Favorite pictures from around Ireland

These are some of my favorite pictures from Ireland. They actually could be anywhere, but they bring back such great memories when I see them.
The top one is from the stream that run around the edge of Blarney Castle grounds. It's a beautiful area to sit and enjoy. The second in behind Cong Abbey. I always think of this area as such a magical place. The third is from our wanderings on the way to Cong. It's one of those times when you see a dirt road and just have to explore. So glad we did. And the last picture is up at the top of Moll's Gap. The sheep wander all over the area and are so similarly colored to the rocks they almost blend in. Hope you enjoy.

Video of Derry City, Northern Ireland

Derry City

A Little Video from Wexford, Ireland

Wexford in a very pretty town on the south east coast of Ireland. Lots to see and we barely scratched the surface.

Video from Connemara Coast, Ireland

This is a video made from various places around the Connemara Coast, Ireland.

Reflections

Some trips defy planning and end up as more an adventure than expected. That was this trip. Of course, we did get to most of the planned places, but discovered more surprises just stopping along the way to explore, or even getting lost.

Now that I'm home, I've been thinking back and wanted to reflect on some of those unexpected adventures and observations from the past 4 weeks.

When you arrive in a town a little earlier than expected and call your B&B to see if it's alright to check in early and they say, “Well, get on over here, I'll put the water to boil for a cuppa.” You know you've chosen the right place to stay. Thank you Margaret Deane at Novarra House in Mullingar.

When your B&B hosts are like friends and know that you are running late and won't have time to go out for dinner before you go to an evening event so they have a casserole waiting when you get back from the Aran Islands, you know they will be friends for a long time. Thank you Philip and Maura at Rosin Dubh in Spiddal.

When your B&B hosts give you a history lesson on the Inishowen Penninsula, loan you their coveted Ordinance Map of the area, and even share how to get to their “local” for great atmosphere and dinner, you know the drive up the hill past the sheep and cows was well worth it. Thank you Irwin and Olga at the Inishowen Lodge in Moville.

When your hostess takes the time to share the history of her B&B, and family, and then teaches you how to cook some tried and true Irish foods, you will always do your best to replicate. Thanks to Rita Meade at Berry Lodge at Spanish Point.

When your hostess shares the book of photographs she's published for a class she was taking, and then shares her mother's bread recipe with you, it's not something you get everyday. Thank you Majella in Rostrevor on Carlingford Lough.

When your hosts explain how he cooked his morning eggs so perfectly you know he's been formally trained. Thank you Barry at MariaVille in Cork.

These were the stand out B&Bs. There were others who were friendly and helpful, but these were a category of their own.

If you ever find yourself at the Clontarf Castle Hotel just outside of Dublin, Eric, the concierge, will take good care of you. We felt as if we were the only guests he had to deal with. He even offered me the use of the computer at his desk when the one supplied in the room was having problems.

We were referred to the Mourne Seafood House in Dundrum and saw a sign for Dundrum Castle across the street. Far be it from us to pass up a chance to see a castle. It was not on our map. So after a delicious lunch, we headed up the narrow road and found an amazing ruin that was part of a park at the top of a hill. A great place to take kids and have them play castle for a day, picnic on the grounds and just enjoy the view from the hilltop. Things like this made for exceptional adventures.

We were invited to join the “Clifden Gang” for drinks after our lunch in the town. I think they had already had a few too many. They were much to young for us! LOL Do have to say, not bad looking though!

Many thanks to our taxi driver in Derry for an amazing ride around town. Much more than we could have gotten from the bus tour we missed. The whole 24 hours in Derry was a highlight.

And to our friend and tour guide in Wexford, Michael, who was still apologizing for the weather, a note of thanks for another memorable evening and day. We will always be his LA groupies! :)

While traveling from O'Hare to Midway yesterday one large thing we noticed were the billboards. There are few, small and low to the ground ones in Ireland. At least they don't clutter the amazing views. So many cars on such huge streets, going so very fast.

Beware the portions of food they serve you in Ireland. I get the feeling they think we don't eat enough. By the time we left, I was barely eating half of what was served. Forget trying to eat a 3 course meal. An appetizer is the size of most meals here. While there were a couple of forgettable meals, for the most part, Irish food has come a long way. Locally sourced and cooked with care. Delicious.

