Blogs from Ireland, Europe - page 333

Left JFK in New York at 10:15 pm (on Thursday) and flew through the night to Shannon Ireland. The airplane was at 100% capacity and we were in the last row. After very little sleep, we landed at 9:30 am local time (4:30 AM EST). Drove 1/2 hour to Limerick and checked into the Patrick Punch's hotel and napped. Drive to downtown Limerick in afternoon, walked around the town and had dinner. Very mild day, no rain and 60 degrees, a perfect day for sight-seeing. We are still recovering from lack of sleep and I am trying to get over a sinus cold. Looking forward to Dingle tomorrow. Not a great day for pictures, as we mostly stayed in town.... read more

Our original plan was to drive into Dublin, see the sites and then drop Jessie at the bus station to head back to Galway. We decided to skip Dublin since we had been told it is near impossible to drive in Dublin due to the traffic. Instead, we drove Jessie back to Galway. It was only a 2 1/2 hour trip from Trim to Galway, and we needed to do some more shopping. We thought we would be able to find gifts everywhere we went, so we did not buy everything in Galway and haul it around the country for two weeks. Unfortunately, we were wrong. So this gave us a chance to pick up all the gifts we needed to get, spend a little more time with Jessie and still get back to Trim at ... read more

We started the day off with our typical full Irish breakfast, except this B&B also offered black and white pudding. I was brave enough to try the puddings, but Pam and Jessica decided to pass. I found them to be quite tasty and had them both mornings we stayed here. We started out the day by driving to Navan and shopping for chocolate. We then made the rounds to the sites in the Boyne Valley. We visited the Hill of Tara, The Hill of Slane, Bective Abbey and Newgrange Passage Tomb. We decided to call it an early day and head back to the B&B. After resting for a while, we went down to Brogan's Bar for dinner. I got the Beef and Guinness Casserole with a pint of Guinness, of course, while Pam got the ... read more

After spending 2 weeks in Cardiff with family, and waiting for my credit card to arrive in the post i finally booked a couple of flights to get out and about again. First stop Bristol for one night, not for any particular reason, just that my flight to Dublin left from there, so i thought i may as well stop for the night and have a bit of a nose around! Not much to report, I'm sure there's more to see, I just didn't! I had a wandre around the harbour area which is quite nice, and then up to the University and the Museum. The hill up to the uni is kinda cool, really steep with old buildings as shops and cafes lining the street. One of my favourite things is a bit geeky, but ... read more

Today was another travel day. We left Ballycastle to head back into the Republic. We passed through Armagh, the religious center of Ireland. St. Patrick established the first Christian church in Ireland in Armagh in 455 AD. There are two St. Patrick's Cathedrals on opposing hills in Armagh, one catholic and the other protestant. We stopped for lunch in Armagh, but did not tour the cathedrals. Our final destination was Trim in County Meath, Ireland's Heritage Capital. We booked a B&B across from Trim Castle which was used in filming parts of the movie Braveheart. There are numerous sites in Meath dating back to 4000 BC, as well as castles, abbeys and historical sites. The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript containing the four Gospels of the New Testament in Latin, was transcribed by Celtic monks ... read more