Part travel story and part guidebook, but all charm and wit, this book transports readers to another culture. While interesting for all readers, it offers planning and navigation tips for the 'Creaky Traveler' who is mobile but not agile. Warren Rovetch, whose unique travelogue of his trek through Scotland was recommended by NPR, now brings to life the culture, history, and wondrous natural beauty of Ireland. Part travel story and part guidebook—but all charm and wit—this book transports us to another culture. Interesting for all readers, The Creaky Traveler in Ireland is a vacation in itself. It will appeal to all those who, while not planning a trip, are nonetheless captivated by the culture and natural beauty of the Emerald Isle. Particularly helpful to more mature travelers, the book includes lots of advice for executing smooth trips. In the second of his 'Creaky Traveler' series, Warren Rovetch combines travelogue and guidebook as he takes us for an entertaining and informative amble along the west coast of Ireland in counties Clare, Kerry and West Cork, a 'traveler’s rewards as we stumble on one thing in pursuit of another.' And what a wonderful amble it is for 'mobile but not agile' and all other travelers, armchair and otherwise. The book offers an eclectic mix of history and culture, insights into the forces reshaping Ireland, and moving scenes of soul-nourishing beauty shared by Rovetch and his wife Gerda. In The Creaky Traveler in Ireland, readers will find themselves: In the kitchen of Willie Daly, horse trader and last of the great Irish matchmakers, for instruction in the art of matchmaking and a hilarious interlude involving Daily and a Japanese TV crew of limited English proficiency in search of Irish culture. On the Burren, along the raging shore of the Atlantic, a geologist’s paradise and a botanist's conundrum where 300 million years of nature have formed a dramatic limestone moonscape with unique microclimate pockets where Mediterranean, Arctic and Alpine plants blossom in harmony. Walking along the shore of Kenmare Bay, through ancient woodland of oak, beech and ash, ivy dripping from branches, and green leaves glistening after a brief rain. It is getting on to sunset, a mix of mist and evening color, a romantic time of lingering twilight when, say the Gaels, it is possible to slip from the real world into the faerie world. Searching for Celtic spirituality on the Dingle Peninsula where the mix of sand and passion on the breathtaking beaches of Slea Head won Ryan's Daughter an Academy Award. Meeting Fungi the personable dolphin and Sister Dorothy, the embodiment of honest love. In Castletownbere, overlooking the harbor, a kaleidoscope of yellow, red, and green fishing boats on the blue pallet of the sea, the perfect B&B room with a view. Nearby, driving a winding cliff road, a sheer drop to the ocean on one side where dolphin are at play and on the other side, a history lesson: abandoned mines testify to the Great Famine of 1845-49 and massive migration from Beara to Butte. On Sheep's Head, the wildest of peninsulas, Nobel prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote of in his poem The Peninsula, 'The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log, That rock where breakers shredded into rags, The leggy birds stilted on their own legs, Islands riding themselves out into the fog.' In sweet Listoweli a little town that can, with a Willy Wonka kind of railway, an Arts Center where plays and concerts, magically, never play to less than a full house, and a brilliantly conceived, worth a trip to Ireland in itself, Writers' Museum honoring literary tradition and the writers, poets and playwrights who defined it. In the aid of all travelers, The Creaky Traveler provides a host of practical suggestions and tips on the art of successful and affordable independent travel. Rovetch offers his personal list of travel principles, travel planning steps, ways to profile your own inclinations and interests to define rewarding travel experiences, choosing places to stop and stay, the essentials of auto rental, dealing with airlines, and traveling healthy.
May 2006 The Celtic Connection
The second title in the unique 'Creaky Traveler' series, The Creaky Traveler in Ireland , Clare, Kerry, and West Cork: A Journey for the Mobile but Not Agile by Warren Rovetch provides unique perspectives for "agility challenged" travelers to Southwestern Ireland. The Creaky Traveler in Ireland provides so much more than just another guide to the local sights to see and the Bed and Breakfast places to stay in while traveling through The Irish counties of Clare, Kerry and West Cork . Warren has an exciting eclectic personal background that he draws upon as a rather gifted writer. For example, he has been an economist, a textbook publisher, a creator of an environmental education and conference center on the Columbia River , and a Fullbright Scholar. He has created many projects focused on new approaches to learning and education. He was widely traveled even in his pre-creaky days, so his recent series is an expanding of his experience that is especially appealing to mature adult travelers. You might say he has "been there and done it and got the T-shirt" at least twice. So it is no surprise that The Creaky Traveler in Ireland includes wonderful quotations from appropriate Irish literature (translated to English), intimate epiphanies, anecdotes, and other accounts of travel experiences, and humourous musings on the plight of the modern adult traveler and the world traveled, in addition to valuable tips and suggestions about sights to see, walks to take, and places to seek out. The Creaky Traveler in Ireland is a treasure trove of information that can be of great worth to both the novice traveler and the Irish locals themselves. The text is further enhanced by a series of handy descriptive maps and a center selection of beautiful color photographs of sites and sights of interest. The Creaky Traveler in Ireland is sure to be another success in this on-going series from Sentient Publications, piquing the reader's curiosity, tantalizing same to wonder where the "Creaky Traveler" will voyage to next. Also very highly recommended reading is the first book in this outstanding series by Warren Rovetch: The Creaky Traveler In The North West Highlands Of Scotland.
