Ok, here?s the beginning of our trip report for Ireland the last two weeks. (more this weekend - I just got back last nite!)

As a quick summary of areas covered, we traveled from Chicago to Shannon, Dingle Pn, Kenmare and Killarney, Beara Pn, Mizen Head, Kinsale, Blarney and Cobh, Cahir and Cashel, to Waterford, Jerpoint Abbey, Kilkenny and Tramore, Glendalough and Greystones, Dublin to Westport down to Connemara and Galway, InisMor Island, Cliffs of Moher, Burren and finally Bunratty. Just so you know if you?re interested in reading.

I?ll start out, too, by giving our BB stays up front in case anyone is looking for recommendations in these places. You can tell just from our length of stays that we took a bit of a fast track.

All our places were under 33eu per person/nite. Some were 28, most were 30, some were 32.

Kenmare ? 2nites at Annagry House. About a 15min walk into town. Nice enough house, quiet but humorous hosts, but don?t suggest the twin Orange room. Average-small size, plain room, stiff beds, and if you want to take a shower at nite, you are strongly urged not to turn on the overhead light because a loud fan turns on and disrupts the house. Has two showerheads, not much water pressure, and it was dark in there at 11pm! Plus one was electric so you are strongly urged to use the other one. Not sure about other rooms, hoping they are better, but in general was a nice place.

Kinsale ? 1nite at Four Winds BB. 15-20min walk into town. Great place, I highly recommend it. Nice host, although a bit quiet. Wooden floors, beautiful wood everywhere, little echoey throughout, but great shower, beds, and the pancakes breakfast, I?d stay there a month to eat her pancakes every morning! I think the best tasting breakfast I?ve had in years.

Cahir ? 2nites at Killaun House. Should have gotten the standard room with bathroom across the hall. The host is the sweetest lady ever, older woman, but super sweet and talkative. But the bathroom in our room was ridiculously small. Including the toilet, sink, and shower, musta been an overall size of 6x3, with a sliding door because a normal one had nowhere to go. We had a pretty tough time even standing in there. Plus for some reason, there was no warm water at night, and I?m talking like 9-10pm. But there was plenty in the morning! Traditional Irish bf ? we aren?t huge fans of it unless it?s scrambled eggs. Easy/quick 5min walk into Cahir town though, and about 10min to the Rock of Cashel. Would recommend it if you get the standard room.

Tramore ? 1nite at SeaView Lodge BB. STAY HERE! The hostess was awesome, and the double/twin room was huge (we had the one that faced the driveway and could sorta see the water). Bathroom was huge, and shower was great! Breakfast was awesome too, had a selection of choices. I don?t remember who it was, but someone here recommended this place. I don?t think it?s in town and country or other such sites. The house is clean, and up on a hill. You have a distant view of the water, and it?s about a 15-20min walk into town. So whoever recommended it a few weeks ago, thank you!

Greystones (south of Dublin) ? 2nites at Castanea BB. Host was a nice older guy. Bit older house, room ok and bathroom ok, not much water pressure. But with electric showers so you make quite a raucous. Traditional Irish bf again.

Westport ? 1nite at Glenderan BB. It was more on Clew Bay (which was mostly mud) and probably 15+min walk into that harbour side of town. Nice house, didn?t see or talk to the host really at all. Weird part of this room was that the sink and mirror were in the main bedroom, while just a toilet and shower in the bathroom. Nice enough shower, comfy bed, and Trad bf again even though their website says there?s a menu choice.

Galway ? 2nites at Flannery?s BB. Nice host, had an upstairs bedroom ensuite. Shower was a bit small (as were most unless otherwise stated) but comfy twin beds. Trad bf again, but she scrambled the eggs if we wanted. Would recommend it. Bit of a long-ish (25+min) walk into Galway, maybe shorter if you figure out the direct path?.

Bunratty ? 1nite at Dunaree. STAY HERE! The house is huge, clean and modern. Our room next to the dining room was huge with a big bathroom and the best shower of our whole trip (seaview lodge is right up there though). The hostess was great, and breakfast, awesome!! Pancakes and French toast.

None of our stays were ?bad?, although the bathroom in Cahir was our biggest complaint, and that we couldn't handle anymore trad. irish breakfasts. Our trend seemed that all of our 1nite stays, we had wished they were switched with our 2nite accommodations.
More later!

Thanks for taking the time to post this report. I'm just curious...what is in a traditional Irish breakfast? Is it similar to the English breakfasts I've had at most B&B's with bangers, toast, eggs, tomatoes and sometimes mushrooms?

We always enjoyed those so much!

A traditional Irish breakfast is similar to the English breafast. You usually get sausages, bacon, eggs, black and white pudding and toast. You also sometimes get beans, mushrooms, tomato, etc.

Any B&Bs I've been in have given an option of whether you want the Irish breakfast or not. If you don't they will be happy to provide cereal and brown bread or toast.

Amy,

Great report! Can't wait to read more...

Wendy

margyb - yeah what cailin said.. All our Trad bf were Sausage, bacon (which is more like ham in the US), warm tomato (not for me!) and eggs (not normally scrambled unless they offer), tea/coffee, brown bread (yum!), and toast. We always had cereal, orange juice, and fruits available before the egg bf, so you can opt out and just eat cereal and toast if you want, or have it all! Though I don't think we ever saw black/white pudding.
Pretty much the same as English bf.

