Driving to Athlone -- Thursday June 13, 2013

Church as seen from Athlone Castle

Today we are driving to Athlone.  Athlone (Irish: Baile Átha Luain, meaning "town of Luan's ford")^[1] is a town on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree in Ireland. It is the largest town in the Midlands Region.^[

I made reservations in this town since I thought it would get us closer to our destination for tomorrow in Killarney and the Ring of Kerry.  Now I don't know what I was thinking!  It is really only 90 minutes from where we are staying in Castlerea so it doesn't help very much.  Oh well.

Our ride continues to be on narrow two lane roads along very scenic pastureland.  Not much traffic.



Richard Grace Pub

We get into Athlone about 1 pm and decided to find our Bed  & Breakfast before having lunch.  Lucky for us, the room was ready so we could put our bags away.  We are RIGHT in the heart of Irishtown in Athlone so walking to everything will be no problem.
We ate lunch at Richard Grace's Pub.  Looks very old...and not exactly clean!


This is a city B&B for sure.  The host is Mohammud....not sure I saw a lot of Irish in him...but he was very personable and friendly.  Their living room to sit in is located in the next building...it's an odd set up. 

We decide to walk thru the town (there are sidewalks along the congested town area, but the space is only about 8 inches wide!) You take your life in your hands.  We went for a tour of Athlone Castle. This castle in Westmeath County, Ireland, dates from the 1100's.  It was very interesting.  They had movies and audio stories about the castle and the area.

Later in the day Ed went around the town to look around and find photo ops while I read.

Sean's Bar

At night we walked to dinner at Mamma Mia's and then stopped in Sean's Bar.  The Guiness Book of World Records say this is the oldest pub in Ireland dating back to 900 bc. In fact, they are said to be the oldest in all of Europe! Pretty disgusting place but I can say I was there.  The pub across the street was hopping....with young locals laughing at all the tourists in the old dump across the street!  The power of marketing!

Athlone wasn't bad for being a city!