Ireland at last (PART 1)

We arrived in Dublin after a slightly Mitchell trip to the airport (Mitchell= running late, Altmann= being early). We slept through the alarm but made the plane in time.
Three nights were spent in a lovely hotel very close to all the action in Temple Bar. We went on a literary pub crawl taken by two actors who recited poetry and sketches from famous Irish writers. They reccommended a Walking History Tour of the city which we went along for the next morning. And we loved it. We had been extremely confused about Ireland's turbulent past and the Trinity University graduate who lead the tour explained everything very well. The walk included Trinity, The Bank of Ireland (where parliament was held), Dublin Castle, The City Hall, Christchurch Cathedral and finishing in Temple Bar. Highly reccommended by us too. These colourful buildings are part of Dublin Castle and are near the Chester Beatty Library. The library has a great exhibition of all sorts of religious documents. For example very early copies of the Bible and Koran.

Of course we had to go to the Guinness Factory. It has a very fancy and interesting display of how the black stuff is made. Greg particularly enjoyed the big section on Coopers whose trade is to make the wooden kegs. Nowadays the kegs are made of steel so coopers are no more but Greg thinks if he'd been born 100 years ago, that's what he'd have been. It's a real art.

On the 7th floor of the Brewery there is a bar where you sample your free pint of guinness. It has the best views of Dublin (360 degrees). There is a lot of building going on in this city. Every panel of glass showed at least one crane in action.

Meet DEZ the motorhome. We had the truck for a week and covered 700 miles in the South of Ireland. It really was pure luxury inside. We had a neat little bathroom with a shower and toilet that folded away with hidden panels and doors. The bed is above the driving cabin and there's also a big table setting, stovetop and fridge.Although we did really love being able to cook for ourselves and having a lot of freedom in where to go and when, we've decided motorhoming is not for us...yet. Everyone else in the campsite was over 50 and often the sites were a long way out of town. And by the time you've paid campsite fees and taxi rides to and from the town you may has well have stayed in a B & B right in town. Bikes on the back would have really helped. But we did really love the experience.

We stumbled upon this Abbey on the way down to south. It's name is Jerpiont Abbey, a Cistercain Abbey founded in the 12th century. The carvings remaining on the stone walls were beautiful. So many stories in this ancient place.

Kilkenny castle, pictured below, has been fully restored. We couldn't take pictures on our tour of the inside but there was a fascinating room called the Long Room. Its 50m long and held 200 paintings on the walls in the past. In the 1930's the Butler family who'd lived in the castle for hundreds of years got sick of the weather and moved, selling all the furniture and paintings. They've been able to recover 50 or so from old photographs and the rooms have also been recreated based on pictures.

Greg climbed this 9th centruy tower in Kilkenny for great views all over the county.

Blarney Castle was next on the tourist route. When you kiss the stone right at the top of the ramparts, hanging upside down with only the irish man to hold to you're supposed to become more eloquent in speech (ie. not get tongue tied and always know the right thing to say). We haven't noticed any major changes yet.

Note Greg wearing Birenstocks and a T-shirt in the Hot weather. Whoever said Ireland only rains twice a year: Once for 300 days and once for 65?

Kinsale is a small fishing village on the South coast of Ireland. We spent one of our best nights in the car park opposite a great pub called Bulmans. Apparently when you don't camp at a proper site its called "Wild Camping". There was nothing wild about this. Originally we drove out of town 15km down many small winding roads to the only nearby campsite. After much deliberation we decided to risk being fined or asked to move in the middle of the night and camp in a carpark. In fact the owner of the pub was more than happy for us to stay. Probably especially because it enabled us to share a bottle of wine at his pub over dinner and then enjoy spending more money at his bar whilst listening to the great music from the band. The next day we woke up to the sound of water lapping at the rocks right besde the van and sunshine gleaming off the bay.
Greg insisted on buying a proper Irish old man hat. I did tell him both my grandpy and dad love wearing these things but the hats aren't really high fashion. He wore it as his driving hat but only for a few minutes each time because its TOO HOT!

On our first day in Killarney we wandered in to town trying to decide whether we should risk the cloudy skies, hire bikes and ride 30km around the lakes or take a bus tour. As it happened we sort of did both. Minus bikes. Our day trip included a bus ride to the Gap of Dunloe (2 huge mountains you can walk between - in the Gap), either a walk or pony trap ride through the gap (11km) and a boat trip through the lakes back to meet buses and then home. The weather was patchy with lovely sunshine and our heaviest rainfall experienced in Ireland. And did I mention the wind?!!! Maybe 80km/hr winds too. But scenery on the hike was spectacular. We'd have been drier swimming through the lakes though. Riding the waves on the lake was exhilarating but VERY wet.

The Gap on Dunloe.
Here's the view from our campsite. This is the first in a series of pictures showing the hills rolling in and the storm that followed. However, it was brief. The blog's too big already to show you.