Flannery's did it smart, I thought, and had a list of all the things in a Trad bf, that you could check if you wanted or not, including 3 choices of eggs. That way she doesn't waste food. So I had a big plate with just a little mound of scrambled eggs on it, as I was getting tired of all the other stuff.

The sink in the bathroom is an old fashioned thing you used to see in older houses. Partially I think bacause many did not have an indoor toilet but had running water to brush your teeth and have a wash. I think thats what my mum had as well. Later when the bathrooms were put in the sinks stayed. I know of 2 houses at the moment that have the sinks in the bedroom in a family house. Personally I hate it.

Yeah we weren't fans of the sink in bedroom either. Doesn't make any sense for several reasons.
Interesting though because this house looked newer (much newer than a few of the homes we stayed in), but oh well. Not sure if all the rooms were like that or not.

Ok, here goes. Sorry for the length, cuz it is lengthy! First a few notes.

-Make sure to markup your rental car pictures with all the damages no matter what the rental car people say "not to worry about".
-BBs serve bf usually between 8-930am, so don't plan too much on leaving the house before 830am.
-If you?re only gonna make a few calls to BBs and such, you can get the 5eu calling card which you use a 50c coin in a payphone and it will be returned after your call.
-Seems that it likes to rain in the morning and then clear up for the rest of the day
-If it's a downpour in one place, it might be just fine by the time you get to your destination, don't necessarily think you have to turn around. (see example of our Aran Island visit)
-Regardless of having a town map with street names, don't expect to actually match that up with reality. I expected a bit of this, but not quite as bad as lacking all street signs! You can usually drive until you find a roundabout.
-We realized in many places you had to be coming from a certain direction to see a sign for what you wanted. After we'd turn around, poof, there was the sign!
-Is it customary to ALWAYS have to flag someone down for the bill at restaurants? And for the waitresses to constantly change during your meal? And most don't return to your table after served?
-We're kinda assuming soda refills (for free) are not common?
-What's the deal with attractions making you "buy" brochures and information about their attraction? We rarely got any written information about places because you had to buy it!
-Surprising that most early bird menus go until 7-730pm.

-Highly recommend seeing the Cliffs of Moher a few hours before sunset if you can. With enough sun it still looks like it would in the day time, but you get the added drama as the sun goes down. More description later.

We realize this was a pretty fast moving trip, but we saw what we wanted and got a little taste of the people. Now if we go back, we know where we'd want to spend more time or not. We also got pretty lucky with lack of traffic, no sheep traffic, not much driving delays, so we were able to average more like 45-50 on the smaller roads, and 65-70 on the dual carriageways (and sometimes the smaller ones, legal or not). We made all our BB reservations before we left, just so we wouldn't have to waste time finding a place. Plus sometimes we knew we'd be showing up later than check-in.

Jun17: Flew out of Chicago at 6pm. Smooth 7.5hr flight.
Jun18: Arrived Shannon 7am. ATM was working that day and was raining during the morning. Went to Hertz for our "compact automatic". Ended up having to wait 1hr to get the car, ended up with Toyota Corolla. Pretty decent?until later. I made sure to mark up all the scratches and dents (lots of scratches on the sides and front/back) on the form because Hertz didn't do it. While I was doing it, they said "Eh, no need to worry about those things".. and I said.. I don't care, I'll mark it up and you can sign it. So that?s what we did and he didn't even look at my markings. We used my MC platinum for CDW and no problem. They barely cared to look at the letter of coverage.
Finally left the airport about 945am. I was the lucky first to drive. Piece of cake! Ok, it took about an hour to get used to it, but other than that, no big deal for us. Drove thru Limerick and had planned to stop in Adare, but sorta drove right out the other side saying "hmm.. there goes Adare". Kept on going towards Tralee. Drove around town trying to figure out what/how/where to park. We weren't too familiar with disc parking until our few last days there! So as we're driving down a street, Andrea (who I went with) says "Look! The Burger Shak has parking!". Sharp left turn into the lot, and there?s lunch! Not bad for being a Burger Shak, but not on my recommendation list. Left Tralee and it was turning into a sunny day. Scenery was nice along the way. Stopped at Blennerville Windmill for a few minutes, but didn't pay to go in. Why is the river mud there? As a matter of fact, why are many lakes and rivers mud? Many places we went, shoulda been water, but it was mud.
Continued onto Dingle Pn. We drove up Connor Pass. This was within an hour of Andrea's first turn to drive, great road for practice eh? Btw, we didn't get any sleep on the plane, and by the end of this day, we had been awake for 32+hrs. Connor Pass was pretty easy. We didn't have to back up for anyone, and we didn't really meet too many cars on the road. So that was lucky, but I can see how it would be scary if more cars were coming at us. Great views from up there. Down into Dingle and somehow magically managed to turn ourselves toward Slea Head. (you'll see this sort of statement throughout our trip). Stopped for a visit at the beehive huts. Almost got away with getting thru free (unintentially) as the kid in the booth was invisible and Andrea heard a quiet little "hey" peep as I walked through. Great views across the water from the huts.
Back toward Dingle and found a payphone to call Annagry house as we knew we'd be later than normal checkin time. Driving toward Killarny we ended up at Kate Kearney's cottage and grabbed some info for the next day. Reached N22 to R596 west into Kenmare and to Annagry BB. Walked the "short-cut, lighted path" into town. There was a cute parade of little kids going through when we arrived. Ate at O'Donnobhains, I had the grilled salmon, was good food. Tried Packie's but didn't realize we needed a reservation. There was some live music on the main straight down from the church, I want to say Fleadgh Ceili (or something like that). Great band playing.
Our fatigue didn't really hit us until around 5pm leaving the Dingle Pn. But we didn't have too much trouble adjusting to the time at all. All that driving is doable the first day, but probably not very wise. Two of us it was fine, but as you can see, we just came and went to various places, saw the scenery and away we went.

