the Soviet age).

4. Castle Hunting: Kizkalesi Castles

We were never even supposed to be there in Kizkalesi, but we were finding it a little difficult to catch a boat to northern Cyprus, and we needed a place to stay.  For a Turkish seaside town, it's a little drab.  People visit for the "floating" castle (and visit our blog for pictures of it).  We stayed in an empty hotel, run by a very nice Kurdish man who took us to the nearby Caves of Heaven and Hell and invited us to watch a televised NBA game with him in the evening. 

3. Lithuanian Food
For a long time, Lithuanian Food was the most viewed post on the blog.  It features grainy, unappealing photos of cepelinai, blyneliai and various other cheesy, gloppy dishes.  This is a poorly-lit shot of kiaulės audis, which is smoked pig's ear.  We had no idea - as we crunched cartilage on that dark night in the Žemaitija National Park - that so many people would find this stuff interesting.  Then, again, we may not have ordered the smoked pig's ear if we didn't at least hope they would.

2. Montenegro's Best Beaches
Some day soon, this will be the most read merlinandrebecca.com post.  It's been popular since day one, and it does really well around every vacation time.  Montenegro is newly independent and popular, so there isn't as much written about it as, say, Croatia.  We think that's why readers end up on our site.  This one feels a little bittersweet, though, because we created it while thinking "this will get so much traffic!"  But, hey, the hope is that then you stumble upon something like this.  The other hope is that more people will look beyond the big resorts that are threatening to destroy the coastline and find those little places that remain untouched… for now.

1. Albanian Food

While it's not too surprising that 3 of our 10 most popular posts are about food, Albania sneaking in for the win is a bit of a shock.  Here's our theory:  there's simply not much information available online about Albanian food.  So, unlike a search for "Italian food," you're more likely to stumble upon us.  In fact, googling those two words right now, we're right there behind wikipedia, food.com, ask.com and pinterest (which may or may not have even existed when we published this post).  If the title had been "Frogs Legs and Lamb's Head" - as I'm sure at least one of us wanted it to be - there's no way this would be our number one.  But… hey… we learned a few traffic tips along the way.  Now, add the fact that Albania was named Lonely Planet's Top Destination for 2011 and you've got yourself a winner!

CRF: The Best of Croatia

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." It's been almost a year since we returned from Europe, and we've started to get seriously nostalgic.  To give us all an extra travel fix, we're posting some of our favorite photos that never made it onto the blog.  Here are our favorite unpublished memories and pictures of Croatia.

More than any other country, we associate Croatia with hedonism, sun and the scent of saltwater.  Our trip never felt like a vacation, but Croatia is a vacation by definition.  Everyone there was on holiday in one way or another - it was the same for the naked Germans and drunk Russians and sunburned Brits that joined us on those rocky shores.  It was July.  The sun never seemed to go down.

For a few happy days, we stayed at a huge campsite on Cres Island.  There was squid to eat in town and beer to sip on the long oceanside promenade.  When we swam, we were stung by tiny jellyfish.  When we walked in the balmy evenings, we listened to cicadas and waves.  Nearby, in a pine forest, a rusty amusement park spun its blinking, neon magic.

At home in the US, not long after the trip, someone told us that Croatia sounded "scary and Russian."  It's true that in some places, like Zadar, one can find bomb-scarred buildings from the Balkan wars - but you have to look hard.  The scariest thing about Croatia today? Probably the spiny sea-urchins that lurk in the shallow water.
The Dalmatian coast is mostly rock, and some salt-scoured islands feel almost entirely dead.  Real, comfortable, sandy beaches are rare.  Most people sunbathe on concrete slabs.

In Opatija, a city where seafood approaches perfection, we had a barbecue of squid and blitva.  The market where we shopped for our supper was made of Tito-era cement and seemed like the only cool place in the sun-baked city.

