FERRY TO WALES

June 30, 2004

The seas were too rough on Saturday for the Halliday’s to come to Dublin, so the following day we took the ferry to Wales to have a quick visit and pick up our bikes.

Since our ferry was to depart at 12:04 we were able to squeeze in a quick visit to a small historic site called the Casino.  This building has nothing to do with gambling.  It is called Casino because this word means “little house” in Italian.  The architect, Sir William Chambers, built the Casino for James Caulfield who fell in love with all things Italian while on his “Grand Tour”.  The house, built in the neo-classical style, is perfectly symmetrical and uses clever tricks to achieve a uniform look on the exterior, while allowing for many different configurations for the rooms inside the building.  The master bedroom, done in a beautiful aqua green with white and gold ceilings, made me think of Pauline.  She would have loved it.  Our tour was quite interesting.

We headed off to the ferry and checked in with a bit of time to spare.  We found a good seat with a view and settled in for the ride.  After enjoying our picnic lunch we chatted with a young couple sitting next to us.  They were from Seattle and the girl’s grandmother lives in Portola Valley.  They were taking a 4-month trip around Europe.

The ride was smooth and we got to Holyhead at 2:04 and the Halliday’s were waiting there for us.  We only had a short time to visit and then it was time to take our bikes and catch our return ferry.  I think Daniel was very happy to be able to get back to doing more interesting things than sitting around watching his parents talk to us.  As our ferry pulled out of the dock we saw the Halliday family, waving goodbye.