JUN 19: Left around 945am to the N71 to Kate Kearneys cottage. Took us about an hour. We took the jaunting horse ride (and it sure was jaunting!) up to the top of the mountains but didn't go as far as a boat ride. Beautiful scenery, another great day. It tried drizzling as we arrived, but stopped when we started the jaunt. We actually were able to stay in our cart while the horse drug us up the hill. People with 4 had to get out and walk up the hill. Our guide said about 30 people live in the hills which is why you see cars going through there. On our way back down the road, there was a lot of baaaa-ing. Turned out that mama or papa sheep was running to meet up with baby sheep 2 blocks down the road. So after a bunch of jumping up and down stone walls, and back/forth baaa-ing, they reunited and stopped baaa-ing. It was sorta cute. Really could have spent a whole day there, but we left around 1245 after our tour.
Headed back to Muckross Estates and ended up taking another horse ride with Patrick (who smoothly sauntered up to our car and said "tis the only way to do it&quot. Suckers, we took him up on it, as we didn't really want to tour the house, just see the land. Hindsight we could have probably walked it, but oh well, no big deal as Patrick was a funny guy. On our tour, he turned around and pointed at the horse-ride behind us. Said the horse's name was "Seldom-fed" and the driver was "Seldom-sober". Seemed to make sense when we saw Seldom-sober laying down in his cart while the passengers were walking up to the waterfall. Told us the one-liner about "Monks Wood". We learned how to say Cahir when Patrick kept asking us "where?" when we said we were going to "Ca-her" next. Torc Waterfall was relatively impressive. I more or less like any kind of waterfall. You can drive to it too though. We walked around for a while in Killarney after some trails near Ross Castle. Yeah,=, I can see what you all say about it being touristy, but it must not have been quite as bad while we were there.
Left Muckross Estates and headed toward Ladies View and Moll's Gap (which we drove right thru on the way there). Great views up there. Ate dinner at Coachman's in Kenmare, had the smoked salmon, not really realizing what smoked salmon was, but it was delicious. Had the Banoffee Pie for dessert, and YUM. Andrea went to church, which as she got there 2 minutes late, they were already 20min into our normal Catholic mass. Guess they talked really fast and got things done quick. I walked to the "stone circle", and there isn't much there. We met back up and ducked into O'Connors Pub while it was raining. One of the bartenders had just come from church. They had music going on again this nite. O'Connors was small and mostly empty when we arrived, but after an hour it was suddenly packed. Had a Smithwicks (pretty good!). After about 20-30min, and older guy sat down next to me and started talkin'. Anybody ever meet Tommy while in Kenmare? Anywho, funny guy, very talkative, and eventually asked if we wanted to check out his house in the morning to "see the view". I guess he lived just down the road from our BB and knew the host. Well, by US standards, this was odd to have an old guy ask two young girls to come check out his view across the bay, but we tried to take it at face value that he was being friendly. Got back to the BB and asked our host if he knew this guy and by description it was the same guy. Seemed like everyone in the bar knew Tommy, must be a popular drinker! (longer story to this, but won't post it)

JUN 20: We have now seen gas pumps on the sidewalk, where a car pulls up and parks in the street lane to pump gas. Oddity for us. Started out around 930am. Headed towards Gougane Barra. Musta missed a turn somewhere! Cuz I don't know where the hell we were! I think we ended up way east on R569 at Coclea. Whatever road we were on was pretty neat though, up in the hills, rocky and green hills. This is where we saw "the highest pub in Ireland". The sign said so. Managed to go north back to N22 to Kenmare and R569. Now we went west on Beara Pn on R571. Passed by the Inchiquin Falls since we wasted a lot of time getting lost. Went up Healy Pass.. by now it was noon. Originally planned to turn around and continue on the north side of the Pn, but just went over Healy and headed down to Bantry. Great scenery up on Healy. Stop for leg stretch in Bantry (mud bay again) and went to Mizen Head. Took the Mizen Head Drive around the coast through Crookhaven and up to Mizen. Awesome views from the lighthouse. Blue blue waters. Back towards Skibbereen around 330, except we followed the signs and it took us north to R586 almost back to Bantry. How? Who knows. We followed the signs. I forgot to pull my compass out. We joked later about when we would pass a town or road sign, I'd say, what did that sign say? She'd tell me, and I'd say "hmmmm.. hmm". That turned out to be the sign we weren't exactly in the right place. Anyways, our little detour took us thru a tiny town of Caharagh. OK - Who knows why the whole town of 80 people would be standing in the middle of the road?!?! We drive thru the main road and we see a ton of people standing on the road. So they slowly part the red sea and stare at us as we go through. One guy had a handful of hay and grass in his hand that he picked up from the road. WHAT?! Insight would be good here.
Over to Glandore and took a walk and called our Kinsale BB. To Kinsale via R600. Arrived at Four Winds at 7pm. Walked into town, bit of a hike, about 20min. Found the Little Skillet for dinner. Said our table would be ready in 10min so took us upstairs to the "waiting room", in which they could easily serve dinner. An hour later! Our table was ready. The waitress had taken our order upstairs so that'd it be ready when we got our table. So after 5min, our food was in front of us. Little ticked about the wait since we were starving. Had grilled rainbow trout w/butter sauce and salad and potatoes. Was alright, but fish was a little bland to my taste (not that I know what it should taste like). Homemade bread was awesome though. Walked along the water for a while and back to BB. Unfortunately you won't read too many pub stories since we were so tired every nite, ended up going home relatively early. But we're ok with that.