Boulder travel writer Warren Rovetch has been a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, an economist, a textbook publisher, and the creator of an environmental education and conference center on the Columbia River. Rovetch will discuss and sign his new guidebook The Creaky Traveler in Ireland: A Journey for the Mobile but Not Agile ($15.95 Sentient ISBN 1-59181-027-2). Wednesday, May 24, 7:30 Tattered Cover Cherry Creek.
Part travel story and part guidebook, but all charm and wit, this book transports readers to another culture. While interesting for all readers, it offers planning and navigation tips for the "Creaky Traveler" who is mobile but not agile.
Warren Rovetch, whose unique travelogue of his trek through Scotland was recommended by NPR, now brings to life the culture, history, and wondrous natural beauty of Ireland. Part travel story and part guidebook—but all charm and wit—this book transports us to another culture. Interesting for all readers, The Creaky Traveler in Ireland is a vacation in itself. It will appeal to all those who, while not planning a trip, are nonetheless captivated by the culture and natural beauty of the Emerald Isle. Particularly helpful to more mature travelers, the book includes lots of advice for executing smooth trips.
In the second of his "Creaky Traveler" series, Warren Rovetch combines travelogue and guidebook as he takes us for an entertaining and informative amble along the west coast of Ireland in counties Clare, Kerry and West Cork, a “traveler’s rewards as we stumble on one thing in pursuit of another.”
And what a wonderful amble it is for "mobile but not agile" and all other travelers, armchair and otherwise. The book offers an eclectic mix of history and culture, insights into the forces reshaping Ireland, and moving scenes of soul-nourishing beauty shared by Rovetch and his wife Gerda.
In The Creaky Traveler in Ireland, readers will find themselves:
In the kitchen of Willie Daly, horse trader and last of the great Irish matchmakers, for instruction in the art of matchmaking and a hilarious interlude involving Daily and a Japanese TV crew of limited English proficiency in search of Irish culture.
On the Burren, along the raging shore of the Atlantic, a geologist’s paradise and a botanist's conundrum where 300 million years of nature have formed a dramatic limestone moonscape with unique microclimate pockets where Mediterranean, Arctic and Alpine plants blossom in harmony.
Walking along the shore of Kenmare Bay, through ancient woodland of oak, beech and ash, ivy dripping from branches, and green leaves glistening after a brief rain. It is getting on to sunset, a mix of mist and evening color, a romantic time of lingering twilight when, say the Gaels, it is possible to slip from the real world into the faerie world.
Searching for Celtic spirituality on the Dingle Peninsula where the mix of sand and passion on the breathtaking beaches of Slea Head won Ryan's Daughter an Academy Award. Meeting Fungi the personable dolphin and Sister Dorothy, the embodiment of honest love.
In Castletownbere, overlooking the harbor, a kaleidoscope of yellow, red, and green fishing boats on the blue pallet of the sea, the perfect B&B room with a view. Nearby, driving a winding cliff road, a sheer drop to the ocean on one side where dolphin are at play and on the other side, a history lesson: abandoned mines testify to the Great Famine of 1845-49 and massive migration from Beara to Butte.
On Sheep's Head, the wildest of peninsulas, Nobel prize winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote of in his poem The Peninsula, "The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log, That rock where breakers shredded into rags, The leggy birds stilted on their own legs, Islands riding themselves out into the fog."
In sweet Listoweli a little town that can, with a Willy Wonka kind of railway, an Arts Center where plays and concerts, magically, never play to less than a full house, and a brilliantly conceived, worth a trip to Ireland in itself, Writers' Museum honoring literary tradition and the writers, poets and playwrights who defined it.
In the aid of all travelers, The Creaky Traveler provides a host of practical suggestions and tips on the art of successful and affordable independent travel.
Rovetch offers his personal list of travel principles, travel planning steps, ways to profile your own inclinations and interests to define rewarding travel experiences, choosing places to stop and stay, the essentials of auto rental, dealing with airlines, and traveling healthy.
--The Celtic Connection; May 2006
To travelers with a few miles on them, those who think age 80 is the time to hang up the suitcases, author Warren Rovetch says poppycock. He believes that's just when a few principles need to be kept in mind when planning a trip: "Nourish the soul. Feed the mind. Rest the body. Leave time for happenings. Have fun." In the latest addition to his "Creaky Traveler" series, The Creaky Traveler in Ireland: Clare, Kerry, and West Cork ($15.95, Sentient Publications) provides for just that, taking readers on a journey through the most beautiful parts of Ireland, with visits along the way with the characters and sights that make the Emerald Isle such an enchanting place to spend time. Rovetch, a Fulbright Scholar who worked as an economist before retiring in Boulder with his wife, Gerda, (whom he lovingly refers to in the books as "G"), writes in an almost wistful style, and this is far removed from the current guidebooks of the day that give practical information about where to stay or eat. Instead, there are poems and lovely prose, hand-drawn, Celtic-font maps and amusing anecdotes.
