Nuttela

As promised, I am going to begin my mini review of my travels. It probably will be in parts since I don't always have time to write things out all at once. I still have to work at the office sometimes.

In my past post I mentioned the cities we stayed in and visited. In this post, I am going to mention where we stayed and ate and general thoughts of what my husband and I saw while we were in Ireland.

With that said, I have time now to begin the review at our first stop Ennis. We stayed at the Temple Gate Hotel. (http://www.templegatehotel.com/index.html) We chose Ennis based on some recommendations here on the site. It was a great choice and a lovely town.

Temple Gate Hotel we chose due to the reviews from TripAdvisor. Temple Gate Hotel was originally the convent of Mercy in the 19th century. The hotel does not only rent rooms but it has conference centers and a Great Hall for parties/weddings. It is right across from the Tourist Center which was very convenient if you need maps or last minute touristy type gifts. There is also a museum inside the center that is free to anyone who wants to visit. It shows lots of archeological fines of the area.

Anyways back to the hotel, I just loved the lobby area. They have a nice library/study that was so conformable for journaling and just to relax after a day of seeing the sights. The staff was friendly and nice. The rooms were spacious but the particular one we were in probably could have used a fresh coat of paint.

Our stay included breakfast, which my husband and I did not enjoy. If it was just getting use to Ireland or general taste bud issues in hindsight I would have not included the breakfast and enjoyed something at the local cafe. The breakfasts are held at the JM's Bistro that you can get to from the hotel. I did hear they have wonderful dinners there but we never got a chance to witness it first hand since we always had dinner out. Also connected to the hotel is the Preachers Pub but we never went in so I can’t review it.

I would recommend this area and hotel stay if you plan on traveling to other areas and if you rented a car. It has a private parking area. It is probably a bit pricey compared to B&B’s but if you want to the hotel type feeling/amenities and central location to the town and sights this place was good. My only warning is that from the room we were in we were able to hear the party that was in the Great Hall until the wee hours, so if that kind of thing bothers you, earplugs should be brought just in case. Of course I do not know what it is like in other rooms. Luckily for us that happened only once.

Well that takes care of our first set of accommodations. I will return to continue my review later. Please feel free to ask questions or let me know if there is anything you want me to include or take out as I write this review. I appreciate you all reading and I hope this helps some others.

Nuttela

I apologize for the delay here is a continuation of my trip report.

Ennis as a town was definitely nice. On the surface it would seem it was like a shopping area, but that is not the case. There is a lot of history to this medieval town. I would definitely recommend the walking tour that starts at the Tourist Centre. We had so much fun seeing the landmarks and getting nice stories and legends of the city. I don’t think my husband and I would have really appreciated it if it wasn’t for that.

There are two places we absolutely enjoyed there that we did keep going back to. We went to Brogan’s a pub that serves incredible food. It was always busy when we were there and there was live music too. We always sat at the bar and the bartender there (an older gentlemen) was very nice to us. It was just fun to watch the bartenders pour and serve drinks. The other place was basically a café with great simple sandwiches and scones. I don’t remember what it was called but it was very conveniently located around the corner from Temple Gate Hotel. My husband enjoyed their espressos and I liked the scones.

Nuttela

I am going to continue with my trip report. I apologize in advance for being long and boring. It isn't that easy to write a report.

Our side trips from Ennis were:

Galway (Length of Visit 3/4 of the Day) - This place was so different than Ennis since it had more of the city feel, but also near the river. The main highlights for us was the interesting street performers on William Street/Shop Street, which is basically a pedestrian street for shopping, the city wall which is surrounded by the mall (side note, if you want to see the ancient wall you will have to enter the mall to see it. It took us forever to realize that.) I also enjoyed the replica of an immigration ship called the Jeanie Johnston. I know it isn't the biggest attraction out there but we thought it was neat. After a full day of walking the city of Galway literally from the River to the City Hall and back, we decided to have dinner there before returning to Ennis. It was located away from the main shopping street on Forster Street. I don't recall the name. The place had spicy Irish Stew and had Irish music playing. We enjoyed it and were happy for the break.

The next locations we did in one day and it was a full long day.

Cliffs of Mohr - This was the last day we were to see major down pouring of rain, luckily it stopped half way through the day. We drove to the Cliffs and walked to the one side and then to the other. It was really windy and a bit chilly but we enjoyed the views and were able to take some nice photos. We also enjoyed the museum of the Cliffs on the inside (it gave us a chance to warm up . From there we knew we wanted to see the Cliffs from the Ocean so we headed to our next destination.