JUN 21: Hit Blarney castle around 11am. Went to the top of the castle with no intention of kissing the stone. Didn't really realize there was nowhere to go but the stone kissing. Only was a 10min wait/walk up the stairs. Talked to a few people on the way up and said we'd pretend we were with them so we wouldn't look like idiots. So while the photographer and credit card guy (I call him that because he literally slides you back and forth to that stone quickly like a credit card) weren't paying attention, we hopped over and kept on going. Just wanted to see the view from up there. The people we talked to were actually from northern Indiana, not far from me and some of my family. Small stinkin' world!
On our way out of Blarney Woollen Mills, a tour busdriver asked us if we had seen a large group of Japanese. We said No, and he said with a very quick and thick irish accent, "I've lost all fokkin' 22 of them, and we're supposed to be leaving". He continued on with a few other hiliarous statements (which he didn't think himself as amusing cuz he was serious).
Headed down to Cobh around 2pm, walked around a bit, not a whole lot to do. I think that's where St. Colmans church was - huge church! Up to Cahir in 1.5hrs. Stayed at Killaun House, easy to find, 5min walk to town. Jo is so sweet, but you read that in my first post. Walked down to Cahir Castle to get in just under last admission time. No more guided tours, but we walked around for a bit until they were ready to boot us out. We bought our Heritage Cards there. We ended up getting them for the student price (only one of us was a student). Quite the reduced price at 7.5eu. Finished at Cahir Castle, looked for dinner. Not a ton of choices, but we found this Chinese place on the main road called the Rose Garden. I love Chinese, Andrea does not. But man, that food was soooo good. I recommend it, and it was pretty cheap too! Tons of food for uner 12eu. Around 830pm, we decided to drive up to Cashel to check out the nite site of the Rock. Forgot our map, but decided to wing it. Managed to take the long way there going east towards Clonmel and then north, but still only 25min (takes 10min if you take the map!). Walked around out there, took some pictures, got a neat one of the sun rays shining thru the clouds. Almost walked to Hore Abbey but realized we should just drive there. Drove there but managed to pass it cuz we thought it up and disappeared.. we thought it was on the right. As we turned around and drove back, NOW it was on our right. We had our heads turned the wrong way, cuz from the Rock it doesn't look like it's on the other side of the road. Walked around the ruins for a bit. Pretty neat, nobody out there. Back down to Cahir, took us 10-15min this time.
Sidestory ? on our long way to the Rock, I tested out the brakes when I went straight into a no-entry road, only painted on the road (that I saw). The oncomer just passed by and smiled. After I backed up, and turned like I should have, I looked into my rear view mirror and the car behind me had done the same thing. Only time that happened!
By this time, our car had developed a grinding noise while applying the brakes and speeds and continued up to 45mph. Sounded like metal on metal, and had gotten progressively worse in the last couple days. Didn't do it when we picked it up. So we tried trading cars in Cork, but they had no automatics available and were of no help otherwise. So we took the "Grinder" and went on our way. (we have many hilarious memories of the "grinder", so aptly named while eating dinner in Greystones). Figured since Andrea's 2003 Frommers book said there was a Hertz place in Waterford, we'd try that in the next couple days. Tried calling the number first many times, but always busy. Anyone have a 2004 Frommers you can check to see if it is still mis-informed? There used to be one there a few years ago, but not anymore.

JUN 22: RAINED all day. This was our day to drive the VeeGap. We did it anyways. Left for the Rock of Cashel to take the tour. The tour was ok, interesting stories they tell you. Headed thru Glen of Aherlow and made a loop back down to Cahir and down the Vee. We could seem some of the scenery but surely not as good as on a nice day.. We also tried to find Mahon Falls. We were on the right road, but as we went up the hills, we entered thick fog.. thick. So we looped right back out. Since we still thought there was a Waterford Hertz location, we headed over there to find out there wasn't one. It was in Wexford. Plus I was already frustrated driving in Waterford with the traffic and lack of street names everywhere. The tourist office called Wexford and we had lined something up for the next day (but later decided to get it the day after due to our schedule). The Wexford guy was really helpful. So got out of Waterford and back to Cahir for dinner at Galileo's café. Italian restaurant, decent, nothing too special. Waitress was very unattentive. We ran across this pretty much everywhere.

