Exploring Limerick with a Travel Twist

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Geo: 52.6639, -8.62677

The day began as planned, catching a bus from Dingle to Limerick. We got to view more of the Irish countryside with more sheep grazing. It's nice to travel and watch out the window and not have to worry about watching the road and directions. The roads are quite narrow and have many 90 degree turns which makes driving a chore, not to mention getting used to driving on the left hand side of the road.

We arrived at the Limerick bus station which was quite small. It didn't even have any coffee shops. We started following a map leading us to our hotel. As we were looking at the map a woman stopped to offer help. She was walking her dog and decided to just escort us to the hotel. Another example of Irish hospitality.

We checked into the hotel which was quite nice. The receptionist did all the necessary paperwork and was then explaining to us where and when breakfast would be served. We told her thanks but we would be leaving very early, around 4:30 a.m.. "No problem," she said. " I'll just arrange to have coffee, tea, croissants, and scones sent up to your room at 3:4'5."

We began our walk through the downtown district of Limerick. We walked through the main street of shops and a local mall. Limerick has it's share of pubs and traditional Irish music. Patrick St. had many clothing shops as well as chic trendy clothing. Our next stops were St. Mary's Church, St. Mary's Cathedral, and King John's Castle.

At this point, needing a rest, we decided to go back to the hotel and check our e-mail. We found a message from the Irish Ferry Co. which would take us on the next leg of our adventure into London had been cancelled due to poor weather conditions. They had booked us on an earlier ferry crossing of the Irish Sea. However that wouldn't work with our prescheduled train and bus tickets for the rest of our journey into Bath. So now was decision time. What would be our best option? We decided to check out of the hotel, cancel our train tickets for the morning, and catch a bus for Dublin tonight. All of that fell into place and we caught the 4:30 p.m. bus to Dublin.

The next situation we found ourselves in was not being able to find lodging in Dublin because of a Pink Floyd concert and a match of some sort. Finally we were successful but we will miss those scones in the morning.

After settling in at the Chelsea Hostel we went in search of a quick sandwich since we were more tired than hungry. Tonight will be an early night. No pubs for us!

Check back later for more photos to come from yesterday and today.

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Comments

[Maria Ryder]

Will you be seeing the Cliffs of Moher and Knock? One thing I remember is the friendliness of the locals. I loved that about Ireland. Also, make sure you try their ice cream. Its the best I've ever tasted.