Ireland 2007 Log

Photos of this leg of our trip are on-line at www.shutterfly.com.  Sign in using hocuspocus for a password, select the Ireland 07 album, and click on View as a slideshow.

7/18 Arrived Dublin.  Took City Link bus to Galway where Denis Cronin, our host, picked us up after an hour late arrival.  Upon arrival at his and Miriam’s home in Barna just outside Galway she gave us dinner and they both provided us a good briefing on their home amidst their own preparations for departure. 

Denis is a retired Irish Army officer and is currently involved in real estate investment and management in Germany, a hot market for many Irish investors.  Miriam is an artist of some note and conducts art classes in a large studio that is a wing of the home.  Hers is the largest private art teaching studio in Ireland, The Paint Box  http://www.thepaintbox.ie/.

.  Periodically Miriam and Denis arrange art course tours to distant places.  Denis recently returned from South Africa where he finalized arrangements for a fourteen day art/golf trip for a class of about 20 for early next year. 

Their home is quite spacious and we particularly like the very large kitchen with its island and four skylights.  When in the home and awake that’s where we spend most of our time.  The home has much in common with an art gallery as there are paintings, drawings and copies throughout. 

7/19  At 0430 I set out with the Cronins for the Shannon airport.  After dropping them off for their flight to Hawaii, I returned to their home and a sleeping Mayumi by 0730.  Bored with waiting for her to awaken, I took a little exploratory ride around the neighborhood.  Later in the day Mayumi and I explored a little farther afield and had a good lunch at a Donnellys Bar and Restaurant http://www.adlib.ie/detailnew.asp?ID=435 about two blocks away from our exchange home. 

7/20 We got off to a late start, then spent the day investigating the residential areas of Galway and made obligatory stops at a couple of shopping centers.  The architectural concept of shopping centers is very different in Ireland from the U.S., either mainland or Hawaiian. 

7/21   This was a very good day.  We drove around Connemara and the weather treated us very nicely.  It was good to see Kylemore Abbey again http://www.kylemoreabbey.com/ and to have another view of Ardmore from the Sky Road.

 7/22  Before setting off we stopped by a pasture a couple of hundred meters from our temporary home to see a mare with a colt that’s still wobbly on its legs.  They were curious about us and came to within about thirty feet but couldn’t be coaxed closer.  We may return with apples to see if we can get them closer.  Then we drove east and then cut ‘cross country up to Tuam checking out each of the small towns we came across and returned to Barna.  Later we went into Galway where we visited a shopping center before going to the pedestrian street and walking its length up to Eyre Square/Kennedy Square.  The street was packed with strollers and street performers.  We stopped in a MacDonald’s for a snack and got into a conversation with a family who live in Spiddal, the next town up the road from Barna, and they know the couple from that town who originally wanted to exchange homes with us.  This fellow is a quality engineer with the company that made my pacemaker.  Later we had a light dinner at the Skeffington on Eyre Square.  http://www.skeffington.ie/  On the way home we stopped by Barna beach and watched some maniacs swimming and dogs romping in the water on this cold day.

 7/23 I took Mayumi to Knock to visit the shrine where the Virgin Mary is supposed to have appeared.  http://www.knock-shrine.ie/ I dropped her off and then drove around in the country and small towns engaging an odd assortment of people in conversation.  I stopped at a rural home where a family was by their gate to ask directions.  They had a large yellow Labrador retriever that was very friendly.  He had been destined for a career as a drug sniffer but washed out of the program because he was TOO friendly.

 The weather was the nicest we’ve had since arriving in Ireland with sunny skies and a temperature reaching 70 F.

 One thing if find a little irksome is that most towns larger than the smallest village have a “Pay and Display” scheme.  This means that you park your car, find a machine into which you insert some coins, receive a slip of paper showing a period of time commensurate with the amount of money you’ve inserted, and then place this paper on your dashboard to avoid a parking penalty.  The money, while not inconsequential, isn’t my beef with this; it’s just the pettiness and annoyance.  We live in a town of 70,000 and there’s not a paid parking spot in the town because the merchants feel it would harm their business.  There’s probably a juicy doctoral thesis here titled something like, “Economic Transference from Irish Towns to Rural Businesses as a Consequence of Tourists Pique at Pay and Display.”

