Ireland Recap - Dublin to Kilkenny

September 7

We woke up early and after showering, packed our bags and headed out to find some breakfast to enjoy on a walk of St. Stephen’s Green. To be honest, it was a harried morning, but it was nice to rest while enjoying some porridge and coffee in the park – where the busy city professionals were scurrying on their way to work, and stargazed tourists walked through leisurely. It was a treat to enjoy breakfast with the ducks, geese and swans on the pond, and for the first time in Ireland, it wasn’t raining!

St. Stephen's Green

Unfortunately, our relaxing time at St. Stephen’s Green came to an end quickly, and after a short stop for souveniors at Carole’s Gifts and Souveniors, we headed back to our hotel to check out and go pick up our rental car for the rest of our visit. Fortunately, the lady at the front desk of our hotel encouraged us (and made the necessary phone calls) to change our pick-up location to one just a few blocks away, instead of much further away at the airport, so we were finally on our way by around 11:00am.



It was pretty crazy for Mark, trying to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road, and with such minimal road signs that you would wonder how anyone gets where they are going. And unfortunately, the signage didn’t improve on the trip, which was highly frustrating. There were many raised voices, mainly yelling at the country itself for having such horrible signs, and such strangely-constructed roads and streets, but we made it to every destination we intended to.

Bray

Shortly after getting out of the main hustle and bustle of Dublin, we pulled along the small town of Bray and enjoyed some fresh fish and chips from a small shop, Cassoni's Fish and Chips, nearby. We spent a good hour there, which we later regretted, but enjoyed the time we spent there.

Powerscourt House and Gardens

After our pitstop in Bray, we continued on to Enniskerry to visit the Powerscourt House and Gardens, which were simply breathtaking! In fact, we had a pretty pressing schedule such that we were only able to spend a little over an hour and a half there, and we wished we had much more time!

Glendalough Monastic Ruins

After the Powerscourt House and Gardens, and a bit of a directional mess up (again – those dumb road signs), we made our way to visit the monastic ruins at Glendalough – a definite site to behold!! We were fortunate to be able to use the phone at the visitor’s centre to call ahead to our B&B in Kilkenny to let them know we were running a bit late, then we explored the ruins and surrounding glen and trails for another 90 minutes or so.

Driving in the Irish Countryside

Kilkenny

After we got our fill of Glendalough, we made a beeline for our B&B (the Launard House) in Kilkenny, proceeding to be incredibly much later than our initial check-in time – partly due to just running late in general, but moreso because the roads were so horribly marked that we had no clue where we were (or rather, we knew where we were, but had no clue where we were in comparison to the B&B). We finally found the place after 45 minutes driving around in circles, and checked in before heading down t Kyteler’s Inn for supper, then called it an early night.





We stayed at the Launard House on the southern side of Kilkenny, but it would be an understatement to say that after our experience in Kilkenny, we couldn’t wait to leave! It wasn’t that the city wasn’t fun – it was – but getting lost finding our B&B, the just “alright” accommodations once we DID find our way, getting lost again getting back TO our B&B, and being exhausted just wasn’t the right combination. We hoped that a good night’s sleep would help us feel a little better about it all, but were doubtful.





The absolute best part of this day, however, was that I got word that my little brother, Josh, and his wife Tiffany welcomed my newest nephew, Reign Thomas into this world :)

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Full picture dump from this day can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rompte/Ireland03BrayWicklowGlendalough