Doolin Pier - we drove to Doolin Pier and stopped at a pub for lunch called, Gus O'Conner's Pub on our way. It was definitely some good food. It seemed a lot of people stop there. Time must have been on our side because once we reached Doolin Pier we had only 35 minutes before the boat to see the Cliffs were going to leave. The rain had subsided and the sun attempted to shine through so we relaxed by the water a bit. We thought it was amazing that we could see the Atlantic Ocean from the East side. We also found the limestone rock formations very interesting. Jack B (the boat) was a great trip. It was a bit rocky but as stated earlier it was windy. We enjoyed seeing the Cliffs from the ocean a lot and I would recommend it if the weather and time permits it. We really had a better feel of how big they really were. From here we went to the Burren's area.

Burren - We had started by getting lost but eventually found our way. We started first at Caherconnell but they were closed so we kept going and went to the Poulnabrone. For some reason we expected it to be larger and looking at the photos we took you would think it was large but it really wasn't. I did enjoy again the limestone formations and wild flowers growing. We could have gone and seen the other areas but we decided to head back to Ennis instead.

Locations to mention that were before getting to Ennis and after leaving Ennis were:

Bunratty Park & Castle (1/2 Day Visit) - We started with this right after landing at Shannon Airport. What a great activity to see the Ireland culture from back when. We enjoyed it a lot and my husband was very jet lagged and he was still able to enjoy it. It may be touristy or not someone's cup of tea but we definitely thought it was worth the visit. It was also our first castle and we enjoyed the different rooms and decorations.

Limerick (1/2 Day Visit) - It was a city again near the river. We did not have a planned agenda so we went to the tourist center. (I would recommend this if you haven't made any plans or research.) We did a lot of walking and walked to different sights mentioned on the map entered some and just viewed from the outside of others. One that we had fun with was King John's castle. We enjoyed it. We do like the physical history of places and this was a good way of getting a nice history lesson and see how things worked back then. The views were also very nice of the city from the top of the castle.

chatham

Nuttela,

I love long and your report is not boring. I'm enjoying it very much.

Thanks, Joan

connecticutyankee

What a lovely report, Nuttela. Thank you for sharing it.

A quick question on the breakfast at Ennis (and anywhere else you ate): what about it didn't you like? What did other breakfasts you like generally consist of?

My husband and I are going to Ireland probably Spring 2008 for the first time. I don't care about food, but DH does. I'm just trying to get an idea of where to stay, whether breakfast is easy to get and how much it costs.

Thanks!

CY

chatham

I hope you don't mind if I answer the question about breakfast. In my eight trips I believe all my accommodations, hotels, questhouses and b&bs included breakfast. I can't think of one place I bought breakfast.

Padraig

An increasing number of hotels are offering "room-only" rates -- presumably because it looks cheaper.

Sorry, I can't recall the price of breakfasts. Probably too much as they try to win back what they gave away in an attractive room rate.

Nuttela

Thanks for the nice compliments on the report. There is more to come.

To answer the breakfast question...I agree a lot of places we saw had the breakfast included and we chose to pick breakfasts in all locations but at Dublin. What I didn't like about the breakfast in Ennis is just the choices I guess. I may have made the wrong choices in my selections. First morning I took scrambled eggs and bacon. It had a smokey taste to it and I don't like the smokey taste but others might have enjoyed it. The bacon is also more ham tasting like and I don't like ham. After that day I just ended up taking the cereal and eating the toast, which was really good.

Otherwise, there are choices to the breakfast and I am sure if I tried something else I would have found something that fit my taste buds.

I guess what I am trying to say in a long winded way is that I wouldn't worry about the food because I am a picky eater and I had no problems. I just made bad choices on the first few mornings because I expected it to be the same as what I was used to. There are plenty of places that had great food breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Definitly enjoy the trip without food worries.

egailc

connecticutyankee, A few years ago I went to the very center of Ireland, Laois County. I know it has changed since then, but back then I was going just for the people and the music. I used Castletown Guest House, in Donaghmore, Rathdowney, as my base. During the day,I hiked, visited the local sights, then at night I hit the "back in the sticks" pubs for the music.

egailc

You would be amazed at the number of people that would show up at these out of the way places and bring their musical instruments. One night there were almost 20 people playing.Get away from the path well traveled, read the local paper, find where those local bands are playing, drive down that narrow dark road to that tiny village and you will be suprised and happy you did. Spend the late afternoon in the pubs before the people start showing up talking to the bar persons, they love to talk. Go to Abbeylix,Stadbally and Portlaoise, there you can slow down and learn patience, the Irish way.

