high speed train | Clune Gap Years

29-31/08/2025

To Dublin

Another early start. And a day full of food.
Breakfast at the hotel.
Cakes and coffee at Istanbul airport lounge.
Brunch on the plane
Coffee and cake at the shopping centre whilst we waited for Delia to finish work.
Dinner out at an Italian.
No wonder all my clothes are tight.

*And the caravan repair sent a video to show all the body work has been done. Yay.*

A Day in Dublin

We had a hire car so we left the still working Delia and Liam in bed. We went to Avoca handicrafts looking for gifts, but pretty useless. Then to the James Joyce Martello Tower in Dun Laoghaire. Fabulous little gem with informed delightful staff.

The whole purpose of this trip was to celebrate J’s sister Amelia’s 80th birthday. Two brothers had flown in from Chicago. Sadly Amelia is in a nursing home and didn’t feel she could cope with a meal out. All the sibling’s visited her at the home.

From Dublin

Hire car dropped. Dublin business lounge was not up to much … no tonic water to go with my gin!!! Understandably closing today for refurbishment. We perched on a radiator at the gate for an hour and a half as the plane was delayed. Seems to be a thing that there are insufficient seats at gates.

*Biz class starter, pud and cheese. Lunch was chicken and I imbibed champagne* 😃

Flight didn’t land until 2130. Istanbul international airport is huge. We walked for miles to passport control and then even further to the metro. We had 2 long train rides to our hotel, arriving gone 11 pm. Hoped the wine night cap would help us sleep but …

*… but the duvet was too short, so a choice … cold feet or cold shoulders!*

Back to Ankara

01/09/2025

Goodness first day of a new month! Hotel breakfast not up to much. Near the hotel we managed to buy new Turkcel sims as the Vodafone do not have a good signal away from towns. And get some cash out … PTT and Halkbank do not charge a withdrawal fee. We have paid £16 before we sussed which banks to use. 😮

All the work has been done on the motorhome, bar the motor for lifting the bed and the replacement step. The latter is in cargo. So we’ve booked a night in another cheap hotel and booked Corrie in for another night at the kennels.

We then had best part of an hour train to the train station for our high speed train to Ankara, arriving at 1520. A taxi to our 4th hotel. J napped and I washed out our smalls.

A lot of effort for such a short time with the family. And I was very sad not to see Amelia.

Ankara

27/08/25

Up early to drop Corrie at the Perfendy Otel. The mechanic where Jez is going for work had arranged it for us. No cages or kennels. A yard for daytime and a bedroom at night. Corrie trembled when we arrived. She thought she was at the vet. Regular updates from the kennel. It took her a few days to settle. Her first time in kennels.

*But on the last video she had made friends with a calm 3 legged dog!*

Then a drive across Ankara to the motorhome repair shop. A straight wide and free flowing road. Rush hour didn’t seem to exist.

We spent a couple of hours going through the work using google translate. The head honcho was checking on the phone what could be out sourced. One of the mechanics kindly dropped us to our Ankara hotel. Dropping bags, we checked out the train station for tomorrow. A cheap taxi to near the Anatolian Museum of Ancient Civilisations for lunch. And then into the museum. Both feeling tired, we pretty much scooted through. Focussed on the Hittites treasures that had been found at the sites we have visited.

Istanbul

28/08/25

0840 for the high speed train to Istanbul. Airport style passport checks. Allocated seats. Left and arrived on time to the minute. Only annoyance was no usb charging points, but we had a battery pack. Trolley and buffet car.

Istanbul was busy and a sensory overload. We were assisted by 2 locals to buy transport cards and then load money onto them. Metro to the old part of Europe Istanbul.
Straight to a restaurant where we eventually managed to check in for our flights tomorrow. And to book a luggage storage in a nearby hotel.

Tbh we were not loving Istanbul. Too crowded. Too touristy. Reminded us of Marrakesh.
We did a gps.mycity introduction walk which took us through the spice bazaar. Seething mass of humanity. J had to hold onto me so we didn’t get separated. Hated it.

The main architectural sites were more open and calmer. We didn’t go into any as a) we were shattered and b) we knew it is a long way out to our near airport hotel.

*A chap who offered to help us, said he was boss of* *city transport, said its much less crowded November and February /* *March, should we decide to return*

In fact, we hadn’t realised just how difficult to get to our hotel. The super helpful chap in the hotel, where we had left our luggage, checked several routes and recommended 2 buses. He warned us that they would be busy and slow as 6 pm by now. They surely were. The whole journey from arriving at the bus station (on foot through the bloody spice market again) to the hotel was 3 hours. But at 40 lira each per trip, the total cost was about £3 for both of us. Driving direct 37km, but of course the bus wasn’t direct.

We’d gone past hungry so demolished a bottle of red in our room and flaked out.

Clune Gap Years

A journal and reflections of our motorhome travels

Tag Archives: high speed train

Flying Visit to Dublin

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