Saturday - Home again, Home again

Back to Dublin

It took us a little while to get out of Kilkenny but we eventually made our way back to Dublin by early Friday afternoon. We turned in our rental car and grabbed a cab to our old stomping ground, The Jurys Inn at Christchurch. We spent our last full afternoon walking around the city and of course one last meal at Bewley's. We also explored the Christchurch Cathedral across from our hotel:

Medieval Times

Kilkenny is a delightful medieval village about 2 hours outside of Dublin. It was the perfect stopping point last night and we found a wonderful place to stay in the city center. We had a good meal at the hotel pub (yes! It was actually good!) and took a walk after a long day on the road.

Above you'll see our lovely dinner of Caesar salad and pasta carbonara. Delicious!

After a stroll around the city Christy made her way to one of the local pubs, Andrew Ryan's, where she enjoyed some good trad and the wonderful company of the locals (known as craic in Irish). One of us was able to spring out of bed a little quicker than the other this morning but we'll let you guess who that was...

We did make our way over to the Kilkenny Castle and it was absolutely beautiful!

Hello Waterford, Goodbye Waterford

From Cork we decided to head to Waterford but ran into some rush hour traffic getting into the city. Since we weren't in the market for any crystal, and couldn't find a place to park the Micra, we decided to continue on to Kilkenny to stay for the evening.

Drivin' & Prayin'

You may be familiar with the band Drivin' & Cryin' but we've been doing a lot of driving and praying over here. Not only is driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car a little bit of a challenge, but have a gander at what we're dealing with on the roads over here:

The fact that our toy car is running on about 2 cylinders makes it a little tough to pass on the 6 inch allowance. We've had a few close calls! I think Kathleen is wishing we would have opted for the passenger side brake...

Hertz (Almost)NeverLost

Those of you who have rented from Hertz may be familiar with their NeverLost, or satellite navigation system. We opted for it with our rental because we thought it may come in handy -- and it did. Well, some of the time. I don't know that we can endorse the name "NeverLost", but perhaps UsuallyNotLost? We've come to love her, though, and have accepted her as our third passenger. Unfortunately she spent most of her time "Recalculating Route" so we had to mute her.

Stick a Cork in It

We made our way over to Cork from Macroom and were pleasantly surprised to find such a lovely city. It was COLD in Cork and very windy. But we did manage to spend some time exploring the city center. It reminded us of Dublin, only a bit more industrial & gritty.

Macroom - Out from Killarney

After a quick blog posting at an Internet cafe in Killarney, we piled into the Micra and headed for Cork.

On the way to Cork we stopped in Macroom, a quiet little village steeped in Irish beauty.

Along the way we ran into a group of boys on their way to the town rec center.

More Pics from the West Coast

The Dingle Ate Yo' Baby

Wednesday morning we continued south to the Dingle penninsula and down to the Ring of Kerry. The weather was brisk, but sunny with only a few showers here and there.

Somewhere around the middle of the Ring of Kerry we stumbled upon these accommodations and were tempted to shack up for the evening. Unfortunately their room was not en suite so we decided to move on. We were, however, tempted by their offer of satellite t.v.

Since our first T&B (trailer & breakfast) didn't work out, we decided to stay at a true B&B in Killarney:

We're published!

...Well they may not be our exact words but someone has read our minds.

Out from Galway - Cliffs of Moher

We headed out from Galway on Tuesday morning and continued down the west coast. As you can see from the picture above, the traffic was awful.

We also passed through Lisdoonvarna, host to Europe's biggest singles event (ladies?). Don't worry, we didn't stop to pick up any souveniers.

We then went down to the Cliffs of Moher which were absolutely stunning. It was so windy and Kathleen almost tipped right over the edge. Luckily it wasn't raining but the sea spray made for a damp viewing.

We have a lot more scenic pics and we'll post a link to our online album when we return. It may be hard to truly capture the beauty since we've only taken about 1,000 pics so far (anyone wanna come over for a slide show?)

After a "delicious" dinner at Aunty Lena's we continued on to a small village outside of Limerick where found a room at the Devlon /Debon Inn (apparently they can't agree on their name).