Irish hospitality at its best

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Geo: 51.8274, -10.172

Flew Air Lingus to Cork and picked up a hire car from Dooleys car hire at the airport with no trouble. It takes 2 and a half hours to drive to Waterville mainly because of single roads rather than distance. Checked in at the Butler's Arms hotel and stayed in a suite with a sea view. Well worth the extra to be able to sit in the window and watch the world go by. A tea and coffee making set is available on request and the staff are very friendly and helpful. We ate in the restaurant on our first night and had very good food served by a lovely old fashioned waitress called Mary Joe. Breakfast in the hotel was superbly served and all the food was delicious. Also ate at the Smuggler's Inn which has views over the long sandy beach and is an easy 25 mins walk from Waterville. Fish and chips very good. Other excellent restaurants in Waterville were the Huntsman which is Thai, and the An Corcan, which does excellent crab claws. Couldnt fault any of the food or service. The opening Parade of the Festival was a bit disappointing but the short comedy films were excellent. Some of the films were shown in the local church so the pews were very hard on the behind after a while! There were also talks in the local community centre and various other events to show the local culture for those who didnt want to get "filmed out". I hope it happens again as I think it was a great success but lots of hard work for mostly volunteers. We were very fortunate to get good weather so were able to go out to Derrynane Beach which is a great place to walk. There is the ruin of an abbey and also O'Connells house to visit. There are also several art galleries in and around Waterville but we thought the prices were very expensive. Some galleries were open only for the festival but there are permanent exhibitions in the Ballinskelligs art centre and in the local centre called Tech Amergin. We did buy some ceramics which were very reasonably priced from "Edge of the Earth Ceramics", which does have a shop in Ballinskelligs. Dropping the car off was no hassle and the lounge at Cork airport is very comfortable with friendly service yet again. We hadn't expected to have as good a time as we had. A great hotel and food and lovely people made it a place worth visiting.

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