 7/24 We wandered around County Claire, into the Burren http://www.moytura.com/burren.htm .  At Kinvarra we paused long enough to take photos of the very picturesque Dunguaire Castle and the surrounding part of the bay.  http://www.kinvara.com/dunc.html   We stopped for lunch in Doolin  http://www.doolin-tourism.com/ .  While eating lunch we fell into conversation with a Japanese fellow named Oyama who teaches at a technical college in Japan and whose English is very good.  He joined us for lunch during which he told us that he and his family take separate vacations:  his son is in England and his wife is going to Germany next month.  Leaving Doolin we picked up three young people who had been camping on the Aran Islands for the past three days.  Brrrrr…  One was a young man from Germany who’s studying mechanical engineering.  The other two were a good looking couple from The Netherlands.  The girl is in medical school and the young man is studying environmental planning.  We had a nice conversation with them and left them off in Ennis.  After returning to our home area we had dinner at a beach-side restaurant called Padraicin on the road to Spiddal.

 7/25 Westport is one of the most attractive towns in Ireland I think. http://westport.mayo-ireland.ie/ A walled river runs through the center of town and is crossed by a number of stone bridges.  Both the walls and bridges are heavily planted with bright flowers.  The main shopping streets are brightly painted and well kept.  We spent a couple of hours there before heading out along the shoreline of Clew Bay.  We stopped for a while at Crough Patrick.  http://www.croagh-patrick.com/  This is the second highest mountain in Ireland at a height of just over 2,500’.  In 441 A.D. St. Patrick spent forty days atop the mountain and from the summit cast the snakes out of the country.  On the last Sunday in July as many as 25,000 people climb the mountain in pilgrimage, many with bare feet.  Later we continued out the coast road almost to the end before returning.  We’d like to have come back via Oughterard but a bridge was washed out by a flooding river the week before making that route impossible.  In order to avoid having to pass though Galway at rush hour we stopped in a pub and nursed a couple of drinks for an hour and managed the unique experience in Ireland of being completely ignored, and it was to no avail.  I miscalculated and we still arrived in Galway to “celebrate” rush hour.

 7/26 Not so far afield today…we visited the Kenny Art Gallery in Galway.  http://www.thekennygallery.ie/  Mr. Kenney, a friend of our hostess, told us he was born in the building where his father had begun a book store in 1940 and had begun adding items of art in 1960.  The gallery is pretty extensive now.  I confirmed my impeccable taste in art; the item I liked best was priced at 35,000 Euros.  Then we crossed the street and browsed in a bookstore that was floor to ceiling books.  Later we went to the Galway City Museum which is quite new http://www.galway.net/galwayguide/todo/sights/museum/ and then had lunch in the Salthill suburb.  Today we did beat the rush hour.

 7/27 We drove to Shannon today where I hoped to get some information about boarding and deplaning from U.S. military flights for space-available passengers straight from the horses mouth.  Had I been intelligent enough to call ahead I could have saved myself a trip.  Twenty-four hour notice is required for access to the part of the airport I needed to visit.  I spoke to the very affable fellow by phone and arranged to meet him next week when he’ll have arranged security passes for us.  Then we drove around Shannon town.  It’s an attractive little town that looks all new and has the largest shopping center for its size of any town we’ve yet seen.  For our return to Galway we threaded our way through byways to the east of the main road, sometimes re-crossing our track.  Some of the roads we went down were so narrow the blackberry bushes were brushing against the car on both sides.  At other points we picked wildflowers through the open car windows.  We wanted to stop for dinner at the Lady Gregory Hotel in Gort, but the dining room was closed for a wedding.  While walking on the street and discussing where to eat we were overheard by a local passerby who told us he’d just had a “lovely” chicken curry at Sullivan’s Royal Hotel, so we went there.  http://www.galwayadvertiser.ie/guide/hotels/sullivans/index.htm  (Overstated.)  We returned home by 9:00 p.m.

Random observations – Ireland is probably the only country in the world where you can be served potatoes cooked two ways on the same plate in a restaurant.  And any dry well becomes a “Holy” well.

 7/28 We got a late start on a lazy day.  We drove up to Oughterard http://www.oughterardtourism.com/ for a late lunch and then revisited Aughnanure Castle in a slow rainfall. http://www.galway.net/galwayguide/todo/sights/county_galway/aughnanure_castle/  It’s in a particularly peaceful setting and didn’t have many visitors either of the times we’ve been there making it all the more attractive.  Then we drove up and down the little roads along Lough (Lake) Corrib between Oughterard and Moycullen for a couple of hours.  From Moycullen we headed southwest to Spiddal, a distance of 8 ½ miles, over a road that rises up to give some striking views of Galway Bay and the Burren beyond and then back in to Barna.