The heart of the summer - no rain, mild air, a sense that nothing bad can possibly happen - is best spent in a tent.  We soaked up the sun and got into our sleeping bag coated with salt.  We never went inside.  We ate by the ocean, we napped in the shade, we swam and walked and came home to a crowded camping city that smelled always of grilling sausage and suntan oil.
This was the semi-permanent home of one of our neighbors there at Camping Kovačine - grandparents, small children and at least two couples used this one camper as a base.  Did they all sleep inside?  Hard to tell.

Late one night - well past midnight - we were returning to our campsite in Ičići and came across this streetlight game of volleyball.

These scales always remind us of communism.  Every market from Minsk to Budapest to Sarajevo is full of them.

We spent a lot of time near the Mediterranean on the trip, but almost always during the colder months.  The summer seashores are too crowded in Malta or Greece or Provence.  At least, they're too crowded for serious travel.
But there we were, in Croatia during the high season.  We succumbed because there was no other choice.  It's Croatia that we think of first when our minds turn to sunny saltwater.  It was unavoidably perfect.  It was a vacation.
To see all our posts from Croatia, just click here.
To see all the Cutting Room Floor posts, with great pictures from the other 49 countries, just click here.

British Food: Neeps, Squeak, Chips and Guts

When the fish hit the fat, it made a racket.  Sputtering, splattering, bubbling and squealing, it cooked fast and hot.  Within a bare few minutes, we were handed our lunch.  It was still hot after we'd walked from chippy ("fish and chip stand" is too long a name for something so simple) to beach, sat down, taken this picture and tasted the fries.  Or, "chips," as we all know they're called. On the Welsh island of Anglesey, in the middle of November, this felt like our most British of meals, and it came so close to the end of our time there.  The haddock was juicy, the crust was crisp, the whole thing tasted of salt and empire.
Beside the fish is a little dish of "mushy peas," which is exactly what it sounds like.

America and Britain are not culturally similar.  Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been to both places.  We may speak the same language, but would a typical, small-town American restaurant serve haggis with neeps-n-tatties?  Is blood sausage a normal part of American breakfasts?  Can you imagine supermarket freezers displaying pre-made kidney pie?
Brits love their offal, especially certain pieces in certain places.  Haggis might seem like a joke to us Americans, a weird food that couldn't possibly be common, but it's truly a staple in Scotland.  This plate of haggis (the "neeps-n-tatties" beside it are simply mashed turnips and potatoes) was served to me in a raucous pub in Elgin, which is about as blue-collar a place as there is.  I ate the dish a few other times while in the north, and grew to really like it.  And I really liked it; not as in "it's weird, but I can tolerate it."  As in "I hope they have haggis on the menu!"
It's made from ground sheep's heart, liver and lungs mixed with oatmeal and traditionally cooked in a sheep's stomach.  Nowadays, a plastic casing is often substituted for the stomach.  The flavor is richened with mace, nutmeg, allspice, marjoram, thyme and plenty of ground pepper.  It is so aromatic, so uniquely spiced, that vegetarian versions (using grain instead of organ) tasted undeniably haggis-like.  It really is delicious, and definitely isn't a joke.

Scotland isn't the only country within Great Britain with a signature dish that gets the imagination going.  Welsh rabbit is neither originally Welsh nor made of rabbit.  You'll find it referred to as "rarebit" in Wales, a word invented for the purpose of saying something other than "rabbit" for this meatless dish.  Welsh rabbit originated in England and is, essentially, fondue.  Cheese, usually cheddar, is melted and mixed with ale, mustard, cayenne, wine, what have you.  Then, it's either poured over bread or served with "soldiers" (finger sized slices of toast) for dipping.  So how did this cheesy food, which tastes exactly as you'd expect it would, get named after Bugs Bunny?  The two theories I've read point to the English insulting the Welsh - either that they were so poor, cheese was their rabbit (an animal the English already considered 'the poor man's meat') or that they were so bad at hunting, cheese on bread would be a Welsh rabbit hunter's dinner.

