Ireland

When most people heard that we were going on a trip to Ireland, they would say "oh I've always wanted to go there!" A few asked "Why Ireland?" and the answer to that is basically--it was a good deal.

Our first flight was at 6 am, to Las Vegas which is just over a 1 hour flight. So we said goodnight/goodbye to the girls Tuesday night and headed to the airport at 4am Wednesday morning (thanks Kelli!). In Vegas for an hour, next flight to San Francisco at 8:50. In San Francisco for 4 hours, next flight to Toronto at 2:30. In Toronto they made us go through customs (which was weird I thought since we were just connecting, but hey, it's the first stamp in my passport!) then our flight left at 11:20 overnight to Dublin, landing at 10:40 local time. So basically 24 hours of travelling. Flying sucks.

Day 1 was spent in Drogheda, where we stayed at the D Hotel for the night. It's about 40 minutes north of Dublin.

Lots of old churches, very gorgeous.

We tried our best to stay awake that day by walking around the town to see all of the oldest churches/landmarks we could. We made it til about 7 that night before we couldn't go an longer and had to sleep. So of course we woke up at around 1am and were like "wanna go ride bikes?"

Day 2 we went to Newgrange, which is a tomb that is 500 years older than the pyramids. This was one of my favorite things that we did. We got to go inside and see the stone age drawings on the walls. Every year on the winter solstice the sun lines up perfectly with the entrance and lights up the inside of the tomb. They demonstrate it for you there but to see the real thing would be awesome.

Standing around the back. It just looks like a big hill from the outside

You can see the drawings here

The front entrance was reconstructed in the 1960's but the inside is all the original work

Navigating was kind of difficult because we had wifi but the gps on our phones was a bit unreliable. Also the whole other side of the road other side of the car driving thing. I drove but only the first day, after that I let Hondo handle that. Not that I was relaxed as a passenger haha. The problem is really that you end up overcorrecting and driving too far to the left. Plus the roads are ridiculously narrow.

We relocated to a B&B on the coast in the suburb of Dublin called Portmarnock, which is right on the coast. Our room was a 2 minute walk from the ocean.

Day 3 was spent in Dublin city center on the bus tour, hop-on hop-off, where we saw Trinity College library and the Book of Kells, and Dublin castle. 

It smelled old in the best way

In Dublin Castle courtyard

Sunday we went to see Malahide Castle, which is in (you guessed it) Malahide, right next to Portmarnock. It was cool to see but didn't feel as castle-y as you would imagine. It was just a house, really. A big stone one with beautiful gardens, but not like the castles in movies.

The view from the castle of the front garden

 

Our lack of sleep really caught up to us and we spent a much needed break that morning sleeping in and being lazy. I was starting to feel pretty homesick for my girls too and needed a distraction so we went to see the new X-Men movie. Which I loved! It may seem silly but we don't get to go to a lot of movies so it was a nice vacation-y thing to do. 

Monday we did the same thing, different movie. Also we ate at Burger King, which is one of the few meals worth mentioning from the whole trip. It was a really clear day on Monday, which was really nice (most days it was nice but Monday was extra nice) so we spent a few hours walking along the beach by the B&B. I even got a bit of color on my face!

The water looked very turquoise.

Tuesday we had pre-booked a day-long tour to see the Cliffs of Moher. The train left at 6:45am from Dublin and we got off in Limerick, where we saw some famous places from the book/movie Angela's Ashes (which I haven't read, actually) and then went to Bunratty Castle. This castle was much more like a castle you would expect. Big and old and very cool. 

The view of the river Shannon from one of the castle towers

These slightly horrifying stairs lead up to the tower. They were super tight and not fun to walk up/down.

Bunratty Castle also has Folk Village surrounding it with some old houses from the day, some replicas. We toured the grounds and found some of the prettiest spots of the whole trip.

Our next stop was the Cliffs of Moher. The tour was a bit tainted for me because I got super bus sick so I didn't feel well the majority of the day, but these views were worth it. It rained the most of the whole trip on our way there, but once we got there it was so clear you could see the reflection of the clouds on the ocean. #nofilter

Apparently a lot of people have died by falling off the cliffs. So they put up a wall. But then people climbed over the wall to get a better look and still died. 

Can you tell how clear the water was?

The rest of the day we drove along the Wild Atlantic Coast, which didn't help me feel better at all but what can you do. We ended up in Galway, where we caught the train back to Dublin which arrived at 9:45. It was a 15 hour day but like I said, worth it.

Flying home was rough. We were anxious to see the girls and just get back home. We had one less stop then we did on the way there but all in all we were still en route for about 20 hours. We got home at about midnight so the girls were asleep but we just went straight to bed anyway. The reunion in the morning was slightly frantic but so great. I never want to leave them again. (You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.)

The food sucked but the scenery was awesome. Our hosts at the B&B were very nice and the location was kind of perfect. I'm glad we went.