Blogs from Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland, Europe

Today it’s all go in the district. Callan has a festival, so has Kilkenny and another has an Agricultural Fair. Add to that that Bruce Springsteen is doing two concerts in Kilkenny it’s a good place to stay away from (unless you are a Bruce fan). Breda had given us some places to visit not too far away that would be interesting to visit but not part of the tourist route. We first went to Bennttsbridge after a few hassles of finding our way there across small country roads with no names but only numbers and eventually found our way to the pottery she had recommended that was supposed to have great scones, but it was shut until the afternoon. On the subject of scones, they are heavy here and not the nice light or doughy ... read more

Today is a travel day from the Chateau hotel to Callan in Ireland. Despite being closer to Paris than Montcaret, we still had to be up early and be left the hotel by 7am which meant missing breakfast. Even though it appeared that we would have plenty of time, the hotel proprietor suggested we allow to get across Paris because of the traffic or any problems. How right he was! We encounted thousands of cars leaving Paris with congested motorways and thought how lucky it was that we were going the opposite direction. That soon turned out to be rather premature. The route to Charles de Gaulle airport goes right through the middle of Paris on a 3 lane motorway but builds up in the centre with merging traffic coming in from other directions. We ground ... read more