In Criccieth, while walking beneath a seaside castle, we stopped into a bakery.  It was early morning. The sun was coming up over the Snowdon mountains. The town smelled of baking.  We asked the girl behind the counter what these little rectangles were - she'd just pulled them from the oven and they were puffed up and emitting visible plumes of steam.  "These?" she said, giving us a suspicious look. "These are pie."  Pie?
"Yeah," she said. "Cheese pie."  She gave us another funny look.  How could we not identify pie?
In the UK, pie can be fruity, meaty, cheesy, round, square, deep, flat or otherwise.  It seems that if it's wrapped in pastry, it can be called a pie.  This one was mildly cheesy, with a small dose of grassy herbs and sweetish potato inside. It tasted a bit like a knish.

In Hawes, in one of the small stone pubs that dot the Yorkshire Dales, we tried steak, kidney and "Old Peculier" pie.  The beer, which really is spelled that way, made the dish an English take on an Irish classic "steak and Guinness pie."  Fish pies were about the same, with cream replacing gravy and large, pillowy chunks of fish.   It became clear that 'pie' could mean a stew with a puff pastry hat sitting on top or a broiled topper of mashed potatoes.

That's not to say that sometimes a pie is a pie just as you'd want it to be.  The United Kingdom kept our  excellent baked goods streak going.  Through Scandinavia, over to Ireland and now here, it's been three months of excellent whole grains, seasonal fruit and powdered sugar.  It was the stuff of dreams, of magazine pictorials.  And 'stuff' couldn't be a more appropriate word, because there was never a case in which we needed dessert.  We were often full on ale before a meal even began.  And yet...  who can resists?

Once we had 'pies' sort of figured out, there was the whole issue of 'puddings.'

Now, to address the elephant in the kitchen.  Is British food bland?  We can't deny the fact that salt shakers were employed at almost every meal and that things like "mushroom stroganoff" (a vegetarian pub staple) had a dizzying array of ingredients while still managing to taste like nothing at all except for a hard to describe, oxymoronic mix of 'rich' and 'watery.'  But we can't say that this, umm, subtlety of flavor was necessarily the mark of bad food or unskilled chefs.  It's just a style, one that favors the heartier, homier flavors of cinnamon, clove, cream and thyme rather than the punch of salt and spice.  One that prefers you tailor your own dish to your taste with the always readily available supply of condiments.  Above, a selection of packets in a Scottish pub.  Traditional British food may have a reputation for being bland, but does it really get much more British than worcester sauce, HP, English mustard and malt vinegar?

There's all that Indian food if you're looking for something punchier.  Some of the best Indian food of our lives.  It's what Brits eat out, if they're not having stew in a pub.  Like red-sauce Italian food in America, it's not seen as "ethnic" anymore.  We never had a true, traditional afternoon tea - towers of sandwiches, scones, china pots, clotted cream.  Nor did we stop for a "sunday carvery" - a man with a saber, thick cuts of meat, plentiful sides.  But we did eat plenty of curry, saag and daal.  Indian food is popular from London to Inverness, an omnipresent second flavor.  It is also not particularly photogenic, especially in dimmed restaurant lighting on reflective copper dishes.  Instead, we leave you with this picture of a ram.  Lamb or "mutton" is very common in the UK, and at Indian restaurants it is simply referred to as "meat."  Sorry, big guy.

A Riot Of Color On The Welsh Shore

Traeth Mawr means "Big Sands" in Welsh; it's the name given to the wide estuary between Portmadog and a blank hillside of trees and rock.  Or, a mostly blank hillside.
Portmeirion is a fabricated, storybook "village" that is unlike anything else we've seen.  It is literally a patch of Italian baroque set down in Wales, like a spill of paint on a concrete slab.  Nobody knew how to explain it to us, and I'm not sure I can explain it here.  Imagine two postcards set side by side; the first is of wintry Britain, the second is of summery Portofino.  Portmeirion is like two distant vacations, remembered in a dream, thrown together and piled atop itself on the rocks.  Some people actually live here.  The rest of us pay an entrance fee and walk around, bemused and surprised.