It was a wonderful vacation. I'm exhausted, but very happy and can't wait to go back. No more touring. I'm done with that pretty much. Just a nice little cottage by the sea shore to enjoy the weather. It's going to be difficult to chose one location for that cottage. Galway, Antrim, Inishowen, Wexford, Kinsale. All great places to stay for more than a few days. :)

Last Days

Tuesday, July 19^th

From 31,000 feet up. :)

This is a bit of a bittersweet day. It's time to go home. The last 4 days have flown by, having a great time with Walter and Ardis who were able to fly in from London. It was great seeing them again. It's been a good year and a half since the last time. I do hope to catch up with them when they get back to the states in December.

Not sure where I stopped off the last time as good Internet access has been a continuing problem this trip. As I've said before, I usually write these blogs in the evening and if the B&B, or hotel doesn't have decent connections, I'm limited to just checking emails and a short post on Facebook, if that.

Not sure if I mentioned we took a drive through the Mountains of Mourne. Always a great drive, especially on a sunny day, which we had. Along some of the Antrim Coast, and up to Carrickfergus. Belfast was a quick run through as we always seemed to be sidetracked by little off the beaten path castles and ruins. But that's what makes the trip all the more interesting.

We arrived in Clontarf, just to the north side of Dublin about 5:00 on Friday. We had plans to get to Howth and Howth Head that day, but as I've said before time got away from us. We found an unmarked court tomb just past a “view point” that we thought was just off the road. Turns out it was about 20 minutes up a steep narrow hill (of course, what great view in Ireland isn't up a steep narrow road?). I mistakenly missed the turn off for the view point and decided to find a decent point to turn around on this road. Not much further was a small pull out and Ballymacdermot's Court Tomb. It was signposted at the tomb, but no where else. Truly an amazing sight. They obviously picked this spot for the view also, at the other side of the hill we had climbed. Just beautiful. After a return to Berwyn “view” and looks over Dundalk, we headed back to the motorway and off again, until we saw the signpost for Monastiere Boice.

I've been to this site before, but it has one of the most incredible high crosses in Ireland. The carvings in the stone are so deep that they have lasted all these years and are still pretty clear. The round tower at the site is 110 feet tall, the highest round tower still standing, I was told, except it has lost it's top. At least 15-20 of the bottom of it is now buried underground as the first opening that should be that high off the ground is only about 6 feet up. There are stairs to walk up and look in.

We did a little of our now famous, “getting lost and seeing more of the country” before we made it back to the motorway. And on to Clontarf.

Early on in the planning of the trip we though it might be nice to treat ourselves to something special our last night out on the road. We booked the Clontarf Castle Hotel. The concierge, Eric, was spectacular with all his help and humor. He could not do enough for us. Yes, this was a nice, treat, but as in all nice things, the special “Internet on the flat screen TV” would not work for me. I'm staring to feel it might be me! Eric did offer his computer at his desk for me to use, but I just didn't feel it would be right to sit and visit on Facebook at his desk.

The Knight's Bar and interior of the hotel were done in a stately motif and the dinner that came with our room and bottle of wine followed suit. I wish we could have spent more time there. Breakfast the next morning topped it all off.

On Friday we had to turn in the car, but not until the afternoon, so we decided to catch up on having missed Howth Harbour and Howth Head. Unfortunately the cloud layer was not very cooperative when we arrived at Howth Head. We were able to look across to Dublin, Ireland's Eye and Dublin Harbour for about 2 minutes when the clouds rolled over the entire scene, including where we were standing. We headed down the hill to Howth Harbour below the clouds and took pictures and walked along the harbour for a bit. Then off to Thrifty/Dollar to return the car and make our way to City Center.

We were all settled at the Mercantile and took a walk to the tourist office waiting for Ardis and Walter. When they arrived we headed out for some lunch downstairs at the Mercantile lunch carvery. I guess if you get there early the choices are better and the meat is not all dried out. Not one of our great meals.

We walked around some but thanks to Eric at the Clontarf, he had recommenced a musical show in Howth that night at the Abbey Tavern. So we piled in a taxi and off we went. The show was good, more local than Trad on the Prom, but still good. By the time we got back we all were tired from the travel, so planned a full day with a bus tour out to Powerscourt on Saturday. I do have to say that these one day bus trips are a great way to go when in Dublin. Saturday was Powerscourt, Bray, Dun Laoghaire, and Glendalough, along with a few more sites pointed out as we traveled. The weather started out just overcast, but by the time we got to Glendalough, it was pouring. Typical Irish summer weather. By the time we got to the Wicklow pass it was clear, but very windy and cold. We had a great tour guide full of information.