Nuttela

egailc - you are so right on with your post. Some of our favorite moments were when we happened to be chatting it up with people who are the locals or discovering something away from the big sights.

CowboyCraic

CY,

The adjustments regarding breakfast are minor. Most eggs are served scrambled. As Nuttela indicated, their bacon is not the same as our bacon. It is more like back bacon or thin sliced ham. The sausage is a bit spicier and more coarse in taste. The coffee is usually instant. If you are lucky, some B&Bs will bring coffee in a french press. Either way, coffee is very strong and should be consumed in moderation. I rarely found toast, brown bread and scones are the breakfast breads of choice in most B&Bs. Some will serve smoked salmon with the scrambled eggs. There are B&Bs which offer you a breakfast menu and those which simply serve up a Full Irish as a matter of course. As long as you advise your host the evening before of any dietary issues, they will make adjustments to what they sreve you.

I usually stay in B&Bs, as that is the most cost effective means I have found for traveling in comfort. A full Irish breakfast will stand me for most of the day.

Nuttela,

Thank you so much for the report. It has been a good read. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed Ennis. I am sorry to hear that you had a noise issue at Temple Gate. I am also glad to hear that you enjoyed your Cliffs cruise.

Slan Beo,

Bit

Nuttela

CowboyCraic - thanks for the nice words and a B&B breakfast lasted us long enough during the day that we usually had late lunches after our sight seeing endeavors.

I apologize for the delay of my trip report. It has been a bit hectic. Here is a word or two about our second base city of Killarney.

The second base city was Killarney. We stayed at Friars Glen and it was our favorite place to stay on our whole trip. We still talk about it. This is considered a country Home and Mary and John were so nice. It is located right in the National Park. The room was more than spacious for the two of us and the breakfasts were incredible. My husband enjoyed the pancakes (crepes) there immensely. It was also the first time we got a good taste of the Irish butter and it was incredible. I don’t even like butter that much. I definitely would stay at Friars Glen again and recommend it to others. It is pricier than a B&B but worth it in my opinion. http://www.friarsglen.ie/

Killarney was our retreat area. We enjoy nature and the National Park was perfect for that. The centre was more like a bustling city that we enjoyed for shopping and some dinner but our evenings we spent by taking a few bottles/cans of Guinness and Smirnoff Ice and headed back to Friars Glen where we played checkers in the living room by the fire.

Within Killarney’s National Park we visited the Torc Waterfall and walked the trails in that area. We went over to Mucross House and Traditional Farms. We toured the House and we found it interesting and enjoyable. The farms were fairly similar to Bunratty’s Park so it was a bit repetitive but we enjoyed it just the same. We loved seeing the farm animals. From here, we went to Ross Castle. We were going to rent a row boat at Ross Castle Pier but when we got there it was closing time for the boats. (It was close to 5:30 PM.) I am not sure if that is the case all the time but we missed it. We didn’t want to wait for an hour and half for the tour of Ross Castle so we took the trails to the mining and surrounding areas of the park near Ross Castle. After a very long walk of seeing natural attractions along this trail we headed back to Friars Glen.

I will post our restaurant faves and side trips from Killarney soon. Enjoy and thanks for reading! Any questions feel free to ask.

LindainOhio

In my research, I never read anything about the difference between a B&B and a Country House and never really even noticed that some of our lodgings were listed as B&Bs and 2 were listed as country houses.

Our favorite 2 places--The Shores in Castlegregory and Loch Lein in Killarney, were our favorite places to stay. They are both country houses and were actually comparable in price to the B&Bs we stayed at.

The country homes in our experience were much more elegant and offered additional amenities. They also seemed to be outside of the town (I am assuming this puts them in the country home category).

Have others found a difference in these? Other than location? Or did we just choose 2 beautiful country homes?

NEDSIRELAND

ConnecticutYankee: Tell your husband not to worry. Going down O'Connell Street, less than 100m from the O'Connell statue, there's a Crowe's Supermarket. You have to pass thru an arcade; then, on your right as you enter the Supermarket, there's a Cafeteria. Breakfast, as I recall, was about 5 Euro and included Eggs to order, ham, bacon, black pudding, toast and coffee (from a Mr. Coffee type coffee maker.