 While driving around Lough Corrib we stopped to admire a pair of particularly attractive red trimmed, white homes with thatch roofs set well back from the road.  A young family with three little kids and a black puppy was walking along the road and happened to live in one of the homes.  They explained to us that the thatching came from Turkey.  Local straw used for roofs must be replaced after only one year whereas reeds brought from Turkey will last for forty years if the portion along the ridge is replace each seven years.

 7/29 A full day indeed.  We drove up through Sligo, past Donegal, into Northern Ireland and through Derry or Londonderry (depending on your religious affiliation) and through the town of Bushmills (think Whiskey) to the Giant’s Causeway, a distance of a bit over 200 miles.  http://www.giantscausewayofficialguide.com/home.htm.  The day was beautiful and the scenery was glorious.  There were a couple of very brief, light showers, but they posed no inconvenience at all.  We had taken a bag along for an overnight stay somewhere but made such good time on the return that we came home the same evening.  On the way we stopped for a very nice dinner, perhaps the best we’ve had since arriving in Ireland, at the Old Post House Restaurant in the small town of Cliffoney just north of Sligo.  http://www.ireland-guide.com/establishment/the_old_post_house.3968.html  We were home shortly after 10:00 p.m.

 The car we’re driving here, on the wrong side of the road and with right-hand drive, is a Toyota Yaris Verso, http://www.autogazeta.com/c/1/b/to99yav1.jpg  one of the boxy-looking genre, and the first of that type I’ve driven.  I’m much more favorably impressed with it than I had expected.  It has quite a bit of zip.  A feature I particularly like is the ample headroom.  It also has a seat that provides good lumbar support.  I checked the gas mileage on one tank of gas and found that it got 35 mpg, but that’s inconclusive because we often go 20 mph while rubber-necking on narrow country lanes.  The tank only holds about nine gallons, but that provides a range of over 300 miles.  Gasoline in Ireland costs about $6.33/gallon and nine gallons is a pretty good blow to the pocket book.  An unusual feature is the instrument cluster.  It’s mounted on the center of the dashboard and angled so that only the driver can see it.  Must save a lot of arguments.

 7/30  Monday was a day of indolence.  We left the house around noon and spent more time surveying Galway.  We found a section of very upscale homes where there were sets of perhaps a dozen identical houses together.  I think if I were to spend that kind of money on a home I’d want something distinctive.  But they were beautiful.  After a while we parked and walked around the tourist district looking into shops but mostly at people.  We had lunch at O&F (Olio and Farina)   http://www.olioefarina.com/ before returning home by 4:00 p.m. to beat the rush hour traffic.  The day was beautiful with not a cloud in sight.  After a nice long read followed by an equally long snooze we walked to the local hotel for a light dinner.  http://www.thetwelvehotel.ie/ (Nice web site.) The pizza was the only one of the three I’ve tried in Ireland worthy of the name.  Mayumi had the Portobello mushrooms and really liked them very much.

 7/31  This was a great day.  The weather was beautiful.  We headed off to Portumna where we visited the 17^th century castle and gardens.  http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/HistoricSites/West/PortumnaCastleGalway/ The large kitchen garden was interesting with a mix of vegetables and flowers.  There was a large section of wildflowers but no labeling so we didn’t know what most of the flowers were. 

 After a fast food lunch we began following the River Shannon.  This isn’t easy as there aren’t any roads that parallel the river in this area, merely roads that either approach or cross it.  We followed a number of roads that approach the river and end at it.  We followed one to what was indicated on signs as a salmon run and chatted for a while with a fisherman.  He had caught a number of bream but said the salmon were mostly fished out of the Shannon.