JUN 23: Left for Kilkenny and arrived an hour later, but drove around forever looking for parking.. This was a town that lacked ALL street signs, or else they were well hidden from us. We had a map, but it was more or less useless.. Found an alley to park in with a bunch of other cars for free. Walked to the castle in time for the next tour. The tour was interesting, learned a lot of neat things, but I'm more into the ruins than the restored houses/castles that are furnished. Would have visited a few other places in town, but didn't want to deal with the roads. Somehow, we magically got to the perimeter and found a roundabout to head us in the right direction. Down to Jerpoint Abbey around 130. Tour was too long a wait, so we just walked around. Neat place, nice ruins.
Headed down to Waterford for the Crystal Factory tour. Yeah yeah, touristy, but we did it. Thought it was pretty neat if you haven't seen that sort of thing before. But there's nothing else to do in the town really. As we sat down in the shuttle bus, 2 older guys started talkin' to us. One was John, a Galway man who may be related to James Joyce, and the other was his auctioneering buddy Morris (maybe Borris) from Antwerp. He was funny. Both really nice guys, so we talked to them throughout the tour.
Headed to Tramore to Seaview Lodge around 5. Easy to find. Walked into town and found Donerailes Restaurant in the Grand Hotel. I had the early bird special which included a warm chicken salad (great!) and turkey/ham stuffed with a type of dressing. Came with veggies and potatoes. Was pretty good, though the dressing wasn?t my favorite. Apple pie and profiterolls were great.
Walked down to the beach. Not too many people out yet. I fell in a sandhole as the water came up, but surprisingly my shoe and sock didn?t get too wet. Magic. Same day I also tripped over a step at the BB and took a hard step down on the sidewalk as I was looking back at a pub. I?m not normally clumsy! Drove over to Dunmore East to check it out. If you take the signs toward the Harbour, it takes you up a gravel road to unprotected/unrailed cliff edges. Of course, I got out and walked along, while Andrea stayed safely in the car. I loved it. Neat little cliffs (I don't find too many cliffs uninteresting). You could see over to Hook Head Lighthouse which was neat. Back to Seaview, have I mentioned this place is GREAT?!

JUN24: Left around 930am for Wexford. Was pretty annoyed that we had to drive "out of our way" to trade our stupid car. But in reality, we were just taking a road parallel and south of the other road up towards Dublin, which we heard was nicer anyways. So we found the Hertz place pretty easily and talked to the guy we had two days ago. He originally told us we were gonna get a car just like ours (I forget which brand), but we got there and it was a Nissan, seemed like a size upgrade (different than what he told us). Worked out good though cuz this one had a full huge trunk for our luggage. But no cd player. Had way more miles on it too, but it worked out fine. Realized a few minutes after we drove away that it was down by a ? tank of gas. We dealt with that later, I wasn't about to waste more of our day going back. But it was quick and painless.
Headed up through Vale of Avoca and to Glendalough Lower Lakes around 1pm. Good timing for next tour of St. Kevin's monastic sites. About 30min tour, interesting info. Drizzled a little bit, but turned out nice. Headed down the "green road" path to the Lakes. Saw St. Kevin's church and the "site of his cell". Pretty grounds w/lots of little trails branching off to explore. I could have spent all day and then some there. I always like to see where they lead. I suggest spending all day there if you like walking. Also hiked my butt up the hill to see Poulanoss (sp?) Waterfall before heading back to visitor center. Nothing spectacular, but I like them. Headed north toward Sally Gap and passed the huge Glenmacross Waterfall. That was neat and we didn't even have to go out of our way to see it! Then onto Powerscourt. Didn't have time to swing by Lough Tay and Dan. Got to Powerscourt around 430, little bit late, but nice that not many people were there. Nice huge grounds, gardens, but I think some of them were a little amuck, due to rain possibly. Went up to Powerscourt waterfall, supposedly the tallest in Ireland? Kinda sucks they make you pay at the very bottom of the road cuz not everyone would necessarily want to see it, but I guess they don't have too much choice. Waterfall was neat, you can walk onto the rocks just at the bottom of it.
Headed for Greystones and Castanea BB. Somehow we had trouble getting out of the waterfall area and toward the direction of Greystones. So we got to know that road 4-5 times. Finally into Greystones but our directions were for coming from Dublin. So we came in the south side vs the north side. Ok, there's really one main road thru town, but we drove back and forth on it many times. Again with the street names. Again learning you have to come from a certain direction to see a sign. Finally called our BB, and we had been 200ft away at one point. I'm pretty good at navigating, so this was starting to get ridiculous.
Went to eat at the Hungry Monk. Here's where we named our first car "the grinder". I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. You won't find it quite as hilarious, not having heard the excruciating sound, but imagine a car driving up and down the main road 6 times with a squealing, grinding, echoing noise coming out of the car, as it reverberates off the buildings, while groups of people sitting on the sidewalks watch.. It didn't happen here cuz we had already ditched the Grinder, but that image still makes me laugh. I would not have allowed so many passes if we had the grinder. With the Grinder, everytime we passed the same people in various towns, hearing us coming from a mile away, we said to ourselves "yeah yeah, we know, it's us again!".
Anywho, we had tried Burnaby's Hotel to eat first, but they had just stopped serving food at 7pm. We ate in the wine bar of the Hungry Monk. I had the meatballs dish which was great, and the Knickerbocker Glory dessert. YUM - icecream and fruit and fudge syrup. Dessert is pretty expensive everywhere though! As we left after eating, the waiter said "see ya next year" in a nonchalant humorous tone. Stopped at the DART station to see if they had schedules and prices. Give me a break, they don't have schedules handy for the public? We managed to get one from the guy, but I guess we're used to having these kinds of things available to us.
Back at Castanea, first time we heard the raucous of an electric shower. Sounds like a snowblower in the next room!