The emblem of Portmeirion is a naked woman, calf-deep in waves, a hint of mermaid tail rising behind her.  When we walked those rocky shores, it was hard to imagine swimming or sunbathing.  The beaches of North Wales are empty expanses of sand and rock; the sounds of gulls and waves only made the loneliness more vast.  November there is a time of frosted fields and rattling, leaf-bare forests.  The fish and chip shops are closed for the season, the ice-cream stands boarded up.  This isn't a season when the rough coast - barnacled rock, concrete wharf, frozen sand - could seem hospitable to bare flesh.
But the pale citizens of this grassy land do emerge in the summers to venture into cold waves and lie in tepid sunshine.  North Wales, like the whole of North Europe, is home to hardy people who tire of winter. People are always drawn to the sea, aren't they?

A man named Sir Clough Williams-Ellis built this place in the half century between 1925 and 1975, using Italian seaside villages as a model, and bits of other buildings as his material.  Many of the architectural pieces already existed, and were moved and reassembled at Portmeirion.  Ornate clock towers jostle against wrought-iron porticos. Hard angles take surprising turns, statues peer from unexpected windows. The whole thing has a postmodern, collage-like air of disorder and order.  It feels a little like a town made from children's toys, where disparate parts are thrown together in a pile and expected to play out a fantasy.
Though some of the buildings are semi-inhabited (there are "private" signs everywhere, so that we tramping tourists don't stumble into an actual Welsh living room), the majority of the structures really serve their own purpose.  William-Ellis was building a piece of art, not planned-housing in the mold of Le Corbusier.  Room is needed for a cafeteria, of course, and for souvenir shops and ice cream, a hotel and restaurant.  Tens of thousands of people visit Portmeirion every year.  It might as well be a called a museum.

The small touches are some of the most poignant.  Little copper fixtures, wooden statues of sea-captains, painted rocks, a sermonizing Jesus on a balcony.  The town isn't actually town-sized, but the few acres of buildings are so intricate that they feel like a much bigger place.
While William-Ellis used Italy as a rough template, the buildings and architectural features are from every corner of the globe. A colonnade from Bristol, England, is set against statues from Myanmar and Greek gods.  It's meant to be surprising and confusing, and some of it isn't even real - one whole facade is done completely in trompe-l'œil.  If there is one commonality, it's the influence of the sea on all these surfaces.  Everything is salt-touched and vaguely nautical.

I remember wondering, in the November darkness of two years ago, how the cold Lithuanian coast could ever attract hollidaymakers and sun seekers.  Cold light, beach-walkers in parkas, the threat of overnight snow.  We turn towards the sea for half the year, and away from it the rest of the time.
Something that remains is the smell of the ocean, especially in the still waters of the Big Sands.  That odor of kelp, salt and something indescribable emanating from the deep - it's the same all year.
Portmeirion was originally called "Aber Iâ," which Williams-Ellis took to mean "frozen mouth."  He changed the name to make it seem more pleasant, but he couldn't erase the actual image of a cold estuary.  As colorful and tropical as the village is, it will always look out over a big slick of Welsh, northern sand.  It's beautiful, but it could never be confused with Le Marche.

Near the estuary, on a rocky hillock, the Portmeirion "lighthouse" stands duty over nothingness.  The tiny, metal figure in the scrub is something like a playhouse feature - we ducked inside and peered out through the empty porthole. It's only about ten or twelve feet tall, and doesn't have a light (as far as we could tell).  The design suggests moorish rocketship more than naval signal.  The view from inside is empty except for glistening sand, reeds, wheeling birds.  Maybe it's the sea that projects to this lighthouse, not the other way around.

If I haven't really explained this place, forgive me.  Portmeirion isn't so much a defined space as it is a funny concept.  It isn't the right season, or the right texture, or the right temperature, color or height - not just for Wales, but for anywhere. In a children's book, the zaniness might make better sense.  In a architectural textbook, the ideas might be better ordered.  On a rock beside the water, it's just a pile of buildings.  Which is to say, it's fun.  It made us laugh, which is something a town usually doesn't.  It made us want to open every door we could find.

