Blogs from Doolin, County Clare, Ireland, Europe - page 2

15 juillet 2012 "Une belle journee en Irlande est une journee sans pluie" Anonyme Retour a Galway pour reprendre rapidement le bus vers Doolin, petit bled de pecheurs dans le compte de Clara, encore plus au sud du Pays. La route sinueuse est asphaltee mais beaucoup trop etroite. Mon bus ralentit drastiquement alors qu'on croise les autres bus bondes de retraites qui mangent des biscuits sodas. C'est le top confort dans ma navette dois-je dire mais j'ai l'estomac mit a rude epreuve avec ces tournants et ces retournants. Je ferme les yeux, concentre sur les mouvements brusques de l'engin. Gulp! La salive me manque. Mais la randonnee acheve. On arrive finalement a la destination finale. Je suis le seul dans le bus (...mais combien de temps ai-je dormi au juste?) Surprise! Je suis a l'entree des ... read more

Wednesday Afternoon- Doolin. - I took the 10:30 #50 bus from Galway to Doolin and arrived safely and settled in to my hostel for a couple of days. The bus ride down was on some smallish and hilly roads and I felt like I was getting a touch of seasickness so I was glad I just had tea and toast instead of a large breakfast. The scenery was quite nice coming down. I arrived at the Doolin Hostel about noon and the manager checked me into my rom. It was a 6 bed dorm room for E14 a day. I put my stuff on a bottom bunk to stake it out and went and looked around the hostel to check things out. The rooms weren’t very big but the kitchen, eating area and lounge were big ... read more

We made the correct turn after the Kilmaley Inn and were convinced that even though we might be a wee bit behind schedule, that we could get to our first lunch stop (Lahinch) in time for a late lunch (faithful reader spoiler alert…according to my journal, we actually made it to the ‘lunch’ spot at 5pm that evening…but more about that later). The back road we were on was quite pleasant….the sun was shining, the landscape was quite beautiful and as we continued to climb higher and higher, the grand Irish scenery came into view. We were to take this lovely road for 2.5 miles then turn at a well-sign posted road to Inagh (for those of you that have travelled to Ireland before, you are now laughing heartily at our assumption that all roads have ... read more

Oct 13 Today I had to finish packing and close down the house because tonight we are headed to Ireland. After I finsihed everything and was ready to go I had to bike about 3 miles with my 50 lb pack on me to jays house. Where we were supposed to get picked up by his friend Tom. However Tom had called and said he was running late and it would help if we could meet him on the mainland. So jay scrambled to call some people luckily chris pulled through for us and was able to get us to toms house. From there it was an easy drive up to metro park where we took the train to Penn station and met jays dad for dinner. We had a nice quick dinner in Penn plaza. ... read more

So... we made it to Ashford Castle with out a problem, although apparently reserving seats on the train does not mean a whole lot here. At the castle (see the amazing pics) we had afternoon tea and then Michelle and the girls toured the gardens while Mike went for a run(need room for the Guinness). We went for an "informal" dinner at the thatched roof restaurant at the castle then enjoyed the live local entertainment in the Dungeon lounge. On Tuesday we had a rather large buffet breakfast and took a boat tour of Lough Corrib that Ashford Castle is situated on. We then walked into the local town Cong to mingle with the commoners and have a bit of a late lunch. Mike played 9 holes of golf and the girls relaxed for the afternoon ... read more