JUN25: DUBLIN - Walked to the DART station and got a ticket from Greystones to Dublin, took about an hour so we got there at 1030am. Only 6eu roundtrip. Off at Tara Place stop and went into the tourist center. We got the Dublin Bus Tour Hop on/off where you could take either the red or yellow bus (some make more stops than others). We also made a reservation for the Literary Pub Crawl. I'll say now I think I was disappointed with it after all the hype. I would have rather done the free music show at the Arlington Hotel. We also thought about getting the Dublin Pass, but since we didn't have too much time, and our Heritage card covered some things, it wasn't worth it. Went over to Trinity College for the Book of Kells first. Only had a 5min wait or so to get into the room. There were about 30 people but they allowed enough time that you could just wait for everyone else to disappear and then get up close. Some people didn't seem to get the concept of the walking rotation around the table so that everyone could see. The library up the steps is pretty impressive.
Hopped on the bus to St. Patricks. Neat place, after a while many churches begin to look the same (my opinion). Also walked over to the Christ Church Cathedral but I didn't go in. Then over to Kilmainham Jail. I really enjoyed this place, the stories are really interesting the guide tells, neat place. Ex-cons of that jail volunteered to restore the place in the '60s I believe. Somehow our hours were flying by, as everything still closes around 530. After that, we passed by the Guinness Tour, and went on to the Jameson Distillery. Caught a tour 5min after we walked in around 4. Interesting, although I have to say if you've been to Jack Daniels tour in TN(free and very interesting, getting to see the actual processes and equipment), you may not be too impressed with Jameson. I think mostly what you see are scale models of a few things, and then you get a free shot of whiskey. I was kinda disappointed, but oh well. Then we were too late to get up in the Chimney Viewing Tower. Since it was 530, we read our bus schedule and it said they were done with their routes at 530. G's. So we hoofed it back to Grafton to see if we could get in any shopping. Stores were still open but we didn't buy anything. Walked around a little to find dinner. Around the corner from The Duke (where the pub crawl starts) was "Fitzgers". Seems a little upscale, and we didn't have a reservation but since it was only 6, the guy gave us a table and said he needed it back at 7pm. Sure.. if you can serve me fast enough, I can eat it. I had an early bird special of grilled salmon fillet in butter/herb sauce, it was great! Had the white cheesecake for dessert.. also great. By now it was 715 because again, the waitress never seems to come back. The place was getting really busy too. Around the corner to The Duke. 2 actors did a little skit here while we drank beer, and then off to O'Neils for 20min of "quality drinking". Then to the tourist center where they got us in the gate and performed again. Then to The Stand, for more quality drinking, except it was so busy in there, nobody in our group of 30+ went in. It was pretty ridiculous. The 2 actors went in, but everyone in the group stayed outside for the 20min. Then back to The Duke for "the quiz". The tour then goes across the street, but we had to catch a train back to Greystones. So we rushed over there to find out we read the schedule wrong the first time, and we had another half hour. Btw, in the middle of our walk to a pub, we ran into a Bush protest. Quite organized and thousands of people walking down the street with signs, but I must say, we were outraged at one poster that read "9/11, you deserved it". I won't comment further.

JUN 26: Left around 9am to Newgrange. Got there around 1045. We thought we might do both Knowth and Newgrange, but the tour times were lasting too long for us. So we just did Newgrange and the tour was starting within the next half hour. We didn't even really have many people on our tour, I think we got really lucky at most of our attractions, because when we'd be leaving, a ton of tour buses would show up. Newgrange was neat, not a whole lot to it when you go inside, but it's pretty cool. Went over to Trim Castle about 230. Walked around the grounds for a half hour until our tour. Pretty neat castle, stories that were told. I really like castles and ruins, so I could probably see all of them and not get bored. Headed over to Wesport via N4/N5 around 4. Only took us 3hrs to get there. Like I said, we were able to average higher speeds than seems typical.
Arrived at Glenderan BB and drove into the harbour town area. Ate at The Towers, nobody around to seat you or to tell you what's going on. We went in and out of 2 doors a few times and finally someone seated us and we got served. Had the seafood chowder which was good, but the steak burger wasn't much of anything, and our waitress could barely speak English, and again never came back to our table. 3 servers were busy catering to a bachelorette party to be worried about their other customers. We were about to throw something at her to get her attention when we were done.

