May 24, 2018 - Dublin

Waterford to Dublin Started the day with a tour at the Waterford Crystal factory, it was so incredible, I could have bought everything in sight !!! It’s all hand blown and carved.. I did buy a necklace which is stunning!! Off now to Kilkenny to learn the ancient Celtic sport of hurling, should be a lot of fun.. similar to hockey I think.. apparently the worlds fastest game and they’ve been playing it for over 3000 years, we had a ball ! Literally! He got us out on the oval paying the game.. so bloody hilarious.. we loved it.. luckily no...

May 23, 2018 - Waterford

Waterford First stop today was Blarney, We managed to get some steps up!! Spent a couple of hours walking around the castle and it’s beautiful grounds. So green and lush.. We had a limerick competition that made us all laugh a lot.. so funny!! Really a pretty good bunch of people, most Australian, hilarious really, come all this way to spend your holiday with Aussies.. The sickness is working it’s way through the bus tho, thank god neither Geoff or I have caught it..yet .. paranoia helps !!! I have every sanitiser know to man.. The...

May 22, 2018 - Another day in Killarney

Another day in Killarney It’s a beautiful morning, the suns shining but still really cool and fresh. We are off on the Jaunting cars through the national park. Really breath taking, sally the horse got in to a lovely canter.. made me smile a lot.. saw a few wild deer too. Spending the day travelling around the Ring of Kerry, very pretty scenery.. I’m needing a bit of discipline with all the cashmere coats !! So stunning . I’m not exercising the same discipline when it comes to an Irish coffee at 10am.. winner winner !! It was really nice...

May 21, 2018 - Killarney

Killarney Raining today, it’s duck weather hehe!! The last big battle for the Jacobites was In Limerick, and wait another castle!! (king Johns castle ) stopped at a little village called Adare which was really very stunning with thatched roofed cottages, I could have stayed there all day!!! Then off again ... We arrived in Killarney around lunch time and are having time at leisure !! So relaxing!! And a really nice room .. Just a short one today !!!

May 20, 2018 - Galway to Limerick

Galway to Limerick Travelling down the west of Ireland today to limerick, it’s our first day of drizzly rain !! We’ve been so lucky the weather so far has been stunning! Seeing very different countryside and housing with small winding streets built over peat so you can imagine very soft and bumpy! Stopped in a little village for coffee called Cong where the Guinness family came from and built a castle called Ashford Castle, now off to have lunch in Galway.. ( where Ed Sheeran started his career from busking on the streets) its a bustling...

May 19, 2018 - Sligo

Londonderry is a very interesting city in Northern Ireland, Britain. Not part of the republic and they still have religious issues today between the catholic and Protestants even though the peace treaty was arranged 20 years ago. Northern Ireland uses £s and the Republic uses € they still have a soft border at the moment and from chatting to locals most say they don’t want a hard border. Very interesting conflicts !! Heading to the west coast to a place called Donegal founded by the Vikings it’s a small quaint little town where we enjoyed...

Apr 26, 2018 - Back to Dublin

After yet another breakfast of toast, cereal, fruit, yoghurt, eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice, coffee and tea we start out to cross Ireland one last time. The drive from Doolin to Dublin is 3.5 hours. I loved that we encountered our first true Irish traffic jam on this piece of the journey. I have absolutely loved being here during the lambing season. See the photos of the cemetery. We've passed many, many sites like this but this is the first one with both an obvious road to reach it and a place to pull off to the side. My best guess...

Apr 25, 2018 - The Cliffs of Moher

The first two pictures are the view from the front of out B&B, Glasha Meadows in Doolin, Ireland. Neither does justice to the vistas. The Atlantic is much more visible in person and the sheep do not blend into the rocks when you watch them, as they do in the photograph. Here's the link to the B&B https://www.glashameadows.com/#home in case anyone should want to follow our any part of our path. I would recommend any of the places that we have stayed. They were all quite nice with very similar foods, décor and guidelines. This particular one...

Apr 24, 2018 - Bunratty Castle

In weather that was closer to what we had anticipated in Ireland in April, we headed for Doolin, just a few miles from the Cliffs of Moher. That is to say it was 10 degrees c and misting rain. The drive was mostly on two lane roads, with maybe 1/4 of the drive on M7. We’ll note speak yet of the final 5 kilometers. We arrived at the entrance to Bunratty Castle about 70 kilometers before our ultimate destination and decided the weather as dreary as it was, was more acceptable than putting the visit off until our return trip to Dublin or...

Apr 23, 2018 - Crisscrossing Ireland

We ended up crisscrossing Southern Ireland more than I would have chosen. The vouchers for different tourist venues lent themselves to a fairly orderly circular tour around Southern Ireland. But I wanted to go further West than the tour encompassed and I was concerned that the route up the coast from Kells to Doolin would be too difficult given the number of ferries and/or the additional miles required to circumvent them. And so we ended up with an extra crossing back to Kilkenny. The GPS’s performance in Kilkenny was less than stellar....

Apr 22, 2018 - A sheep farm on the Ring of Kerry

My friends Ken and Linda Burger have been to Ireland several times and so when we were considering this trip we asked for suggestions for B&B’s. Without reservation they both named Taobh Coille. I did not ask but my Gaelic translator says it means “Woodland Side”. They were listed on the travel site as accepting our vouchers and so we made our reservations. We had a full English breakfast on Sunday morning, got almost wet in our tiny shower and headed out on the road again. A word about the car. It is a Toyota Yaris. The only vehicles I’ve...

Apr 21, 2018 - Blarney

Saturday morning found us packing up and heading for Blarney. I had two major concerns about this part of the journey, the M50 and the M50. The M50 is the Motorway that by-passes Dublin. It is the busiest motorway in the country and with 2 days of driving experience I wasn’t sure I was ready for this challenge. But if ever there is a best time to travel a country’s busiest road, surely it is Saturday morning. The M50 is also the country’s most expensive toll and works exclusively through an electronic system. The rental agent explained to...