IrishEyes

Linda, Loch Lein is a hotel. Friar's Glen is a guest house. The Shores is a B&B. All very different distinctions in the Ireland accommodation world. A country home is usually out in the countryside and more rural area as opposed to a town home, closer in to the town or city.

Nuttela

Here is the continuation of the report.

Food in Killarney that we enjoyed immensely that we went once for dinner and then a late lunch was at Molly Darcy’s http://www.muckrosspark.com/wining_molly.htm. We enjoyed the change of pace of food. We had been eating so much pub food it was a good change for a sit down restaurant. You should definitely try their Panini’s. It was also conveniently near Friar’s Glen. We also tried Murphy’s Ice Cream Shop in the city centre. We enjoyed the entertaining servers. They really seemed like they loved working in this establishment. The dessert was also very good there. http://www.murphysicecream.ie/Murphy...ey%20Shop.html

Something that I did not note in my mention of Friars Glen was that it was about a 10 minute drive to the city centre of Killarney.

Our side trip from Killarney was basically the Ring of Kerry and Valentia Island. After talking to Mary at Friars Glen she recommended extending the Ring of Kerry to Valentia Island. We decided why not and we were glad we did. We headed out on our adventure at 10:00 am. We are not sure if we went counterclockwise or clockwise and to tell you the truth we still don’t know. Luckily whatever direction we headed we did not have any problems on the road. There was not a lot of traffic or buses. We saw some spectacular views. We then took the Ferry to Valentia Island. We learned this is where the telegraph wire from the US came through. We saw the town museum. We then headed to the Quarries, took a nice climb on Geokaun Mountain and then headed to the Skelling Experience center. We saw a great video of the Skellings and I found it interesting and wished we could have visited the islands too. Due to large winds though, scheduled trips were cancelled. We then stopped right after we drove off Valentia Island into Portmagee and stopped for a quaint wonderful little lunch place called Skellig Mist. It was one of the best lunches I had. I enjoy the pub foods and heavy meats and potatoes, but I enjoyed the chicken salad sandwich on white bread just the same. It was a refreshing change. The dessert was great too. We headed back toward the Ring of Kerry with a couple more stops before heading back. We decided to climb another mountain area but this time there was no paved road. Despite my tiredness I was glad we did it. The views were great again. We stopped at Staigue Fort, which was made of stones and it was interesting to see surrounded by all the goats and sheeps. This part of the drive would have been the most difficult and when another car was coming you had to be careful because they wouldn’t fit side by side. (Yes we did some backward driving.) Our final stop on our Ring of Kerry trip was the Ladies View of the Lakes of Killarney. Once again it was such breath taking views. We got back it was after 7 PM. It was a long trip but worth it in our opinion.

A final note on Killarney, we enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and nature. I definitely recommend this area. It didn’t feel very touristy to us but we may have been lucky that there weren’t a lot of people when we went around. Here we had wished we stayed another night so that we could do some other things but vacation was limited so we had to pick and choose.

When we left Killarney we headed to our next base city of Kilkenny but before we got there we stopped at two locations.

We first stopped at Cork…and of everything we saw it was the most uninteresting. Granted maybe because we had seen some churches, and cities already, that we decided not to tour the area. We decided just to go to the Butter Museum and for us that was cool. We have now vowed to eat just Kerry Gold Butter. It is a shame though they don’t import to the states.

Jameson Distillery - This was my treat to my husband since he likes all whiskeys except for Jack Daniels and he really enjoys Jameson. We went and got there just in time for the next tour. We took the tour which we thought was cool. Again the whole history and how things were done type place. My husband also volunteered for the tasting and he had a blast with it. He had me buy a frame for the certificate so he can display at his office at work. We then stopped and got some dessert in Midleton and continued our way to Kilkenny. We drove the route through Waterford.

Nuttela

Sorry for the long post but hopefully you are enjoying it. There is more to come. Two more base cities and final thoughts.

Sandylan

Kerrygold butter is available in America. Put Kerrygold and America into Google and you will get information on it. Incidentally Murphys Ice Cream is owned by some Americans who came to live in Ireland and who started the business in 2000. They have a website at www.murphysicecream.ie

Nuttela

Thanks Sandylan for the tips. I might get that butter as a nice gift for my husband.