Random thoughts on Ireland as we leave -- Monday June 17, 2013

Today's going to be a lost travel day.  We have to return the rental car by 11 am in order not to incur charges for another day, but our flight does not leave till 5:30 so we will spend it in the airport all day.  Not Ed's favorite pastime!  He's grumbling all ready.  We can't even get the check in process over right away because it's too early.  All my toys are charged up however, so I'll spend a few hours writing my blog until the juice runs out.

Ed is reading about Scotland --one of the areas we head to next week.
The ride from Limerick to Shannon is very easy.  And dropping off the car is simple as well, so things are going smoothly. Before we left for our trip, Ed purchased a card to put into our GPS that has the maps of Great Britain on it.  I don't have any idea how anyone can travel thru and around these countries on vacation without this kind of technology.  It really makes traveling to your destinations quite simple (she who is not driving says calmly!)
The flight is somewhat delayed but we have Exit row seats again and it's a short ride to Heathrow. 
Heathrow Airport, however, is another story.  It is expansive and it takes forever to get from the plane to the baggage area.

We found the Hertz rental car place and pick up our car for the remainder of our trip.  Guess what?  You know those digs Ed wrote about in his Journal about the BMW and VW drivers in Ireland?  He's now one of them.  We are driving a VW now!  You cannot believe the leg room in this car!  It's huge.
Scary though.  I think I see his eyes sparkle as he's driving this one.
We are heading back to our friends Jane's house (thanks Jane) tonight to do laundry and regroup.  We are heading out in the morning to the St. Helen's, England area.

The GPS takes us a completely different way from the airport to Jane's house, though, then Jane did.  Nothing looks familiar as we're driving and I'm thinking we put in the wrong town (these countries all have towns with the same name in different counties).  Soon, however we are there!  Technology is great.
We do a load of laundry, get pizza for dinner, and it's off to bed.  New adventure tomorrow.

My general observations and notes about Ireland:

• Scenery is absolutely spectacular.  Beautiful greenery all over!
• The flowering purple bushes---they look like Rhododendrons--and an orange bush/tree (which looks like a Broom plant) seem to grow wild)
• When it rains, it's not really all day.  Comes and goes
• Many houses built in the last 100 years, have cinder blocks as decoration up and down the two front corners of their homes painted a different color then the rest of their house.  It looks nice.
• Supermarkets: 
• Most have parking garages
• You pay for using a cart and get your coin back when it's returned to the stall
• They do not give you bags--you either bring your own or carry your groceries separately (like BJ's)
• Toilets:  All their toilets seem to flush enthusiastically and most covers do not fit on the toilet
• All brown bread is pretty much the same...not tasty.  If you sprinkle the bread liberally with salt, a slight sprinkle of sugar and spread it with butter, it's actually pretty good.
• In most pubs you go to the bar to order and  pay for your drinks & food and give them your table number.  The server then brings it to you.
• Ed only had 1 shamrock decorating his Guinness the whole time we were in Ireland!  I guess because we weren't in Dublin or where Guinness was made.  Sad.
• My two favorite spots in Ireland were the Connemara Coast and Dingle Peninsula

Limrick -- Our last stop in Ireland --Sunday June 16, 2013

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there!

Today's a transfer day.  We are heading to Limerick, Ireland to get us closer to Shannon Airport.  The city dates from at least the Viking settlement in 812. The Normans redesigned the city in the 12th century and added much of the most notable architecture, such as King John's Castle and St Mary's Cathedral.  We fly out of Shannon Airport tomorrow for England.

Despite the threat of rain, and since it is only a few hours to Limerick, we decide to take one last try at the Ring of Kerry....from the other direction. We have another good breakfast, pack the car and try to beat the tour buses since they start in the direction, too.

Ring of Kerry view #1

Boy these mountains must be pretty spectacular on a clear day.  (I wonder how many clear days they get, though).  One of the really interesting little towns on this drive is Kenmare. Kenmare lies on two noted Irish tourist routes, the Ring of Kerry and the Ring of Beara, approximately 32 kilometres (20 mi) from Killarney. As a result it is a popular tourist destination and many of the businesses in the area cater to tourists. The town is noted for its

Ring of Kerry view #2

food and pubs. Kenmare boasts a range of restaurants and traditional pubs.  Looks like it would a great base when we come back another time!

By mid day we finish and head to Limerick.  We are booked in an inner city hotel.  I wanted to be near the pubs for our last night.  Good thing, too, since we never did make it to Irish Music in the evening.   They all start after 9:30!

Entry to The Boutique Hotel

Our hotel is called The Boutique Hotel.  We miss seeing it as we are driving thru these little side streets on what appear to be a seedy side of town. We are literally on the street and can't find it.  Instead of driving around, Ed has me wait in the car, and he walks back to find it.  Success.

