Here’s the 11th post sharing our adventures in the British Isles and Ireland from September 29 to October 17, 2025, for genealogy, business, and sightseeing. Hope you enjoy it!
Friday, October 10, 2025
Our wake-up time was 5:00 a.m. for 6:00 porterage and breakfast. I could get used to this porterage thing. We had to be on the bus by 7:00 to get to Rosslare Harbor for our four-hour ferry ride to Wales.
Breakfast at the Waterford Marina hotel was great, and they had fresh fruit. Peeling an orange never felt so good! They still had the fancy coffee makers, but they also had an urn filled with plain, old coffee. How nice it was to pull the little lever and have coffee come right out without a computer involved. Ahh!
We boarded the Isle of Innisfree at around 8:00 a.m. and overheard John, our tour director, mentioning cabins available for a fee. We found out we could have one with a window for only 46 euros (around US$54). Sold.
I guess I expected something a little homier, but it was nice to have privacy and not have to use the public restrooms during the four-hour sail. The porthole was small and the frame was rusted, but the beds had nice, clean coverlets on them. The little bathroom even had soap and towels. We could have taken a shower!
The Isle of Innisfree was built in 1992 in Belgium and its history is mainly on the English Channel, which explains why all the outlets in our cabin needed European adapters. We only had adapters for Great Britain, so we had to use our power banks when the batteries on our devices went low.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
and gaze out the window for four hours.
And you have to stand to see out of it!
Around lunchtime, we scouted around for food. Not wanting anything too heavy, we “just” got coffee and a box of four Dunkin doughnuts. After “lunch,” we walked around, went out on the deck, and then returned to our room until it was time to get back on our bus.
All in all, it was a novelty to relax in that little cabin. I made some progress catching up on my journal entries that turned into these blog posts. It would have been nicer if I could gaze out at the sea while doing so. . . The best part was not having to use public bathrooms. Totally worth the expense!
Our two ferry experiences have made us curious about taking a cruise someday, which we said we would never do. Maybe a short one to the Caribbean to start.
After docking at Pembroke in Wales, we still had a two-hour drive to get to Cardiff, so that made about a seven-hour travel day. On this trip, we spent a lot of time on the bus, traveling many miles in just a little more than a week. But it was better than driving. Jim will tell you that!
And on the bus, we learned a lot. Here are some fun facts about Wales, according to John.
- Welsh rugby fans like to sing at matches. John says it’s quite beautiful, because the voices are mainly male.
- I noted that actors Antony Hopkins and Martin Sheen are from Wales. Martin Sheen? Haha. Glad I checked that. It’s actually Michael Sheen, social activist.
- The Welsh language is Celtic in origin. It’s different from Gaelic; not spoken so much in Cardiff, but more in the north.
- Land of My Fathers is the Welsh national anthem. On the bus, John played a video of men singing it.
- Cardiff, named capital of Wales in 1955, is a relatively young city, formed by the coal and iron industries.
- About 1.5 million people live in Cardiff, a multicultural city.
Cardiff Castle is main attraction of the city. It contains the keep, which is a stone fortress, and an opulent palace.
The site is 2,000 years old, and the Romans built a fort there around 50 AD. Then, the Normans came along and built the keep that remains today. The castle passed through many noble families until the Bute family acquired it through marriage.
The second Marquess of Bute turned the city of Cardiff into a major coal exporting port. His fortune passed to his son, who became one of the richest men in the world.
The third Marquess worked with English architect, William Burgess, to build the palace. Eventually, after the death of the fourth Marquess of Bute in 1947, the family gifted the castle and most of the grounds to the city of Cardiff. It served as the home of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama until 1974, when it became a tourist attraction only.
We enjoyed the tour of the palace apartments, and it is difficult to imagine living there, but I’d love to try it out sometime!
(but some of them are).
Well, we had to get back on the road for our vineyard dinner experience at Glyndŵr Vineyard, the oldest vineyard in Wales. Surprisingly, it was established in 1979, which isn’t that old, but the geography in Wales isn’t the best for vineyards. Still, the Norris family has been quite successful in their venture.
We were absolutely spoiled! The owners, Richard and Susan Norris, told us how they started a vineyard in a place not hospitable to grape growing and how they addressed the many challenges that came their way. We learned how they pivoted in bad years by, for example, learning to make brandy from apples. I admire their guts!
The dinner was delicious as were the various, plentiful wines they offered. What a nice evening!
Tomorrow, Bath, Stonehenge, and back to London!