The last bit......

Up in the morning fairly early, had breakfast and then JR, Carol and Ted and I got the first bus back in to Dublin. Tony and Pat, Wendy and Mike had taken some clothes to be washed and needed to wait for the place to open.

We put our luggage in a huge locker at the bus station and then wandered Dublin some more. I was looking for a souvenir for myself some earrings or something. I never did find anything. We, of course, ended up in a few pubs and had some lunch too. We stayed at a hotel near the airport this last night. In the morning we took off for London at 7:30 am then a flight out of london at 12:05 pm. Me, Ted, Mike and Wendy stayed in Seattle since our flight got in there at 11:00 pm and we didn't want to drive home at 1:00 am. The next morning we headed to the airport early and got an earlier flight than booked. We were home - on Saturday.


What a wonderful trip. I've relived it all writing and posting here. I had a craving for some sun, Guinness and a Castle or two today for sure...

Won't ever forget this trip. The next trip we are all planning together is in July on the motorcycles, over to Oregon and down the coast to the Redwoods. After that we'd like to do a week long Western Caribbean cruise. Hopefully we will always like traveling together and I hope we will all be able to for many years to come.

Rock of Cashel, Hore Abbey and Cahir

Up in the morning to a great breakfast and then off to explore. Ted and I took off up the hill to the castle.



Then we walked down to Hore Abbey - had to kind of go over a fence as there isn't any real public access to it.



We then went back in town and caught the bus to Cahir. It was a short bus ride, and seems so strange to be on a bus going down the road and suddenly see a castle out in a field.

Cahir castle was cool and right in the middle of town.


This castle is very well preserved and very cool. After we checked out the castle, we took off to go find the Swiss Cottage. We took off on a path - beautiful. Woodland, golf course, river - but we never did find the Swiss Cottage! Somehow we missed it. We needed to head back to catch our bus.

We got back to Cashel and almost immediately ran into Carol and JR. JR had discovered a beer garden, so in we went. What a wonderful late afternoon we spent. Sitting outside, Guinness, good conversation, the sun.....


We had dinner at the same place as the night before - good stuff. Then it was off to bed. Tomorrow, back to Dublin and then to London and then home :(

Off to Cashel!

We went back in to London with our luggage and got a bus ticket to Cashel. These were pretty inexpensive, and could actually be used to take a side trip too. Mike and Wendy wanted to visit Cork, and we were going to either go with them or go to Cahir as there was a cool castle there.
The B&B we booked in Cashel was really cool as the back rooms had a view of the Rock of Cashel!
We got settled and then took off to explore the town.

It was a really cool little Irish town, just what I expected I think. You could easily walk the whole town. We stopped at various pubs and just enjoyed the beautiful day. We decided we'd tour the castle in the morning and would just wander around town until something looked good for dinner.



We had a great time exploring, and eventually found a place to eat - good food and we ate there the second night too it was so good!

Off to bed -

Dublin Day 3 - Wild Wicklow Tour

We were able to catch the bus right outside our hotel for this tour. It was to be a day tour through the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough

Caught the bus and off we went!

This tour was very relaxing and very scenic. Our tour guide really had an accent and she had lots of stories, history etc. The 'mountains' are not what we would consider mountains, or even like what we had seen in Scotland, but pretty anyway.

Lough Tay - the house back in the trees is owned by the Guinness family. They imported the white sand and with the almost black water it looks similar to a pint of Guinness!

A stop for lunch - sorry didn't take the photo till we were done! Fish and chips.

Glendalough was beautiful, amazing, awe inspring. So old - so much history and so beautiful. We looked at the chapel and gravestones, crosses etc and then took a hike to a lake. What a beautiful day. At the end, we got a shot of Jameson whisky for our troubles.

We caught this bus near our hotel, then once on our way we were told it wouldn't be dropping us off at the same place - WHAT? Anyway our guide had the bus driver do it anyway since we weren't told. This was our last night, so we all kind of split off to get something to eat. We got some stuff from the grocery store, and had some beers down in the lounge. Another great day.

Dublin - Day 2

Up the next morning, and went out the back side of the hotel to a place I had heard of for breakfast (we didn't eat at the hotel - way too expensive!) called Harry's. It was quite good and we ate there every morning in Dublin.
Ted and I wandered around the town after breakfast and then took the bus into Dublin and then did the hop on hop off bus tour. We kind of split up then, but somehow we all made it to the Guinness Storehouse tour at the same time - imagine that. I had not been drinking Guinness all along the trip. I had started with Stella as it was lighter. I found out though that it was higher alcohol so I then switched to Guinness. Guinness tastes SO much better there and now we were at the place where it was made! The tour was fun and at the end you go to the top and get your free one!
We had a couple of Guinness there and then back on the bus. We toured a bit and then decided to walk around. Temple bar area, lots of pubs etc. We ended up at the Brazen Head - Ireland's oldest pub and had something to eat. For some reason I decided I wanted to have a drinking contest with JR so we were drinking our Guinness one for one....
We hit alot of pubs - what a fun time. That is what you should do in Dublin right? It was just as I imagined it would be and so fun. I didn't beat JR - I did have a few 1/2 pints. JR said he quit because he didn't want me to be feeling bad the next day. Great times!

There was a street performer too - he was kind of scary, and standing on a box very still. As people would go by, he'd stamp on the box which made a very loud noise and scared the crap out of them. So I started messing with him and putting money in the box he had there - trying to act like I was going to sneak it in without him scaring me etc. Quite a crowd gathered around - I was done and was walking away when he stopped and pointed to me and then to his cheek - he wanted a kiss. So I went up to kiss him on the cheek and at the last minute he turned and got me on the lips! Funny. Carol immediately gave me some antibacterial stuff!

We made our way back to the hotel. Fun day and night. The next day was our tour to the Wicklow Mountains.

Here is a little sample of what it is like in the Dublin Pubs