The 700 Club

Today is our 700th official day of the trip and, in a bizarre coincidence, we just happened to publish our 700th post.  So, in honor of both milestones, we've decided to pick a favorite post from each block of the trip.  Looking back, we're a little embarrassed by some of our earliest writing and photography.  We didn't quite have a knack for the whole blogging thing yet.  There was also a matter of learning to balance the time spent experiencing things and the time it takes to sit in a dark hotel room and plug away at documenting it all.  We hope you enjoy reminiscing a little with us.
Centrāltirgus, Riga - Lithuania
1-100, Holland to Estonia.   The snow began to fall in Riga and we didn't see uncovered earth again until Ukraine, well into our next block.  This was the beginning of our Slavic winter and wandering into the Centrāltirgus in Riga was surreal.  We had never seen a market like it and still count it amongst the best we've ever encountered - and we got to a lot of markets.  They're perfect gateways into a new place, an accessible entry into the authentic life of a place.   Looking back, it was probably our experience at this one in Riga that really taught us that lesson.  Monumental Brest - Belarus
101 - 200, Russia to San Marino.  We began in one place and ended in quite another.  In between was a lot of snow, a crash-course in Russian language, two Pope Benedict sightings and the last remaining dictatorship in Europe.  Belarus.  Monumental Brest was an experience of true Communist grandeur, propaganda and pomp.  We are forever grateful to have made the effort, obtained the visas and crossed the border into Belarus at this point in its history.  We've no doubt it'll be very different in the not-too-distant future.
Puszta Horse Show - Hungary
201 - 300, Switzerland to Croatia.  Sometimes we resent this blog for keeping us in on a sunny afternoon, keeping a camera in hand when it only adds to our conspicuousness, taking up time we could be spending doing something wonderful and exotic... but more often, we realize that actively thinking about content has lead us to do so many things we wouldn't have otherwise.  For example, the Puszta Horse Show.  Basically a Hungarian rodeo, how could it not make a good post?  It also made for a hysterical, wonderful afternoon.
The Water Cave - Slovenia
301 - 400, Slovenia to Spain.  Like Marketplaces, Caves are a common theme for us.  We love spelunking and never would have even known it had we not gone to Slovenia a few years before this trip began.  That time, we went to the Škocjan Caves (which doesn't allow pictures).  On our return trip, we upped the ante with this once-in-a-lifetime tour of The Water Cave.  One of our very favorite days of this entire trip. 
In a Land Far, Far Away... - Azerbaijan
401 - 500, Georgia to Malta.  At the beginning of this year, we became backpackers.  Our loyal companion Nilla (our Subaru Outback) had been sent home.  We left Christmas with our families and took one, two, three planes to get to Georgia.  It was exhilarating and scary and with our comfort zone punctured, we decided to really just go all-in.  We never would have driven to Xinaliq, Azerbaijan ourselves.  And staying with a family whose house was heated with dung was a homestay to remember.
The Beautiful Lake Komani Ferry - Albania
501 - 600, Albania - Bosnia & Herzegovina.  We found ourselves missing Nilla a lot.  Wishing we could camp, have our own cooking equipment, just have the freedom to get from point A to point B on our own time.  But any time we start thinking this way, we inevitably think of all the experiences we never would have had if we'd kept the car around.  All the situations we were thrown headfirst into.  We always think of the Lake Komani ferry, a bus made to float which carried us, a man showing off his machine gun, elderly people in traditional clothes and whoever they randomly picked up at the water's edge of nowhere to northern Albania.  It was beautiful, yes, but also bizarre, adventurous and unlike anything before it or since.

