ireland - day 4

day 4 began with a lovely breakfast at carriglea from our hostess, josephine. both my husband and i had some bacon and eggs with our fruit and breads. at this point, it bears mentioning that irish bacon is different from american bacon. in ireland, bacon is really just a fried slice of ham. and it's delicious! i really miss my irish bacon.

while in kilkenny for the morning, we visited kilkenny castle and st. canice's cathedral. the castle is a huge and fun building, but i was slightly disappointed at the period depicted in the restored interiors. of course, since it was an occupied castle for so long, i understand, but still - i love the older history. now, st. canice's cathedral was one of the favorite places we visited on our travels. the staff were very sweet and helpful. and for the better part of our visit, my husband and i were the only two people on the church grounds. we climbed the round tower, an idea i had initially balked at as someone who suffers from slights fears of tightly enclosed spaces and heights. but the views were great and the climb wasn't too bad.



after climbing the round tower, we spent some time touring the interior of the cathedral. there are many great carving and tombs that i loved exploring. i was also amused by the push for a presidential visit from barack obama given that apparently one of his ancestors is buried in the church. all in all, st. canice's is definitely worth some of your time if you are in kilkenny. after visiting the cathedral, we did a little early christmas shopping before hopping back into our trusty fiat and heading out to cashel.

we visited the rock of cashel which has some truly spectacular ruins of a medieval cathedral and surrounding buildings.
there's just something about the stone, mossy ruins with missing windows and roofs that is both eerie and beautiful. we wandered around on our own for about 30 mintues before catching the tour of the property, which i highly recommend to put the ruins in perspective.

after visiting the rock, we headed for cahir castle. this was another of my favorite sites that we visited. cahir castle is very large and has lots of buildings and towers to climb and explore. we opted not to do the guided tour here and instead explored on our own. there are some great examples of defensive castle features here as well.


after such a busy sightseeing day, we headed to our b&b in lismore, the glencairn inn. our host (and chef) stephane, greeted us warmly and showed us to our lovely room. our reservation included dinner in the home's restaurant, pastis, and i can highly recommend this, if you're in the area. we dined by a crackling fire, with our hostess fiona, serving up stephane's great french fare. my husband had a steak frite and a chocolate dessert and enjoyed some potato soup along with the coq au vin before indulging in an apple tart. it was a filling and enjoyable meal and soon we were full and heading to bed.

ireland - day 3

ahhhh - day 3 - driving day!

we were up early to grab a quick breakfast at the hotel and hop on the hotel shuttle bus to head to dublin airport. we arrived at the airport and prompty stood in line for over an hour to get our rental car. we had rented ahead of time with dan dooley and we had no complaints with our experience. everything went pretty smoothly. we eventually got the keys to the car and ventured out into the wild green yonder.
<
our first stop outside of dublin, was powerscourt gardens in county wicklow. it took us about 45 minutes to reach powerscourt. we didn't tour the house, but spent a good hour walking around the grounds. there are some lovely gardens and views here. i was a huge fan of the japanese gardens and the cove that looks like it's covered in moss that's really covered in tiny clover. very cool. we were also amused by the pet cemetery on the property. there are actual, large tombstones for the cows, horses, and dogs that the family owned. as we were leaving, we stopped in the avoca store and picked up a couple of ham sandwiches and a box of yummy looking cupcakes to go. all were delicious!

from powerscourt, it was another 45 minute drive to glendalough. glendalough is a huge gorgeous area and i would love to go back another time and spend a day or two just doing some hiking and walking around. on this trip however, we spent a couple of hours touring the monastic ruins by the lakes. loads of great pics from here!


after our fill of glendalough's ruins, we were on to kilkenny. we arrived at our b&b, carriglea, around 5:30, checked-in, and headed out to walk around the town a bit before dinner. i have to say that i loved kilkenny. it's such a great little town. i will definitely put it on my list to return to on our next trip to ireland. carriglea is perfectly located right across the street from kilkenny castle, so we headed over to the castle park and walked a bit, taking pictures of the castle. we headed further into town, taking some exterior pictures of st. canice's cathedral, the black abbey, and a few other places. eventually we stopped for dinner at kyteler's inn (yes, the old witch's house) and had a great dinner (complete with our first harp's beer). by the end of dinner, it was time to turn in so we'd be rested for our next day's adventures.



here i would like to interject just a couple of important points.
1. the heritage island touring guide. most people know about the heritage cards that you can purchase for around 21 euros that will get you into public works sites, however, i'd like to plug the heritage island touring guidebook that is only 6 euros and offers discounts throughout the country as well. we saved a ton of money with the discounted admissions and two-for-one deals. it earned its price many times over.
2. driving in ireland. remembering to stay on the left isn't nearly as difficult as i had imagined it would be. (although it's easy for me to say this, as my wonderful husband was the one who did all of the driving, ha). the trickiest part of irish driving is the state of some of the roads. there are some TINY roads in ireland and you really need to take your time and be mindful of oncoming traffic. also, i would add that a GPS system is invaluable if you are traveling by car. we purchased the irish maps for our own garmin and took it with us. we also had the ordinance survey road atlas for ireland along with driving directions printed from aa roadwatch. (what can i say? i was determined not to get lost.) while our gps did take us on some, shall we say, adventurous? routes, it was a needed tool and shaved quite a bit of time off the estimated times i had from the aa roadwatch site.