Sunday was the hop on hop off tour of Dublin. Again the day was overcast, and did rain some, but for the most part, it was fine. I've noticed that they have extended the passes for this tour to 2 days. I was so glad to see that, even thoughtwe only had the one day. There just is no way to see even most of the sites on the tour in one day. We did get to Trinity College, Merrion Park, Dublin Castle, Guinness Warehouse, and Kilmainham Gaol. It did take a good hour to ride the tour around once so we could make some decisions for the day. I think the most time was spend at the Guinness Warehouse and Kilmainham Gaol. The but let us off near the end of the day right in front of the Arlington Hotel, so we took the opportunity to have a drink and book the dinner and music show for that night.

With everything I had heard about this show, I was a little disappointed. Trad on the Prom was a very professionally put together show. This was more like 3 musicians taking requests from the audience to make up their set list, then 5 dances doing mostly hard shoe for a bit. The speakers were not very good and the bus crowd that they brought it talked through the entire performance, even while they were eating dinner. I much preferred the Abbey Tavern to the Arlington Hotel.

We walked back to our hotel over the Ha' Penny Bridge and through Temple Bar. Ardis and Walter would be leaving early the next morning, so we said our goodbyes, and headed off to bed.

Monday Rita and I headed off on another bus tour to New Grange. This also went to Monastiere Boice again, but we didn't mind. With my knees bothering me a bit I stayed back at the visitor center at New Grange as I've been there before. Rita headed off to the megalithic tomb and as Ireland is, it started to rain. In between showers and breaks she was able to spend some time enjoying the site with the others who braved the weather. Our tour guide, Collin, had a lot to share about the Dublin area as we left town and headed out for the day and was great about pointing out sites along the way that we might not have known about. He did share that most of the barley fields we saw were almost ready to harvest and the lot of it would be going to Guinness for brewing. Almost all the barley grown in the fields around Dublin is used for that.

So that brings me to our very early day today and our trip home. I'll post this as soon as I have some Internet, and follow up with ending comments when I get back on a regular sleep schedule!

Getting down to one Week

So it's been a few days again since I've blogged. We had an amazing visit to Clonmacnoise, the monastery site for St.Kieran. The high crosses there are some of the most incredible in all of Ireland. And the site itself is just so calming and serene, even with all the tour buses arriving. We left the monastery and headed to both the Tullamore and Kilbeggan distilleries to check out their wares. As usual our day ran much later than we planned and dinner was somewhere around 9:00.

We've been staying at a wonderful B&B called Novara House in Mullingar. Margaret is a very friendly host and I couldn't think of a better place to stay.

From Mullingar we headed to Dundalk for the pony races. I should have been as lucky as the gentleman sitting next to me. The best I could do was break even. I should be happy for that. After the races we headed for Rostrevor on Carlinford Lough. Loved going to sleep and waking up to see the blue waters of the lough outside out windows. Majella was another great host and shared her recipe for the warm bread she served in the morning.

Today was a beautiful driving day. We headed into the Mountains of Mourne for more amazing scenery. Lots of stops for pictures. After that we headed from Kilkeel toward Belfast with a stop at Dundrum. We decided to follow a sign that said "Dundrum Castle". We had heard nothing about it before and were treated with the ruins of a 12th century castle that is the centerpiece of a picnic and park area at the top of a hill overlooking Dundrum Bay. What a treat.

Lots of stress driving through Belfast to get to Carrickfergus. The castle here is very restored and not as old as many we have seen. We settled into out room for the the night and I'm finishing this up with a few comments on some of the food we have had here in Ireland.

Ireland has definitely moved beyond the meat and potatoes country that many think it is. You can still find lots of potatoes on plates, but the main courses can be very sophisticated at times. Our favorite meals have been the fresh mussels when they are cooked just right. Grilled salmon, hake, and plaice are also excellent choices other than fish and chips. If you ever order bangers and mash plan to share it with a friend. The Irish seem to think they have to feed us giant portions at each meal. At this point of the trip we are only ordering starter as our dinners as they are more than enough to have. There are only a few miscues on the food we've had. As I am able to download pictures, I will share some of the delicious meals we've had around the island.

One last comment tonight. I am always very aware of the fact that when I am traveling in Northern Ireland that I have a car with a license from the Republic. While we've had no problems, it's just something that I am aware of. I try very hard not to make any other drivers upset with my driving style. A little tough driving through Belfast at rush hour today, but I did survive!

Heading south to Malahide and Howth Head tomorrow for our last day our with the car. Then on to Dublin for the weekend. Looking forward to that and meeting friends from London who will be joining us. :)

Last week is here!