The hotel has a glass front---just like a store--which is why we missed it.  It's probably the nicest looking front on the street. Scary, isn't it?

Clearly, it's a really old hotel with really tiny rooms, and the Internet only works in the common living area and breakfast solarium.  And finicky to get it started to boot. Nuisance.
We have wine and cheese for dinner as we sit in the living area.  There's a commotion outside. 
The breakfast area on the second floor is all glass so you get good views of all the comings and goings below.

Apparently there was a fight between some guys and some Travellers.  Now we had just listened to a radio program while we were driving on the Travellers today.  Apparently they are Ireland's version of gypsies.  They have been largely segregated in Ireland much like the black community has been in America.  The program told about how the schools would segregate them from the other children and not bother to teach them to read or write!  Can you imagine?  People tend to kick them out when they see them in stores and businesses.  Tonight there was a fist fight and one of them was bleeding!

About 9pm we decide to troll the street looking for our Irish music for our last night in Ireland!  A few bars we passed were jumping but none of their music is Irish....it's all hard rock!  What the heck!  Finally we found Phil Flannery's Pub.  Irish music!  A little bawdy but lively and fun. 

A couple women sitting next to us took a fancy to us and after a few drinks were chatting up a storm.  They had really heavy brogues so it was a challenge to understand them over the loud music. 

We must have had fun since we closed the bar down!

Heading to Killarney, Ireland -- Friday June 14, 2013

Today we drove to Killarney. Killarney is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, which is part of Killarney National Park.  In 2011 it was named Ireland's tidiest town and the cleanest town in the country by Irish Business Against Litter. 

This is one of the areas I am most excited about for Ed.  The Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula
are both accessible from our Bed & Breakfast.  Alas...it is going to rain for the next couple of days which are our last three days in Ireland.

The drive from Athlone was very pretty:  some flat lands but mostly beautiful rolling pasture lands with some (clouded over) mountains in the distance.

We found our B&B very quickly.  It is right on Muckross Road---the road to the Ring of Kerry!  It's a beautiful B&B! We came to our room and unpacked and tried to get the wireless to work.
It didn't! The owner was not in, but one of workers was going to try to get it going.  We decide to go out to lunch.

It is raining and does not look good.  We found a restaurant in town that was very nice and then decided to walk around the town of Killarney.  Guide books mention it is touristy and expensive.  That's probably true but we put my new raincoat and hat to good use.

We came back to our room and found the wireless was working so we are all set!  Ed played on importing his pictures from the camera and I read for awhile. The owner even knocked on our door to see if it was fixed.  Nice touch.

View while driving Ring of Kerry

About 5 pm the sun came out, and since it stays light till ten o'clock, we ran to the car to take our first drive on the Ring of Kerry.  Alas, that only worked for about 2 hours when it got socked in again with rain.  Maybe the third time will be a charm.

The ride so far on this area looks well worth the narrow roadways and race car drivers!  It's beautiful.

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!

Ireland here we come!!-- Thursday June 6, 2013

Today's the start of our independent travel! 

We got up bright and early and Jane brought us thru rush hour traffic to Heathrow airport. (Thanks again, Jane!).  Our flight is into Shannon Airport in the West part of Ireland.  We are heading to the town of Doolin today.

Our first order of business was to find the car I reserved.  Ed stopped at the Avis counter to pick up the keys while I went to cash in some dollars for Euros.  When I met back up with him I was in for a shock!  Although the CAR was paid in full (11 days for only $180--which I thought was too good to be true!), the bill was actually about $800 for the 11 days!  Insurance had not been added in until we arrived.  Everyone we have ever spoken to insists that you really want to get full insurance coverage
since driving is treacherous in Ireland--at least for Americans!  So we bit the bullet.  It's only money!

I have been in charge of making the lodging reservations for this trip so we'll see how I do!  Our first stop is going to be at Daly's House in Doolin, Ireland.  It's in the West of Ireland that will give us a chance to see the Cliffs of Moher. 




We stopped first in town to grab some lunch at Gus O'Connor's Pub.  The pub is on Fischer Street right at the bottom of the hill from our B & B and was established in 1832.  After lunch we walked around the pier where the boats leave for trips to the Aran Islands and the Cliffs of Moher. Then we made our way to the B & B.  Good choice! 



We were met by our Host Paul who showed us our room and then invited us out to the garden to have some Irish Coffee and ginger snap cookies!  My kind of place!  Paul and Susan Daly have owned and run this B & B since 1984.  Paul was born in Dublin and Susan was born right here in Doolin.  In fact she is an O'Connor of the Pub fame! 

Our room is nicely appointed, bright and has a WONDERFUL view of their gardens! The bed is really comfortable and the bedding itself is really plush.  The room comes with a full breakfast and recommendations of all to do in the area.

So far, I'm doing good!