JUN 27: Galway and Cliffs of Moher.
Left Westport around 9 and went by Croagh Patrick. The center wasn't open yet, and we weren't about to climb it. Took R335 down past Aasleigh Falls, no big deal. Kept on towards Kyelmore Abbey and stopped at the visitor center to buy stuff. I got a really cool glass bowl thing, Connemara glass. I had to restrain myself from candle holders. We didn't take any tours, as we heard the house isn't worth it, and not too interested in the gardens. Went on to Connemara Park, where they have Diamond Hill blocked off due to soil erosion. We walked up one side of the short trail and back down, then to the other side where there was a gate you could go through. We didn't go much further than this. Headed down N59 to R340 and some unnamed road that cut across the little peninsula over to GortMor. Then back up to R338 to N59. The unnamed road had some nice desolate landscape.
Then onto Oughterard down to Galway by 4. As we're driving into Salthill, there were mass amounts of people everywhere!!! We had forgotten the mention of Bob Dylan concert. They had roads blocked off in places, which made it difficult to get to Flannerys BB. But we magically made a circle and took the back way in. No turning around even! Went into Galway city center and parked at some lot near county hall building which closed at 6, so we had to make sure our car was outta there. We walked into the main streets (which we didn't realize how close we were) and first saw G.B.C. Went in and ate. Awesome seafood penne pasta, I highly recommend it. Also had the Humble Crumble apple pie, which was great. Our waitress was really cool too, and actually came back several times. We ended up leaving there at 555pm and I had to sprint the last leg to get into the car lot. Not a fun thing after you just packed your belly.
Since we had gotten into Galway so "early", we decided to go to the Cliffs of Moher. We hadn't planned on there until 2 days later. So it took us an hour to get there, somehow we went thru Doolin cuz the sign was pointing that way, but made a loop right back out onto the road we originally were on. Confusing, but nice little detour. Got to the cliffs around 730 and someone was still taking money for parking (as you leave, not as you enter). However when we left at 930, he was gone, so that was nice free parking. Anywho, I strongly suggest going to the Cliffs around sunset, late evening time. It was fantastic!! I don't think conditions could have been better for this. There were big puffy clouds, but not overcast. The clouds added some drama to the setting sun, and opened up in places so the sun came through. Great weather, windy on the cliffs, but great. Later, it rained for about 3 min, and when we turned around, there was a full rainbow going from field to field (behind the car park). It was amazing. It stayed for a long time too. Another interesting thing was at one point, when the sun shined down onto the water thru the clouds, it made a cross formation. Captured that picture. The Cliffs are amazing. The sun was like a spotlight at times where it would light up the farthest cliff and then slowly highlight closer and closer. Eventually it lit up the entire face. If you walk up the path to the top where the tower is, you see another side of some Cliffs. Amazing there as well. I took about 50pics here (good 'ole digital, can delete some later!) but this was definitely the highlight of our trip. I think the conditions just made it magic, and there really wasn't many people there. I hopped over the fence nearest the car park and walked out onto the platform. No belly crawl for me, as tempting as it was, but took some pictures out there and walked up the path as far as I could go. You get a totally different perspective from that side of the cliffs that the regular path is on (the one you're supposed to stay on!).

Would have waited for the sun to set more, but it was getting chillier, so we headed out on R477 past Black Head. It was a great coast drive, with the sun now much lower across the water. Burren landscape also here, which was really cool. Sun finally sent around 11:15 or so. This was our first time driving after dark, but we were so comfortable driving by now, no big deal.

Had we gone to the Cliffs two day later like we planned, it would have been sucky weather.

JUN 28: Semi-trad bf, and met an English girl who was following Bob Dylan around. Didn't know he was so popular, but I'm not a fan. We originally were going to go to InisMor island first and then do some shopping/walking in Galway, but reversed it when the ferry times didn't work out. And sure glad we did too. It rained all morning in Galway while we did some shopping, but we had heard on the news that the rain was going to hit Dublin in the evening. So, we drove over to Rossaveel around noon, and after hitting some construction delay on the outskirts of Galway thought we'd never make it by 1. Plus, it was still raining. We couldn't see any blue sky out west and I kept questioning whether we should keep going. Well, we did, still no blue sky, and by the time we got to Rossaveel, at 1, it was starting to clear up. The boat musta been waiting for a bus cuz around 120 a ton of people showed up. So by now the skies were clearing up, I'm glad we heard the weather report or we wouldn't have been as confident.
The ride over there was about 45min, and extremely rough. I love boats and water, so the choppiness didn't bother me at all. And let me tell you, even being a big ferry, there was one wave that hit the boat and I thought we were gonna tip! (not realistically but it knocked us out of our seats!). The waves were huge and hard hitting, and the whole trip was like a roller coaster, or when you go over a road hill and it gives you butterflies, that's how it was, constantly.. We were airborn quite a bit. Anywho, by the time we got to InisMor, it was blue skies, and great. I guess it hadn't rained there in 12wks they told us, and were glad to have gotten some rain. We had about 3hrs on the island to catch the 530 back (you had to choose when you bought your ticket in Rossaveel), which I know is not nearly enough. For sake of speed (2hrs to walk to Dun Aengus one way!), we took an eager bus tour guy up, was only 10eu per person to get out to Dun Aengus, 7churches, and drive along the coast road. He dropped us off at DA, and it took about 20min to walk up to it. Quite the rocky climb, I liked it. We got up to the fort, and I headed straight for the edge. Not many people up there yet, but as I got to the edge, I saw someone's head. Yes.. there was a boy (maybe late teens) sitting on the face of the cliff. Not on the edge, where I was standing. He had gone down a few steps and was sitting on a piece jutting out of the face, feet dangling over 200ft drop, just staring out into space. Freaked me out, he looked natural doing it. A bunch of other people showed up as I walked away, and I think they saw him also. I'm not sure if anyone said anything. Maybe should have, maybe not. We were told of a German student who had a large backpack on who leaned over to take a picture and was blown off the edge. I advise you not to lean over the edge (duh), as it was windier up here than it was on the Cliffs of Moher. At the Cliffs, the wind was actually pushing us back, but here, it was trying to pull you out. The landscape up there is neat, burren like again, as it much of the island.
Bus driver came back an hour later and took us over to the "7 churches". Got out for a few minutes and walked around. Then along the coast road as he told us some stories. The entire island is covered in stone walls. It's amazing, yet busy looking, yet still kinda beautiful. I jokingly asked him if there was anywhere to build anymore, and he said "I dunno, we may have taken up all the space!". Think there's only 800 people living there. There's more forts and stuff on the island that we didn't have time for. The place deserves either a full day or an overnight. Back in time for the ferry, the clouds started rolling in again. Back to Galway for dinner and ended up at Quay St. Restaurant. I had the salmon penne pasta (have you noticed I like seafood), which was GREAT. Andrea had the lasagne which she said seemed to be missing some taste. Her banoffi pie was great, while my Pear and Almond tart was just ok. We had tried to eat at McDonoghs but there was a long line and wait.