 Then we went to the tiny village of Clonfert to see the very small cathedral there.  http://www.moytura.com/clonfert.htm This one confused me for a while.  From the look of the building it appeared to be a Church of Ireland structure, but the surrounding graveyard had lots of little plastic statues of Mary – dead giveaways of an R.C. presence.  Eventually a local lady came ‘round and I asked her about this seeming disparity.  She explained that the church is, in fact, Church of Ireland while the cemetery is Roman Catholic.  And an odd looking cemetery it is, too.  Some of the graves have little statues of dogs, another has ceramic boots holding flowers, many have little plastic statues less than 10 inches tall of Mary and other saints.  Some have solar powered lamps such as those used as accent lights on American lawns.  Anyway, this place was a center of learning almost 1,500 years ago with as many as 3,000 monks studying here.  It’s a beautiful and peaceful place now and well off the regular tourist track.  Just the sort of place we take great pleasure in finding.

 Our final stop before returning to Galway was in the town of Banagher.  Previous residents of Banagher include Anthony Trollope, the and Brontë sisters. There’s a pretty large marina there and we walked along looking at the boats for a while.  Near the marina is a really attractive old hotel, the Royal Shannon, but I guess it’s TOO old because it’s closed.

 We returned to Galway and had dinner at the Magnetti Trattoria on Quay Street, part of the pedestrian street that connects the river with Eyre Square.  Then we stopped at the quay in  Claddagh for what we thought would be a few minutes to watch the swans.  There around 350 swans that congregate near a boat ramp there, and people come to throw bread scraps to them.   http://homepage.eircom.net/~claddaghns/swansanctuary.htm   There’s a good video link at that web site.

 There’s also a private sports club on the Claddagh quay with a members-only bar and a fair-sized auditorium that the club rents out for various events.  During our last trip to Ireland there was a terrific Irish folk dance show in the auditorium.  We stumbled into the bar inquiring about the show and, even though seating was sold out, the bartender in the club somehow got us into the show.  Well, the show has moved on to a hotel, but now some fellow was teaching a group of about fifty German, Spanish, Japanese and Italian young people how to dance the Irish reel and we were invited to watch for a while.  It was really nice to be in a room full of people who were all smiling and laughing because they were enjoying what they were doing.

 8/1  Today we returned to Shannon to follow up on getting information to share with other military retirees and active duty personnel about catching hops into and out of Ireland.  The General Manager of the Shannon branch of Signature Flight Support  http://www.signatureflight.com/locations/snn/, Mike Ryan, and his right hand man, Declan Cregan, met us and escorted us onto the flight side of the airport and gave us a thorough briefing which I subsequently committed to writing and posted on an Internet forum used by those interested in such stuff,  www.pepperd.com.  They also got discounted car rental and hotel reservations for us for the two days between our return to Ireland from Spain on 8/15 and our departure for home on 8/17.  These are among the services they provide cheerfully for any military or military retirees passing through Shannon.

 Later we drove a short distance to a town called Six Mile Bridge just because the name sounded intriguing and had lunch beside a little, swiftly flowing river there.  By the way, there are no creeks in Ireland, only rivers.

 Then we drove up the road to Newmarket-on-Fergus, only about five miles away.  There we took a brief look at Dromoland Castle Hotel.  http://www.dromoland.ie/ is a very nicely done web site. This is a real, live 16^th century castle that has been restored and turned into a very upscale hotel.  It also has an attractive golf course and a nice little lake.  Something special was going on: a group of little girls in Irish dance costume was standing outside the entrance (in the rain) and a mounted hunting party accompanied by a large pack of dogs was approaching a group of umbrella bearers dressed in frock coats just as three very large tour buses were arriving.  Didn’t look like something we wanted to get mixed up in so we left.

 We were home a little after 4:00 p.m. and stayed put for the evening.

 8/2   I dropped Mayumi off at a dress shop in Galway she wanted to check out and then picked her up a bit later.  Then we headed out of town.  That was an experience.  The Galway Races are in progress and we were going in the direction of the Ballybrit race track.  S-L-O-W!  It was a bit entertaining, though, as all the ladies were dressed to the nines with many wearing fantastic hats.

 Mayumi had a return engagement with the Virgin Mary at the Knock shrine.  While she was there I used the time to go to Claremorris for an overdue haircut.  After picking Mayumi up we headed up to Ballina where we confirmed that there are indeed still salmon running in the River Moy and have pictures of a fellow landing a nice one about 24” long right in the city.  Ballina is a pretty good sized and attractive town.  We drove out to the Belleek Castle Hotel http://www.belleekcastle.com/ and then spent a little time driving around the area looking for a particularly scenic spot we had encountered on our last visit to Ireland.  No luck.  Upon giving up on that quest we drove to Tobercurry and back in to Galway.