Forty-Eight People - Iceland
601 - 700, Iceland - United Kingdom.  Iceland is sort of Europe and sort of nowhere.  At the edge of the Arctic and in the middle of the Atlantic, it's very much its own thing.  Huge swaths of the country can only be seen by hiking for days with everything you need on you.  In some places, we got a tiny insight into what it must feel like to be in space.  The deepest sense of isolation in an unimaginably beautiful place.  On the eastern coast of the Westfjords, only a small number of resilient people have remained.  Forty-eight to be exact.  We contemplated staying put and bringing their number up to fifty.

At the Edge of the Ocean

It's easy to forget that the meeting of land and water isn't always gradual - that a coast isn't just beaches and harbors, docked boats and storehouse-lined bays.  You forget that the ocean is the most vast wilderness there is and that the people living on the edge of it feel governed by its every whim.  Even in the most remote mountain regions, you have a sense of the peak, of the beginning and the end.  But that's just not the case with the ocean.  We'd driven the Copper Coast with a setting sun in our eyes and no place to pull over.  We'd stayed in coastal Dungarvan, but tucked inland at Kilcannon House.  The Bay of Galway was a calmed pocket of coast without even the audible lapping of water.  So, our cliff walk in Ardmore was our first real encounter with the wild and woolly Irish coast.  Below this stone ruin, far down where seafoam marked the water level against the cliff, was the bent crane of a 1987 shipwreck.  A few minutes back, we'd found a notebook tacked to the outside of a simple wooden structure.  A whale watching station and logbook.  Five days ago, someone scribbled a report.  One minke whale spotted. 

With all the green, it's easy to forget about the blue.  But the blue is at the heart of the Irish identity, I think. "I feel for Greece," a fellow boarder in Kinsale named Michael told us.  "They're like us.  Most of its an island. And we're ancient civilizations, us and Greece.  We have our own pace.  We can't expect to be Germany with all its neighbors and its modernity."  He was talking, of course, about the economics and EU membership.  And though I understood his point about Greece, I immediately thought of Iceland - - and its No Thanks, EU! billboards.  For an island that has survived, by the skin of its teeth at times, self-sufficiency is key.  It's the exact thing that gets compromised when joining a coalition.  All of a sudden that precarious setting in the wild Atlantic doesn't just reap benefits for those willing to live on the brink of it.  Its bounty is available to trawlers just passing through.  Men spoke of the coastline like an alma mater, like other men talk about their college football team that's gone to hell.  Because as close as all Irishmen live to the Atlantic, there's also a huge number of them that have lived on the water itself.

"I miss the people.  The ones that take to the sea because they don't fit in anywhere else."  Pat Ormond was described as "the best sailor ever to come out of Dungarvan" to us by the town historian.  (A true historian, not just a guy with that nickname at the pub).  This was the first summer Pat hadn't spent on the water.  Money's dried up for a lot of the people who usually hire him out for the season.  So, he was around with the guests at Kilcannon House.  A lifelong transient among travelers.  We felt a kinship - often likening our own strange existence these past two years to living on a floating island, a deserted one with just Merlin and me.  Pat equipped us with hand drawn maps of the coastline in County Waterford and West Cork.  There were two rocks off the coast of Baltimore named Adam and Eve ("avoid Adam and hug Eve"), all the harbors were drawn in and the public restrooms on the dock, but no clear road to get there. "Oh, I've left those out haven't I?  I'm always looking at it from the sea!"

To borrow a term from Merlin, Ireland is "the breakwater of Europe," an island stationed in the thick of the Atlantic, after miles of unobstructed free rein.  The coast represents every obstacle and opportunity, and the dramatic shift between the two that life (and history) so often is.  Stories of the coast included boatloads of Irishmen setting off for America, pioneers of a sort, setting an Irish satellite in a far off land that still holds a deep connection.  News of hurricane Sandy played at a pub in Clonakilty, the waitress offered her condolences.  "If that'd been us, we'd just be gone.  8 million people in New York, there are only 6 in Ireland!  A storm like that would just swallow us whole."  The town had serious flooding earlier this year, more than once there was 2 feet of water in the pub's main room.  Storefronts had signs that said they'd be "closed indefinitely" due to the flooding.  Buildings still had sandbags at the base of their front doors. 

