September 12, 2003
Tales from Ireland
Our travels through Ireland with mom and Paul have been wonderful. Ireland is more beautiful than I ever anticipated it to be. We were so busy having fun over the past 10 days that we are only finding an Internet cafe today to email home to friends and family.
Our travels through Ireland with mom and Paul have been wonderful. Ireland is more beautiful than I ever anticipated it to be. We were so busy having fun over the past 10 days that we are only finding an Internet cafe today to email home to friends and family.
We started in Dublin and made our way around the coastline of the bottom half of Ireland. We headed south to Wicklow, where we made our first stop on a fruit farm. It was a beautiful stone farm with great land for growing berries, apples and other fruit and vegetables. Paul and the owner exchanged trade secrets, which also meant that we got a unique tour of the farm - all good fun! We carried on from along the narrow and winding roads down to Wexford. The roads in themselves are gorgeous - they are lined with old stone fences covered in lush vines, wild flowers, and bushes. Even the hydro poles are green with vines growing up them. We stayed in a cute little B&B in the countryside in Wexford. While wandering around the town that night, we came across an Irish wake. A large line up of people stood outside the pub (pronounced poob here) and waited for the casket to arrive from the funeral home. Then everyone walked through the streets with the casket to the church - very interesting.
From Wexford, we travelled inland to Kilkenny (recommended by Brendan), which was a medieval city with narrow streets and cute little pubs and restaurants in the centre of town. We decided to stay in a small village outside of Kilkenny called Kells on a ranch B&B. This town had the most beautiful old ruins - a priory and mills.
We continued travelling south towards Cork on route to the famous Blarney Castle and Stone. We did indeed bend over backwards to kiss the hunk o'rock in hopes of acquiring the legendary eloquence bestowed to the smoocher.
After Blarney, we followed the guidance of the Lonely Planet and headed south of Cork to Kinsale, a small harbour town. At the end of our trip, we all voted and agreed that Kinsale was our favourite spot. It was a very scenic town with rolling hills surrounding the harbour. The town was filled with cute little shops, winding streets, and great restaurants and pubs. We lucked into finding an amazing B&B with the greatest hosts, Noreen and Denny, just outside of town. The rooms were so cute with their million dollar views that we decided to stay for two nights. We had so much fun in Kinsale. Bow and Paul found a great golf course and mom and I found the shops.
We went out to the Mad Monk while in Kinsale to enjoy the locals and traditional Irish music. The bar was small so the rowdy crowd circled around the band. They played all of the traditional Irish tunes and the crowd went nuts and we all sang. They even had one of the loud locals, Ollie, get up to sing a few songs. Picture this, a 60 year old man wearing a t-shirt with characters in all sorts of unique positions singing songs about the "Pfizer Riser" (viagra) and "Big Knockers". It was quite a good laugh. The band also gave us a good laugh - they said about five Irish jokes between each song, which kept our bellies aching.
After Kinsale we headed north west along the coast to the beautiful Ring of Kerry. We stayed in a small village that won the Tidy Town award, called Sneem, in an old nuns convent. We quickly realized that the Irish love to give out awards. Every pub, restaurant, and B&B have some sort of plaque outside showing off their award. The funniest award was in a small fishing village where we noticed the "Tidiest Toilet 2002 Runner Up" award outside the loo. We couldn't believe it, naturally we had to take a picture. It got to be so funny that at breakfast one morning, Paul was eating homemade jam and commented to the host how delicious it was and that it must have won an award and it was hardly out of his mouth when she said "Yes, it did".
We explored the famous Ring of Kerry and the even more spectacular Ring of Skellig. Basically you drive around a penninsula on nail biting narrow roads to check out the rugged coastline, sheep, beaches (strands), and beautiful countryside. We ended up in Dingle, which was another beautiful fishing village with a famous dolphin. We really enjoyed this town - a spot not to be missed.
After Dingle, we travelled north towards Galway. We stopped along the way to see the Cliffs of Moher (Jay and Fiona's suggestion). Excellent stop! It was the only place where we saw droves of tourists but it wasn't a shock when we saw how beautiful the cliffs were. We continued from there up to Galway.
On one of our last days, we headed to the Aran Islands (recommended by Jason Morin), which was an unforgettable stop. We took the boat (no cars allowed) over to Inishmore and we were absolutely shocked to run into my Aunt Marg and Jim on the ferry. We knew that they were in Ireland at the same time, but naturally were quite surprised to be on the same ferry as them over to this small island. When we arrived on the Island, we hopped in a little van with a man called Michael Faherty and he drove us around the island, letting us out at Dun Aengus for two hours to explore. This was a spectacular cliff top fort with massive dry stone wall battlements. He picked us up and drove us around the rest of the island. This man knew every single person on the island and gave us a full rundown on everyone as we passed their homes, which was quite neat. The entire island was filled with stone fences, like you would see on a postcard. It was unbelievable! This was definitely our favourite day trip.
After we got back to the mainland we made our way back across to Dublin. For our last night the four of us shared a room because it was significantly cheaper. It was a Fawlty Towers experience for sure - which kept us laughing. At one point, we were discussing whether or not Bow should fill up our water bottles. Paul mentioned that we could fill them up in the bathroom and Bow said "good idea" and headed straight over to the bathroom and opened the door without realizing that my mom had just gone into take a shower. Bow quickly realized when he saw my mom in the buck. We all had a good laugh and Bow realized that it was the most scenic view of the trip.
Mom and Paul left this morning to head back to Ottawa. We had a fantastic time with them! Bow and I are in Dublin now until Sunday morning and then we head off to Glasgow, Scotland for 10 days. Today is our 10 year anniversary of being together, so we're off to celebrate.
Until next time .... The Geddoches
