Ireland

And a couple of days in Scotland

18.09.2017 - 01.10.2017 12 °C

Day 1 (in Ireland). Monday Sept 18, 2017

Doug arrived the day prior but I figured he would be jet lagged so I stayed in Italy and extra day. I arrived at the hotel in Dublin and waited in the room for him to return from exploring. I was so surprised how expensive Dublin was when looking at rooms to book. Holy cow. We ended up with The Ripley Court hotel, double private bath, for 240E two nights. It was just fine. It also included a large English breakfast.
We went out for Thai food at a restaurant close by after Doug returned. He was disappointed as he wanted to go to the Museum but it was closed on Mondays.

Day 2 we made our way back to the airport by bus to pick up our rental car. We chose Budget booked on Expedia, for $114 CDN for the week and used our insurance from our ICBC at home and also the VISA card insurance. Quite a bargain really.

Heading East on the highway was not very exciting, but we wanted to get to Spiddal for our first night. The weather was rainy and not great, but we arrived at the coastal town around 5PM. Our little BandB, An Caladh Gearr Thatch cottage was so cute. The owner was a very charming friendly and helpful woman. We were greeted with some delicious scones and tea before being shown to our room She wanted to know what we wanted to do and would help with advice as much as she could. Doug and I had not booked any more rooms for this week, we are just going to see where we end up, but she gave us some great ideas. 78 Euros a night and a massive breakfast included. Irish breakfast are huge. We saw this outdoor laundromat which we thought was unique.

Day 3. We decided to head south now. Still a rainy windy day. We stopped at Dunguaire castle and also Poulnaborne Dolmen and the Cliffs of Moher.

We made our way down to Kilkee where we found a cute little BnB for the night in the countryside

Day 4

The cliffs around Kilkee rivalled Moher and we loved exploring this area. We took the ferry across to the Dingle Peninsula and found a BnB on the main drag for two nights. We really liked Dingle as well. There are more pubs than people here. The weather was great the first day so we explored the Dingle peninsula which was beautiful. At night we ate at the pubs, met some nice young people and listened to local Irish music.

Day 5. A very wet and rainy day. We did a bit of exploring but glad we did our drive yesterday. A small museum was close by and we spent some time there

Day 6.
Today we headed to Killarney as Doug wanted to see Ross Castle, wondering if it might be part of his heritage, but turned out not to be. Muckross is just outside Killarney and I was lucky to secure a BnB for two nights at the Friar Glens by far our favourite place on this trip. It was right outside the park and the red deer were so big with massive antlers I was sure they must have been elk. The hosts were fantastic, an outstanding breakfast (baileys irish cream on our oatmeal) and the grounds were superb. I felt like I was in the Queens country get away.

Day 8 and 9 were spent exploring Muckross. Across the road was the old abby which was amazing and then we walked along a country road to get to the park and explore the castle and grounds.

I was so tired after a day of walking about that we hired this horse and carriage to take us back to the car. Money well spent.

We did two drives out to Ladies View. We decided not to do the full Ring of Kerry as the Dingle peninsula was so gorgeous . They had a great little restaurant at the viewpoint where we had soup twice. We find that Ireland has wonderful soups, and all are vegetarian too.

A BnB from the 1800s was our home tonight, Abby House, across the road from the Jerpoint Abby. For dinner we went into town of Jerpoint to a new Indian Restaurant which had amazing food. Our room was very old, quaint and charming.

Day 11

Doug had fresh caught trout for breakfast. The included breakfasts in Ireland are amazing. We explored the old mill on site and then walked across the street to the Abby. It was amazing. We are so glad we stumbled on this quite by accident. The best kind of travels.

Our last stop in Ireland was in Aughrim, county Wicklow. A very old BNB called Clone House from the 1600s. The new owners are from the US and they are spending a lot of time and money renovating this gorgeous home.
We had been to Wicklow in the early 80s as a newly married couple and so it was exciting to see if how we remembered it was the same or not. The main attraction here is the ruins at Glendalough . We explore upon arrival which I am so glad we did as it was not raining and the weather was actually quite pleasant.

Day 12. Miserable windy rainy day. The worst one yet. We just hung around in the living room reading for most of the morning and then ventured into town to find some lunch. A very low key day on our last one in Ireland.

SCOTLAND

Thursday September 28, 2017. Up early to drive to Dublin to drop off the car and fly to Edinburg. We arrived at 1:45PM and took the bus into the main part of Princess Street to our rented apartment Inner City Lets. We chose a two bedroom apartment right in the centre of everything. Edinburgh is incredibly expensive for us, 337 GBP for two nights seemed like a lot for what we got, and that was a good deal. Doug and I explored the streets and found a middle eastern restaurant for dinner. We realized it was the same one we ate at ten years earlier when we were there.

Reese flew in from Krakow Poland and arrived at midnight.

Day 14. Breakfast in the apartment and then out to join a walking tour of Edinburgh which was enjoyable. We had some wonderful vegetarian meals and did a lot of walking and sight seeing.