Traveling

11 full days of exploring the Irish countryside are in the books, and while we’re flying home I wanted to reflect on our fun times here and offer my list of the six things that I’ll miss most about this amazing country.

6. The Hospitality

When we were on our Music Pub Crawl, the host joked that “Irish people aren’t friendly, they’re nosy.”, saying that they reason they make conversation is to figure out where you came from and when you’re going to leave – but the people here couldn’t be more hospitable. In a region with countries that are notorious for not taking kindly to Americans, there was never a moment where we didn’t feel welcome.  I had even had perfect strangers saying hello to me in the bathroom.  People were always happy to answer our questions and make conversation with us. The Irish have definitely earned their reputation for friendliness and warmth.

5. The Accents

Irish accents have to be one of the coolest accents around.  They are always so soothing and rhythmic. I could go on listening to people with that accent for hours. Even them reading the daily lunch specials sounded like a beautiful poem. I’m going to miss the joy in just hearing the way the Irish talk.

4. The Heritage

As a student of history, when we go to the East Coast, I marvel at the heritage that exists in some of our 300 year old buildings, but there’s something to be said to be inside structures that are nearly 1,000 years old.  There’s something to be said with the way Europe is able to preserve their history. I think unfortunately, much of the pre-US history has been lost by our sins against the Native Americans, as well as our culture propensity to tear down and rebuild aged structures. One of the things I enjoyed was standing in these old places and putting myself in the thoughts of the people who built it and who used these structures each day. 

3. The Green

The weather in Ireland would equate best to Seattle. It rains pretty much every day and with it everything is green and lively. There is vegetation growing all over the place, covering buildings, creating tunnels around roads and creating a beautiful pallet of color for the country.

2. Teach Ai Bhrian

As you typically do on vacation, we ate dinner at restaurants pretty much each night, and instead of taking opportunities to try new places, we chose to come back to this place two more times – the food was just that amazing. We stumbled on this place accidentally, as we wanted to try the pub in the closest town to us. When we walked into that place it turned out they didn’t serve food, but recommended this place 5 minutes down the road. We had no idea what to expect walking in, but were blown away. Each time we went back and tried something differently and it was better than the last. If we ever make it back to Ireland, we’re definitely going to mix in some meals back at this place.

1. Guinness.

Anyone who has had Guinness in Ireland will tell you that it’s just not the same in the States. Before I came here, I was not a big Guinness drinker, but something about drinking this beer in Ireland – whether it’s the scenery, the freshness, the fact that you’re on vacation – it’s just different here.  Guinness in Ireland tastes great, but it’s even better when you’re drinking it in Dublin, and especially from that fresh tap at the Brewery.  In terms of national brand and a love affair with a drink, we have nothing like that in the States. People don’t have the large-scale affinity for Budweiser the same way they do Guinness.  For the record I did try a few other beers while out here, but I kept going back to Guinness. I know it’s funny to put a beer at the top of my list, but I think that experience around enjoying a good beer – being with friends, not having anything to worry about – is what really makes the experience.

Tuesday was essentially our last day in Ireland, as our flight was early Wednesday morning – but the last day of travel is always an interesting one.  My family can probably relate when we’ve gone on those Vegas trips and booked a late-day flight thinking “This will be great! We’ll give our selves some extra time to enjoy Vegas!” Then that last day rolls around and you find yourself wasting that day with anticipation, boredom and just eager about traveling home.   This last day in Ireland felt very much like that. It’s funny how not having a home-base anymore really changes your mindset about your travels.  Still, it was a fun day and I think we did make the most of it.

Given that the four of us had our four large suitcases (plus all the tech crap I take on trips that inflates my backpack), we didn’t want to drive far, so we stayed in County Clare and by Shannon (our airport city).  We started our day in Limerick, in hopes that we could do some shopping. While LImerick is really pretty, the streets we walked consisted mainly of shops that would be found back at home, offering us little that was unique.  After about an hour in Limerick we headed over to Bunratty Castle for the afternoon.

Located about 10 minutes from Limerick, Bunratty Castle was originally built in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 15th century in it’s restored form.  It ended up getting restored into a museum/exhibit of sorts. There’s the castle itself, but there is also a surrounding mock village, that has been restored to show what the village would be like. I think the best comparison in the US would be a renaissance festival with no people or merchants – more authentic. There were many groups of kids that were on field trips, as well as tourists all over the place.