Clonakilty's claim to fame is its blood pudding, the best in Ireland, but what locals will tell you about first is the old carpet factory.  It supplied the Titanic, of course.  Titanic tourism is actually a thing.  For the Irish, death is just a part of a conversation.  You may describe what your grandmother looked like, they'll tell you how and when she died.  I can only think the coast has something to do with it (and the Roman Catholic beliefs about afterlife).  It doesn't really matter that the ocean took the Titanic, it left the land a majestic work of craftsmanship.  So, why not brag about a connection? A love leaving on a boat or leaving your love on land is the subject of 'lament' ballads.  The crown jewels of Irish sightseeing are on the coast. "You going to Kerry then?" Everyone asked when we said we were driving along the coast  Well, no, not this time...  Not going to County Kerry was a little like not having the dessert a restaurant is famous for because you're too full from the appetizer, entree, cheese and drinks that you enjoyed so immensely.  We have no regrets.

Kinsale would evoke dreamy emotion in everyone.   "Oh, you'll have to stop in at the Tap Bar," a man at the Ardmore craft shop told us.  Pat personally recommended The Spaniard pub, which wound up being one of our favorites of the trip.  A yellowed newspaper hung over the cash register shouted the news that the Lusitania had sunk only 11 miles offshore.  Their own claim to fame.  The bartender was an instant friend.  "Say hello to..." was a common addendum to a pub recommendation.  We wondered, often, how people choose their pub in Ireland.  The selection and prices are almost always the same - and in towns with more than one (and as many as ten) the regulars are loyal.  But we think it's about whose tending the bar more than the bar itself, what friend you can visit, whose ear you can bend.  On the coast this is especially important.  This is your time back on land to give confession or have a laugh; to flirt or learn or be silent with an old friend. 

But the dreamy sigh that would sound at the word "Kinsale" was almost always attached to one thing.  A quick facebook message from an Irish coworker of my father's had "Kinsale - the Irish Riviera - great chefs." Other people were more specific.  "You have to go to Fishy Fishy" - man in Ardmore.  "Now you're making me want to take the drive to Fishy Fishy!" - woman in Dungarvan.  "Of course, there's Fishy Fishy." - Pat.  The food scene in Kinsale is renowned and the mother of it all is Fishy Fishy, a seafood restaurant that's an institution in Ireland.  Their Surf & Turf is scallops and blood sausage.  Their daily specials outnumber the printed 'menu.  The monkfish and parsnip puree was an indelicate bulk of flavor, a sense of pub under the supervision of great chefs.  My sea bass came as a pile of three crispy skinned fillets, set atop a mound of mashed carrots and topped with fried leeks.  You have to go to Fishy Fishy.  And The Spaniard, while you're at it.

Galway, Sunny-Side Up

Six young Irishmen in Galway pile on top of one another, swinging and grabbing at each other, red-faced and hyped up.  That sentence would mean a whole other thing after nightfall.  But on an afternoon in South Park, outside the pub-ccentric city center, it is just the scene of a rugby practice.  Galway by day. "Vibrant" is a word that gets used a lot to describe cities, but Galway really embodies the word most fully to me.  The vibration of string instruments in its streets, the energy of the student population, the ebb and flow of the water in its bay, the brightness of the green and blue backdrop - all a version of vibrancy, all the epitome of Galway.

It would be so easy for daytime Galway to feel like a hangover.  Most places that play as hard as it does just don't rise with the same vigor as they fall.  Sleepy mornings and empty beer bottles would seem fitting after evening trad sessions and nighttime brawls.  But that's just not how Galway rolls.  Bright and early, the pubs open, new kegs are rolled in on dollies by white-coated delivery men.  The jewel-toned pub exteriors with names like Foley's and Gallaghers and The Old Hen painted in gold look as brilliant in the sunlight as they do under streetlights.  Irish breakfasts and pots of tea are the order of the morning.  The smell of toast fills the air, calling you down through your hotel window.