 We stopped off at the 24 hour Dunne’s Stores to pick up a few things and then had dinner at Lohan’s on the sea front in Salthill  http://www.lohans.ie/4oh4.html putting us at home just after 10:00 p.m.

 8/3  We headed out the Connemara peninsula again, this time to Roundstone. http://www.roundstone.ie/index.php  The weather was pretty nasty – a moderate gale with rain and low clouds.  Before we had gone very far we picked up three bundled up back packers.  They turned out to be three girls from the Czech Republic, Klara, Petra and Kristina aged 22, 21 and 14.  They, too, were headed to Roundstone and hadn’t expected to arrive there by foot until the following day.  They’re sleeping in a tent tonight (if it doesn’t blow away).  Roundstone is a beautiful village and a prime tourist destination for Irish as well as foreign folk.  The last several miles of the drive to the village are enhanced by views of the River Ballynahinch, another salmon fishing river.  On arrival in town we stopped for a drink at the Shamrock bar and later had dinner at the Vaughan’s Roundstone House Hotel http://www.galway.net/pages/vaughans/  which was packed to overflowing.  On our return drive we drove through the grounds of the Ballynahinch Castle Hotel. http://www.ballynahinch-castle.com/  This is a more recent castle dating from 1715 and figures large in the history of Connemara.

8/4  Short range exploration today; After a visit to a book store for an hour or a little more we headed to Oranmore and the area to the immediate southwest only as far as Clarinbridge.  That’s a pretty small peninsula only about five or six miles long measuring from route N 18, but we hit every little dirt track.  We came across two castles, one castle ruin, a sailing club, a couple of quays that were recently built (politics at work I suspect), an unusually high number of thatch roofed homes for such a small area, and one very large, pink thatch roofed building that looked as if it may have been a hotel.  This last building was closed with restoration work in progress, but was still quite attractive.  On our excursion we got to see hay being baled into those great, round bales by one machine and then picked up and wrapped in plastic by another.  That brought back memories of hot, sweaty and itchy days of loading the old fashioned rectangular bales onto wagons and later tossing them up into hay lofts – for which I received $6/day in the 1950s.  Mayumi got to see a farmer take food to a very small herd of calves weighing about 200 lbs.  They came running like eager puppies.

We returned home for a short rest and then went the other direction to nearby Spiddal for dinner at a hotel and restaurant called An Cruiscin Lan (The Full Jug).  I had a good steak and Mayumi had Salmon.  Eating establishments get really crowded at meal times during the summer months.  I’ve noticed that there must be about fifty places to sleep for every place there is to eat.  I think a chain like Denny’s or Bob’s Big Boy or any number of what we refer to as family type restaurants could make a killing in the Irish market, at least during the tourist season.

 8/5   Even shorter range exploration today.  The weather was fairly ugly and it was Sunday, so we stayed home reading the papers until just after 2:00 p.m.  Then we left and headed west into Connemara and within a few miles ran into clearing skies and the weather became downright nice.  We drove to the Rossaveel area and then began easing up and down single lane roads with grass growing in the middle at about 5 mph, my favorite “sport.”  At the end of one we came to a lookout point over a nice beach on a bay and were treated to a splendid view of a fleet of twelve Galway hookers, a very old-fashioned type of sailing fishing boat, racing past the mouth of the bay.  The only other people around was a group of about twenty people ranging from an infant to a lady about eighty, and they all seemed to be together and were quietly having a good time.  The teenagers were engrossed in copies of the latest Harry Potter book with the exception of a couple who were swimming and paddle boarding.  After some more roaming we headed back into Spiddal for dinner at a seafood restaurant that didn’t have much seafood and had a pretty good dinner and an amiable conversation with the people at the adjoining table who live in Dublin but who own a second home just a few miles from Barna in Forbacha.

 The homes in the area we visited today seem less prosperous than those we saw south and west of Oranmore yesterday although they’re only a few miles apart.  The land is extremely rocky, suitable only for poor pasturage, and no one attempts to earn a living from farming it.  However, the land is divided into innumerable tiny patches by endless stone fences.  These are laid up without benefit of mortar and, for the most part, comprise stones hewn to the average size of a shoe box or a bit smaller.  It staggers the mind to think of the man hours that went into the construction of so much stone fencing.  And this fencing isn’t restricted to this area but is prevalent throughout the country.

