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We have spotty wi-fi in Ireland so I'm going to summarize the country in one post….which is a tall order. We took a train from London to Holyhead, Wales where our ferry was awaiting us. The train ride was pretty. We saw a few castles and a rainbow over the ocean. I have a couple of pictures of it, but we were moving pretty fast so they are a little blurry. Our speed ferry was cancelled due to rough weather, so we took a longer ferry that holds 500 cars and 900 people. The boat was huge. There were several floors, a restaurant and a movie theater among other things. The water and wind were so rough…15 to 20 foot waves, that regardless of the size of the ferry, you could not walk straight on it. I stood up to go to the bathroom and ended up walking sideways to a railing around the restaurant eating area. If was really, really rough. You could feel the wind hitting the boat and from time to time you would hear a big boom from the waves hitting the front of the ferry. Plates were sliding in the kitchen of the restaurant and breaking. It was madness. This went on for the duration of the ferry ride, which was around 3.5 hours. And neither of us got sick. I even managed to read a little bit during the craziness.
After the ferry docked we were sniffed by a bomb detecting dog and put on a bus that would take us to City Centre in Dublin. They were playing the Cranberries on the radio…which was pretty damn cliché. The winds still hadn't completely died down and it was freezing! We ran to the first restaurant we could find and had some tasty soup. We took a cab to our hotel and settled in. Our room was weird. It was in the back of a bed and breakfast and you had to go outside and walk through a garden to get to it. The key to the room was a big skeleton key and the beds were insanely hard. The owners are incredibly nice and, even though we slept a little late, they made us some breakfast and coffee. They had a really sweet dog named Suzie who came in and ate breakfast with us. I needed a dog fix.
Day 1 was jam-packed. We took a bus into City Centre and bought tickets for a hop on/hop off bus, which drops you at touristy locations and then you can just grab the next bus when it comes around. These are some of the things we saw:
· Tour of Kilmainham Gaol
· Tour of Guinness Factory
· Some light shopping on Grafton Street
· Lots of pubs
· Christ Church Cathedral
· St. Stevens Green
· River Liffy
· Famine Statues
· Dublin Castle
· Trinity College
· Temple Bar
· St. Patricks Cathedral
· Dublin Ghost Bus Tour
The Ghost Bus Tour was fun. You take a bus out at night and hear various stories about haunted Dublin. You get out of the bus at one point for a 15-minute break at Darkey Kelly's Pub and then take a nighttime walk around some haunted areas of Dublin. The guide was really funny and it was a good time. We went back to the hotel and crashed.
The next morning we had breakfast at the B&B - I love poached eggs apparently, packed our stuff, took the bus into City Centre to see some things we had missed and then took a taxi to the Dublin airport to retrieve our rental car….which I have named Tiny. It's a manual but Scott has been doing well driving it on the wrong side of the road. We drove across Ireland to the West Coast and spent the night in a town called Ennis in a charming old hotel. The town itself is adorable. Picturesque little Irish town. We had a delicious dinner at a pub up the street, slept, had breakfast at the hotel and then packed and headed to the Cliffs of Moher. The drive was pretty scenic. The cliffs themselves were really lovely, but good god was it windy and cold. We didn't stick around too long. Then we drove to the coast where we took a car ferry to Kerry, Ireland. We stopped along the way to see a graveyard and the ruins of an old castle. We arrived at our hotel in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. This place is amazing. It is a castle, albeit not a very big one. The grounds are lovely with that lush green grass that grows all over Ireland. They have two dogs, Arthur and Einstein. Our room is insane, though a bit daunting. The place is also reportedly haunted by a woman named Hilda…go figure.
We took a stroll around the property and visited the donkeys before heading to the bar for dinner. Einstein hung out with us while we ate. Food here is delicious! Really, really good. Tomorrow we drive to Rosslare, Ireland to take the overnight ferry to Cherbourg, France. We are going to do a lot of site seeing in the meantime. I hope to upload some pictures soon, but our wireless connection is subpar and I don't know if I'll be able to do it.
Ireland is very lovely and the people here are super nice. There are parts of it that we have visited where I don't think I've ever felt so isolated. It's been cloudy for the most part but it doesn't take away from the pretty and stark landscape. We like Dublin better than London. So far Paris is the winner, with Dublin and London bringing up the rear.
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Shirley ( Momma Wilkin) We are so glad you are having a good time in Ireland, it sounds so pretty. That sounds like a country I would like to see. That was strange about the ghost named Hilda ... is she looking after you ?? By the way , Tanya has gotten Skype going on this computer ,, which by the way is awesome...Love Momma Wilkin