Secondhand shops and record stores, crafts shops selling authentic woolen products from the nearby Aran islands, bakeries, cafes are all opening up.  This is daytime Galway, a plethora of charming places that close before sunset.  There's maybe a sliver of time when day Galway and night Galway coexist, like those evenings you can spot the moon before the sun has gone down.  But mostly, they're flipsides, and if your experience of the city is purely vampiric you may never know places like Sheridans Cheesemongers, Griffin's bakery or Goya's cafe exist.  At Goya's, savory pies in the window, like steak and kidney, lured us in; the carrot soup with buttered brown bread and chicken liver pate won us over (especially Merlin, who declared it the best pate of the trip).  The spot, tucked away on Kirwan's Lane, is one of many bright, wonderful cafes open only for lunch and afternoon tea, places that vanish before nightfall. 

During the day, that smell of toast, of pies, of scones may pull you down streets and have you sniffing out their sources around corners.   Perhaps the smell of fish and chips will lure you down to McDonagh's at the end of Quay Street.  And that's when you'll collide with the unmistakable whiff of salty sea air and meet Galway city's other half, its harbor.  Testament to the pleasures within the city, it's almost easy to forget Galway is set on a bay of the same name.  A perfect line up of old houses rise up from the eastern side of the central inlet. They are mostly white with some light blue and yellow and one painted red like a motivational poster about uniqueness. 

Galway's Bay can feel postcard-cheery one minute and mysterious the next, depending on the weather and the mood.  It's always that way with seasides, I guess.  There's the promise of the voyage and the homecoming, and also everything washed up and left behind.  Brilliantly green moss covers most everything.  The stones have a sense of age rivaled only by the ocean floor.  Arriving at the harbor in just a few steps from all the action of central Galway is a lot like hopping onto the silent car after a mad dash through the train station, then watching the world blur by in streaks of color.  A breather just as exhilarating as the rush.

To keep the train station thing going, the harbor is also where you find Galway's hookers.  (Ha!) Turns out, a "Galway hooker" is a type of boat different than the ones above; they're traditional racing boats with a semi-unfortunate name.  In a description we read, they were described as "small, tough and highly maneuverable," which only made me giggle more.  Anyway, if you google "Galway" and the search bar guesses your next word is "hooker," this is why.  Don't be alarmed. There's nothing fishy going on in Galway Bay.  Well, there is, actually.  Seafood, which it's chock full of.  There's a mix of farming and collecting these days, both methods producing enough fish and shellfish to export in huge numbers out to France, Spain and the UK with enough leftover to enjoy at home.

A place famous for its drinking options, Galway really doesn't get enough credit for its food.  It is absurdly easy to eat extremely well around the city, proof that the residents' great taste and high standards don't stop just at trad music.  Of course, the awesome local oysters are widely available.  (This is probably the only place in the world I'd ordered raw oysters at a dive bar).  But you also have a plethora of other local seafood and produce being crafted into some seriously great meals.  At Ard Bia at Nimmo's, in an old stone building with big windows looking out at the bay, we waited out a rainy spell over seafood chowder with mussels, smoked cod, sea trout and clams.  It was atmosphere in a bowl.

We walked along The Prom, the promenade between Galway's harbor and the suburb of Salt Hill.  There were joggers and people walking dogs.  A man taught his daughter how to cast a line, that rugby team practiced.  A road led out to a lighthouse with the Aran islands visible in the distance behind it.  We walked along until a sign told us further access was prohibited - and we wondered how many signs in how many other countries told us not to trespass, but we couldn't understand.  Some city's have momentum because of crowds or traffic or a beat that everyone drums to.  Galway has a different momentum, one that is self defined but still constant.  There are so many options and outlets, watering holes, strolls and speeds to choose from that you keep on going.  You bounce from one to the next.  Sometimes to a soundtrack of trad music, sometimes to the lapping of the sea.