The castle itself was neat. It was like the Blarney Castle, but with more restoration (and thus seemed more modern), but wasn’t as modern as the Kilkenny Castle (which if you remember disappointed us for this reason).  They allowed photography in the castle, but you were not permitted to use a flash, which is why some of these pictures are dark.

There were the circular stone stairways, like Blarney Castle, but Bunratty had put in some better railing.

You could climb the stairs to the various rooms around the castle, or go to the top, which I think was about 6 stories tall.

I was just amazed at the vast size of the place. When you first went in, you climbed what seemed like 2 stories, only to walk into this vast room that sat inside the castle. Look at this room below and then imagine this sitting on top of another room that was equally big (I took this picture from a little window in one of the surrounding rooms in the castle).

In the surrounding “village” there were various replica homes of people who lived in that time. They had a home for farmers, fishermen, and land-less servants.  In one home, I loved how they still had little lofts, making the best use of their small space.

I also love this early version of the hide-a-bed. It makes you wonder if they were ever comfortable to sleep in.

Bunratty also had this little recreation of the village as well, showing off some of the stores that may have existed in that era. We of course checked out the bar, as well as the schoolhouse.

Bunratty also had some of the various animals as well. Our favorite ones were the little miniature pony. I found a baby miniature pony, which was really cute.

One of our favorite spots was by the old Mill House, which had a nice miniature waterfall right next to it. We found an opportunity for another nice picture moment, squeezed in between the times when kids were playing next to it.

Overall Bunratty was a great final day activity. It definitely was not my favorite castle on the trip, but after seeing fantastic ruins like Blarney and The Rock of Cashel, this was a really nice middle-of-the-road attraction.  In the end we spent nearly four hours at Bunratty.

We ended up checking into our hotel and then having our last meal in Ireland at a place called Gallagher’s. The food was fantastic, as I took my last opportunity to enjoy fresh fish and fresh Guinness. Our hotel in Shannon was really nice, although the anticipation of the plane trip home made it difficult to sleep.    We got to our flight back to New York with no problems, as I am actually writing this blog post on the plane.

Today we fell into the Ring of Kerry, which is basically a tourist driving trail along County Kerry, which is in the southwest part of Ireland. We actually didn’t drive the entire Ring, as to do so would have taken upwards of 5-6 hours. However, we started on the ring, which took us through Killarney National Park.

Our day started by driving through Adare, which was a pretty sleepy little town on our way to the Ring. We walked around and explored the town, and stumbled on The Old Creamery Company building, which has been turned into a store which is like weird love-child of Fort Collins’ Perennial Gardner with a random toystore and a Christmas store.  It made for some interesting pictures, and we walked away with a box of fudge.

Bethany modeling a hat in the Creamery Company

This store had everything, including some evil-looking nome dolls

In the middle of Adare was a really pretty Town Park, which had some lovely views of greenery, including a nice arch that made for some great pictures.

After Adare we headed up into the Ring, heading into Killarney National Park. To be honest, if you live in Colorado, this isn’t anything you haven’t seen before.  The sights, while pretty, did seem pretty similar to other mountain and valley ranges that you’ve seen. Nonetheless, the pictures were nice.

We stopped and ate lunch at a viewing point called Ladies View.

We went onto the first stop in the Ring, a town called Kenmare. Again, it is a smaller typical Irish town, but did make for some nice shopping and sightseeing.  At that point we had learned that the next stretch of the Ring, while only 15 kilometers long, would take about 90 minutes to drive. We figured that would be a nice opportunity to turn around and see the Torc Waterfall.

Arriving at the falls, we really thought that we had been had by our Colorado expectations, seeing a small dropping in the creek that appeared to be the falls.

However, we walked a little further up and saw the real falls, which made the short diversion worth it.

After a day full of driving we made a guilty pleasure and stopped at what’s become our favorite restaurant: Teach Ai Bhrain, which we were told translated is “House of O’Brian”. We stopped there for the first time a few nights ago, and the food was so amazing that we’ve looked for any excuse to go back. The food was fantastic, but eating out for dinner every night is taking its toll, I’m ready for the gym when we head back.

Tonight is our last night at the East Clare Golf Village. We will be staying at a hotel closer to the airport in Shannon tomorrow night, as we leave on Wednesday morning.  Right now the plan for Tuesday is to explore Limerick a little more and perhaps some of the surrounding area, but mainly to prepare for the trip home.  I’ll try to make a post tomorrow night if time allows, but it may be short.