 The roofing material used on most homes is slate with some homes, as noted above, having thatch roofs.  There are some tile roofs as well, but I have seen no wood or asphalt shingle roofs.  The homes we enjoy seeing most are the cottages with thatch roofs and windows that are a little irregularly shaped such that they look as if they were created without benefit of measuring instruments, levels or plumb bobs.  Lots of flowers add to their charm.  These homes leave us with the impression that fairies, elves or leprechauns could come out of the doors at any moment.  Darby O’Gill, where are ye?

 European home laundry machines are a bit different from those in the U.S.  The washing machines use far less water, heat the water to a selected temperature, and take far longer to complete a cycle.  Some of the tumble dryers are not vented but rather condense the moisture extracted from the laundry into a reservoir that must be emptied after each cycle.  The resultant amount of water is surprising.

 8/6   For our last day of Irish “field trips” we stretched our legs a bit farther than over the past few days.  It was a beautiful day with puffy, white clouds and temperatures in the high 60’s.  We began by driving to Ennis.  http://www.tourclare.com/ennis.php  We’d passed the town before but never entered it and now regret not having done so.  We passed through briefly and found that it’s an attractive town, much larger than we expected.  We headed out to the southwest with a vague idea of reaching Loop Head, about forty miles away as the crow flies.  On the way I was distracted by a sign pointing to the north saying “Kilmihil Summer Fun Fest.” http://www.kilmihil.com/    Whoops!  I’m off and running.  This dinky village of 325 people knows how to get a shindig together.  They had a show of vintage autos, tractors, engines and tools that included a lot of automobiles I’ve never heard of, some in really splendid condition.  Later there was a parade that included more guys in drag than I’ve seen since my last trip to Los Angeles and a bagpipe and drum corps along with several floats and sundry marchers.  They had a festival program that began on Saturday and went through this evening.

We continued on to Kilrush http://www.kilrush.ie/ where we stopped at the Vandeleur Walled Garden.  This is the restored garden of the Vandeleur Demense whose family seat in the area dates to 1687.  http://www.westclare.com/vandeleur_walled_garden.htm  The garden covers an area of a little over two acres and probably is much more decorative and less functional than it was when it was an important source of food.

Having enjoyably used much of the day in Kilmihil and Kilrush, we decided we’d be pushed for time should we continue on to Loop Head and so decided to follow the north shore of the Shannon estuary back to Ennis.  All these towns beginning with Kil… got me curious so I checked.  It comes from the Celtic/Irish Cill meaning church.

We passed through Killimer, Knock Village, McMahon, Labasheeda, Shannakea, etc.  Along the route we had some beautiful views and saw all forty shades of green that Ireland offers.  In Labasheeda we took a detour from the detour we were already on to follow a marked scenic route and got to see a lot of cows’ rumps.  It was the time of day when the farmers were herding the cattle in from the pastures by way of the road.  In honesty, there were superb views from this road.  After a bit we retraced our steeps back into Labasheeda where we were told the name means “Silken Bed.”  This town had particularly good displays of flowers including one well flowered home boasting a bicycle decked out with flower baskets.  Mayumi was taking pictures of it when the elderly couple in the home came out to talk with us.  As it turns out, they are responsible for all the floral decorations in the public areas of the little community.  I think Mayumi will be looking for a derelict bike when we get home.

We eventually wended out way into Ennis and began looking for a place to have an early dinner.  We stopped in a hotel and were seated at a table in the dining room when I commented to Mayumi that the place wasn’t very clean.  A man at the next table popped up with an expression of agreement and suggested Brogan’s saying he usually ate there but was only in the hotel for a change of pace.  We took his suggestion, leaving quietly and walking down the street to Brogan’s where we had a pretty good meal.  From there we returned home by 9:30 p.m.

 8/7   Tomorrow we leave Ireland for Spain, so today will be devoted to putting the house in order, restocking the fridge and pantry, servicing the car, etc.

We fly out of Shannon in the afternoon and will spend a week in Nerja, Spain, on the Mediterranean coast.  Nerja is about an hour away from beautiful Granada and about two and a half hours away from the naval base at Rota where I was stationed from 1970 – 1975.  Mayumi will surely be warm enough there as the temperatures have been running a little over 100 degrees for the past couple of weeks.  Fortunately the forecast is a bit more moderate for the next several days.