JUN 29: Last day Left Galway around 930 and headed down N18/N67 to Aillwee Caves. Cloudy day and a bit of rain. (most of our days were great weather, sometimes would rain a bit in the morning but then clear up nicely the rest of the day. Only rained 2 full days while there). Arrived for tour at 1045 and had a small group which was great, since busloads of people showed up when we finished. The tour was neat, neat stories and info, but I guess it could be passed for other things. Interesting story about the guy that discovered it. Since it had recently been raining, there were puddles on one side of the cave, but the other is always dry they say. Left around noon and headed toward Burren. Went down R480 to Poulnabrone Dolmen. (you get a nice little map from the Caves that show some various forts/stops along this road and throught Burren). Then we turned east onto some road near the Caherconnel Fort. Took us thru Carran and the Burren natl park which was nothing spectacular that we saw. Back on R476 and Leamaneh Castle, if we saw correctly it just looks like a run down warehouse? Over to Kilnefora's church, only to find a gravedigger and a closed up church, so we walked around a few minutes and out in the back field to see a high cross. Then somehow took a southwest road, rather than the west road, out of Kilnefora and hit N67 north to Lisdoonvarna. Missed a turn and ended up at a view point we had been to before so knew we had gone too far, just by a few minutes. (the town where the turn seemed to disappear) Back to a road that headed east toward Caherconnel then down the rest of R480. Neat landscape everywhere, the burren. I kept wanting to get out and walk around. But I'm wondering if we missed some of the best landscape by not going into the northwest portions, where they say some good walks from Fanore.
Then headed toward Ennis, and like dummies, tried calling the Bunratty Irish Night to see if they had spaces for that nite. No go for anything. We kept thinking about calling sooner, but just never seemed to actually do it. Stopped at Ennis Friary. Here's where we finally figured out the disc parking, not that we really tried before, but we more or less were forced to now. Walked into a flower shop that said "we sell discs here", and got our little scratch off card. Walked around the friary for a bit and headed down toward Dromoland Castle. Drove in there and felt like we shoulda been on a golf cart. Neat place, don't know much about it except that it's a hotel. Think this is where Bush stayed. Made it to Bunratty by 430, but ended up driving right thru it in about 20sec, and right back out onto N18. Didn't know you had no choice if you didn't turn on that first road! Plus, the road going past the castle looked like just an entrance to the place. G's. So back on the N18, no turn around, kept going until exit for Sixmilebridge. There was, of course, a detour on this road, so we took that and ended up turning left off the detour. By magic, we ran into a sign that said Low Road, left. Turned and 5min later, there was Dunaree, as I exclaimed, "Dunaree, Dunaree" as Andrea kept on driving saying Where Where?. Had to be there. Awesome BB.
Walked into town (shoulda drove, but oh well) and went into Blarney Woollen Mills and bought more stuff. Ate at Kathleens and since nobody came out we just sat down. We had a relatively dopey waiter, for various reasons. He'd know we were impatiently waiting for him to come over, look right at us, and then he'd almost get there and he'd turn around and go do something else. When I said I wasn't ready to order yet (after 2min of sitting down) he didn't come back for 10+min. I dunno. Frustrating for us because it's different that what we're used to, if this is indeed their typical behavior. Finally got served and had the seafood chowder to start (not much there for your money and just ok), and the chicken fillet with dressing (was early bird). Was ok, but the profiterolls were awesome (yes I had dessert with every meal!) We had thought about staying, since we heard there was music later, but so tired and had to pack for flight tomorrow.

JUN 30: Leaving Ireland. Breakfast awesome, French toast was supposed to
have fruit, but ended up with bacon and tomato. Andrea had the fruit and there was tons! All cut up cutely, and yum. (I ate a few pieces). There was melon, orange, kiwi, banana, and something else I think, all on her plate!
Packing was a nightmare the night before. I didn't think I had bought that much stuff, but I had packed and repacked numerous times. I ended up with two carryons this time vs one on the way there. Dropped off the Hertz car (different than picking it up) and as the guy tried to have me sign the agreement, I said, what are you going to do to compensate me for the unfull tank of gas? We had just filled it up the night before, but being stubborn, I wasn't about to pay for ? tank that wasn't there to begin with. (we forgot about that when filling it up). So he figured something out (after being suspicious) and gave me 10eu off. Better than nothing. But the guy in Wexford also didn't charge me for the Grinder's empty tank when we traded cars. So we got a decent deal even with the minor hassles of the Grinder and such. Everything at the airport was easy, VAT forms, security, etc. Wasn't a busy place until later. Exchanged money and I think the exchange rate had gone done since we left (1.22 to 1.17), even though they were buying at 1.25 still. Bought some brown bread with some leftover change. Yum.

The bluest waters that we saw were when we drove the Sky Road near Clifden, and down at Mizen head. Amazing. I think I forgot to mention our drive on Sky Road, but that was such an awesome blue sky day, and great scenery out on the waters.

That's it. In total, I think I ended up with 630 pictures, and we drove 1670 miles.