ireland, day two

ahhhhh, the dawn of a new day on the emerald isle! we were up at a decent hour and ready to set out for some new exploring of ireland's capital city today. breakfast at the hotel- it was decent enough, just overpriced. (however, we did get a deal this morning since the family in front of us couldn't make up their minds about whether they wanted full irish or just continental, so the staffer offered them a coupon for either for a cheaper price, and since we had overheard him, he gave us the deal as well-- i swear, i didn't even ask for it, ha!)

first on the agenda this morning was the book of kells, so after breakfast we headed over to trinity college. beautiful buildings. and my husband was fascinated by some sort of solar powered trash/recycling receptacle... men. anyhoo, really enjoyed seeing the exhibits in the long hall. again, me and old books can't go wrong. :) it's too bad you can't take photos of the library-- it's just so lovely. and the crowd wasn't too bad either. there were a ton of people right as you walk in, in the area talking about the book of kells but as you passed thru the doorways, no one was actually in the room looking at the pages of book itself. pretty cool to have some alone time with major sites (which would be a major recurrance on this trip.)

after seeing the long room, we hopped on the good ol' hop on/hop off bus and rode out to kilmainham gaol. this was a really interesting place to visit. our tour guide was very informative and great to listen to. i'm the first to admit that while i know a fair amount about irish history pre-1600, the modern history is not my strong suit. this was definitely the place to learn about that though. my husband really enjoyed seeing the architecture and learning the history of the uprising here as well.


once we had completed our tour at kilmainham (including the museum, which is certainly worth a look while you're there), we headed to what turned out to be my favorite place in dublin - st. michan's church. we got to st. michan's at the tail end of the lunch break, so we walked around outside of the church taking a few pictures before we could get in for the tour of the crypts. once we did get in, it was just myself, my husband, and a gentleman from australia off to visit st. michan's mummies. the tour guide was kitschy and hilarious, and fairly informative. seeing the actual mummies was pretty cool too -- not to mention the fact that we got to molest the crusading knight, ::ahem::.


after st. michan's, we headed back across the liffey and did a little shopping and walking around in the city center. after walking around for a bit, we realized we still had some time before dinner, so we decided to head over to christchurch catheral. this site has such a wonderful history and the building has some amazing architectural details.


for dinner, we decided to eat in temple bar and found gallagher's boxty house. the food and service were both excellent. we also enjoyed some fine murphy's stout and live music. after dinner, we bought tickets for the ghostbus and headed out for some spooky fun. (i know, i know... more kitsch, but hey- we'd already played with mummies that day, why not??) the ghostbus is perhaps a little overpriced for what it is, but we did have fun and got lots of orbs/dust in our photos (any other ghosthunter fans out there?!?)


after the ghost tour ended, we walked back to the hotel and headed for bed. however, sleep was not easy. i was nervous. what can i say? day 3 was ::dun, dun, dun:: driving day...

to be continued...

Ireland, Day One

adventures in ireland with the husband, part one:
after our red-eye flight from philly, we landed in dublin about a half-hour early, around 8:15 a.m. local time. irish customs was pretty easy and we were ready to leave the airport before 9:30. i think the longest time spent was waiting for the luggage, ha. we also took the time to find where the car rental desk was so we'd know on thursday and went ahead and pulled some euro from an atm.

after some confusion over which bus was the free hotel shuttle bus, we ended up just taking the aircoach bus into city center. we got off about 2 blocks from the hotel and had no trouble finding it. being so early, we couldn't check-in, but we did drop off luggage and set out to explore the city.

the first place we walked to was dublin castle. we didn't do a tour of the offices inside, just snapped a few pics of the exterior and then went to the chester beatty museum for a bit. i collect old manuscripts myself, so it was really interesting to see the works on display there.

after seeing the chester beatty, we headed out to find the whitefriar st. carmelite church. the church itself is a little underwhelming, but i was really just interested in seeing st. valentine's relics. with that checked on the itinerary, we headed over to st. patrick's cathedral. gorgeous park! we explored the cathedral, but we were really starting to feel the jet lag at this point, so probably didn't give it as much attention as we should have.


feeling the jet lag, and by this point extreme hunger, we decided that we really needed to eat. we were a little late on lunch service and of course while we had noticed a ton of restaurants on our way to the previous sites, we couldn't find anything as we walked around actually looking for food. ha- isn't that always the case? you can find tons of whathaveyou when you're not really looking for it, but when you decide you need the whathaveyou... too bad, none to be found! it probably didn't help that patrick and i were getting slightly snippy with each other at this point. we finally managed to find a bistro (copper alley) and ate there. didn't realize until we were seated that it was the bistro for one of the hotels we had looked at staying at, but ah well. the food was just ok, but it was much need sustinance.

