Off to Ireland!

And for our 23rd anniversary, we are off on a short trip to Ireland.  First view of the Emerald Isle as we landed....

During our first three hours in Ireland, we learned three things:

    1. Bathrooms appear to be free (at least so far)
    2. They like calm traffic here - we see lots of signs for "Traffic Calming Ahead".
        This appears to mean that reduced speed limits are approaching.
    3. It is NOT actually "a long way to Tipperary"!

We did make it to Tipperary and then to the Rock of Cashel

Food......

oh my.....the food on this trip.  Wow! I thought I'd just give a few examples of our menus and food so everyone would understand that even walking over 7,000 steps every day can't compete with this!

And now we have to cook 😳😳😳

Oh and there was this statue in Goritzy....

Even though I can find no official confirmation online, I am convinced the guide told us this was Comrade Lenin.......

We arrive in Yaroslavl

Thursday, we arrived in Yaroslavl.  While I had not heard of Yaroslavl before, it is both an important and a beautiful town.  The town sits on the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosol Rivers and is also one of Russia's Golden Ring cities. Golden Ring cities are a number of ancient cities northeast of Moscow and have preserved unique features of Russian history and architecture, especially monasteries and onion-domed churches.

Coming into Yaroslavl, we get our first view.....

We've started noticing that the colors of the onion domes vary.....so, as all good Russian travelers do, I googled the question!  (And also learned, by the way, why did they use an onion shape anyway)
🤔🤔

The onion shape is thought to have been used to allow snow to slide off!😉

The gold color symbolizes celestial glory, so churches with golden domes were used on cathedrals consecrated to Jesus Christ and the Twelve Great Feasts.  Blue domes with gold stars are characteristic of Mother of God churches.  Churches in honor of saints were typically topped with green or silver domes.  Black domes, symbolic of monk hood, topped monasteries and convents.

Goritzy: Kirillo-Belozersky monastery and public school

On Wednesday (August 17th), we docked at Goritzy and traveled by bus to visit the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery.  This monastery was founded as an abbey originally in 1397 by two monks.  The monastery sits on the shores of Severskoye Lake.

The monastery grew to be quite a complex and included fortress-like walls and guard towers. Many tsars provided support, tax breaks and contributions. Even Ivan the Terrible!

After leaving the monastery, we were fortunate to be able to tour the local school.  Even though the students are still on summer break, two students were there to give us a tour and small performance of traditional songs.  It is a great honor to be selected as the student giving us the tour - she was amazing!

Her fellow student performed several songs in traditional Russian costume. 

The school is quite proud of both academic and sports achievements. There are two walls dedicated to displaying their honors and trophies.  

English is the most popular foreign language taught here (they are looking for more English teachers!)

We become famous artists!

The ship offered an optional Matryoshka doll painting class   Linda and I signed up and decided we were clearly gifted!

We had a few recalcitrant students in our class, but the instructor was a saint 😇

I think ours are just as good as these! 😉

Krokhino Church of the Nativity

This church was built on the banks of Lake Beloye, the origin of the the Sheksna River, in approximately 1790.  During the construction of the Volga-Baltic Waterway in the 1960's, a number of historic villages and churches were submerged. This is all that remains of this church and volunteers are working to try to keep it from completely disappearing.