Kim & Phillipa’s Blog

This posting is a little overdue and very long so be warned! On our trip to Ireland (the republic that is) we spent almost 3 weeks meeting family, seeing many of the tourist destinations and then some of the not-so-tourist destinations, which was even better! Although we covered a lot of ground, there are still heaps of places I’d like to go back and visit…

Dublin - Tipperary
We started our trip as Kim described… lost. Trying to get out of Dublin was an adventure in itself! But we got there in the end and started to make our way to Tipperary to meet up with Regina for 5 days. On the way we stopped to see the Rock of Cashel which was nothing short of amazing (but then again, in this country not much wasn’t amazing). We spent the night in Tipperary in a gorgeous B&B and although we didn’t see a great deal of the place, it was really cute and very country like.

Corrofin - The Burren - Cliffs of Moher - Doolin
Nice and early the next day, we made our way (with many a detour) through to Corrofin where we stopped at a museum which told the story of the famine. Next we went on to see some of the Burren, where we eventually found a tomb atop a hill. Carran church and Cahermore were also highlights.

Then we went on to pick up a backpacker and saw the Cliffs of Moher - which were nothing short of astonishing. They might be “the thing to see in Ireland”, but there is a damn good reason for it. Stunning, absolutely gorgeous.

Making friends with our fellow backpacker, we stayed the night with him in Doolin at a backpackers place. Gina tried her hardest to get kicked out of the place by hassling the manager about getting her €1 back for her towel, but she didn’t succeed!

Doolin - Aran Islands - Gallway
Next day it was peeing down, and it was the day we had chosen to go to the Aran Islands. A tad hungover, we got up too late to visit the main island, so we made do with the smallest one, Inisheer. Not sure what I can say about this one, but it was… different! We then made our way to Gallway for the night - though we struggled to find accommodation! That night on the town, there wasn’t a free space on the street let alone the pubs - it was the end of the arts festival (which is huge in itself) and the start of race week (which is mammoth in Ireland). The streets were literally crawling with people!

The next day we rested it up at the B&B then found our way to a play, lunch, a market and a pub. Kim and I then enjoyed a great show with fantastic music and dancing! Loved it!

Gallway - Letterfrack
Next day we traveled east along the coast to a beautiful beach where we had lunch. The beach wasn’t sand though, it was all coral! It was so beautiful we could have stayed there all day! Then we made our way to Letterfrack taking in some of the most gorgeous and picturesque views we’d ever seen! Even the “bog” was beautiful!

Once we arrived in Letterfrack, Kim and I went for a walk in the National Park. It was the start of a mountain hike, but we only had time to go half way and boy were the views beautiful from there! It was stunning!

Letterfrack - Dingle Peninsula
Yeah, it is a little strange, but the next day we drove from Letterfrack to Shannon airport to drop off Regina, then onto Dingle Peninsula. Before we left though, we stopped by Kylemore Abbey which my Nana had claimed to be her favourite place. Boy, was she right! It was amazing and so beautiful! The mansion was on a lake at the foot of a mountain, looking over at the 12 Bens (mountains) which was also just divine! Words cannot express how serene and peaceful this place was! Simply stunning…. The Dingle Peninsula was gorgeous too, but we were getting tired and although we did stop at a few places (like a museum and a fort on a cliff) we didn’t take many photos. Stupid really, because the next day it rained… a lot.

Dingle - Ring of Kerry - Killarney
The next day we covered quite a bit of ground. We traveled around the Dingle Peninsula (though it was raining the whole time) and stopped in to see Gallarus which is a building that is over 1200 years old, yet it is still standing exactly how it was - it was built to perfection. Quite amazing to see! We managed to get through the main town of Dingle (it was extremely busy) and then out on the main road to the Ring of Kerry. We stopped at a gallery and found some amazing views of the coast (when the weather cleared for 5 minutes) and made our way around. It was beautiful indeed! We made our way to Killarney and wasn’t the Lonely Planet guide right when they said it was a tourist haven! Boy, there were tourists everywhere! EVERYWHERE!! The views were gorgeous though, the national park was definitely spectacular.

Killarney - Kenmare - Clonakilty - Cork
The next day we drove for what seemed to be hours and hours. Stuck behind vans, slow cars, trucks, tractors, everything. We finally got to Clonakilty where mum had gone on holidays as a kid. We got her some postcards, hung out for a bit then made our way to Cork for the night. We got down to Cobn for the evening to see where Titanic had left off. We got there too late to see much though, so we had a nice dinner and made it back to Cork for the night.

Cork - Blarney Castle - Kilkenny
The next day we rose nice and early to beat the crowds at Blarney Castle. And boy were we glad we did! We got there at 9.02am and made our way up! It was the most amazing castle - the way it was built was just so intriguing. It was definitely built to last (as it has) and the grounds were just beautiful. We both kissed the Blarney stone, so I suppose we’re meant to have the gift of the gab now (not that Kim didn’t before). On to Kilkenny where we were relieved to finally GET somewhere in traffic! We spent a bit of time checking out the streets in Kilkenny and we had dinner at a pub where a woman was accused of being a witch. Her maid was burnt at the stake outside the town hall (which made me shiver whenever we went past it) and the woman herself escaped the same fate.

Kilkenny - Dublin
The next day we made a beeline back to Dublin thinking we could spend all day trying to find where to return the car. We found it early enough and dropped it off in the same condition we picked it up in. We took some photo’s of the famine memorial which we were told Pa particularly used to like. We then took the rest of the day with Guy. We went to a market and a beautiful Indian restaurant for dinner, then onto the pub for a good night with some of Guy’s mates.

Well, that’s our trip in a nutshell. I guess it’s more for our record than anyone else’s interest and I’d be surprised if anyone is still reading at this point! Not much more to say except we’ll be back at some point!!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.