after our belated lunch, we found st. audeon's church on the way back to the hotel. this was actually one of my favorite sites in dublin. i really loved how they've managed to showcase the older parts of the church and tell its history. after st. audeon's, we returned to the hotel to officially check-in and relax for a bit. of course after a few minutes of lying around on the bed, we realized that if we didn't do something, we were going to be asleep at like 5 p.m. and that would really not be good for getting us on ireland time! sooo... we decided to make a loop on the hop on/hop off bus. we had planned on taking the bus the next day anyway and since tickets are good for 24 hours, we went ahead and rode the last loop of the day. i have to say that i loved the hop on/hop off bus. we had one with live commentary (as opposed to one we took later with the recorded loop) and it was great fun.


after orienting ourselves a little better with the city (thanks ho/ho bus!), we had dinner at an italian restaurant, pasta fresca, where we could sit outside and enjoy the lovely evening. we both really enjoyed our food and the service was great. after dinner, it was back to the hotel to turn in for an early night. --- and speaking of hotel-- in dublin, we stayed at the trinity capital hotel right across the street from trinity college. it's a great location and the hotel is pretty decent. i loved the gaudy decor. i will say that i probably wouldn't want to stay here in the summer tho, because our room was insanely hot upon arrival. it eventually cooled down with the window open and the fan we borrowed from the front desk, but i would have been miserable if it had been any warmer out.

next up, part two -- dublin, redux

d.c.

special notes on traveling to d.c.

1. don't use your car once you get to the city. the city has a great metro system that is easy to use and safe. seriously, you don't want to deal with the traffic.

2. you can stay for cheaper outside the district. just make sure you're near a metro stop. i'm partial to the crystal city/pentagon city area myself.

3. some general site seeing activities:
--the monuments. there are tours that take you around the national mall monuments, but it's really just as easy and satisfying to do your own walking tour. especially in the late evening. again, very safe area, and it's a good stroll all the way around hitting the washington monument, jefferson memorial, roosevelt monument, lincoln memorial, vietnam memorial, etc but it's not too long.
--the smithsonians. first, natural history - in my opinion a must. and to do it justice you need maybe 4 hours. i know some people just pick 1 or 2 exhibits and see those instead of the whole museum but by doing this, you really miss out. second, american history, can be done in 2 hours. some interesting exhibits for those who enjoy seeing strands of our nation's past. third, air and space. probably my least favorite, but then again, i'm not big into mechanical things. next trip, i intend to hit up the american indian museum. udvar-hazy - again, if you like looking at planes, you'll enjoy. myself...ehhh. national gallery of art - love. see what special exhibits are being shown in the west building. last time i was there, it was art and sculpture from pompeii. awesome. the permanent exhibitions are in the east building. and there's a great cafe between the two (underground).
--the holocaust museum. definitely worth a visit, though it's very thought provoking so make sure your children are age appropriate. it's very moving to see the stories throughout the the museum.
--arlington national cemetary. lots of walking, but a great place to visit. see the change of the guard at the grave of the unknown soldier and make the trek up to the lee mansion where you can get an oustanding view of the city from l'enfant's grave.
--national cathedral (shrine of immaculate conception). great for architecture lovers. certainly worth a visit.
--spend an afternoon walking around one of d.c.'s great neighborhoods. georgetown and old town alexandria are two top choices. both have lots of shops, great restaurants, and gorgeous townhomes to drool over.

T- 2 months and counting

Since we are less than 2 months away from the big Ireland trip, I thought I would post the projected itinerary just for fun.

--flights leave Roanoke on Monday afternoon, redeye to Dublin, arriving Tuesday morning

Tues: sightsee in Dublin
Wed: sightsee in Dublin
Thurs: grab rental car and hit Powerscourt Gardens and Glendalough on the way to Kilkenny
Fri: sightsee in Kilkenny, visit the Rock of Cashel and Cahir Castle on the way to Lismore (in Waterford Co.)
Sat: head out to Ardmore and Blarney before staying the night in Kinsale
Sun: visit the Drombeg stone circle on the way to Mizen Head then on to Tralee
Mon: drive around the Dingle Peninsula, overnight in Newmarket-on-Fergus
Tues: visit a few last castles and the Cliffs of Moher, before overnighting in Newmarket-on-Fergus again
Wed: fly home ::sniffle::

mexico: more specifically, the riviera maya

we vacationed in the riviera maya area of mexico about 2 years ago and loved it! we stayed at the aventura spa palace which was a lovely resort and we had a fantastic experience there. however, since our vacation, the resort, previously adult-only, has changed over and now allows families on one half of the property. as we have not returned since the "split" i can't comment on how the new set-up has affected the resort over all.

however, i can tell you that if you are in the area, you should absolutely go to visit some of the mayan ruins. they are spectacular! but be aware, the only ones you can still climb (as of today) are at coban. below are a few pictures of some ruins at tulum and chichen itza. both of which i highly recommend. tulum is on the coast, a late mayan city which is smaller, more compact. it also has a great beach down from the cliff. chichen itza is completely different. it's in the middle of the jungle, vast, has the huge pyramid, and was built during the height of the mayan civilization. both are certainly worth a look.


chichen itza:

tulum: