Ireland, Monday, April 11
We had a nice ride from The Bear to Heathrow where we found our Air Lingus flight on time and ready to go.
We landed in Shannon an hour or so later, went to the car counter and picked up our, what was that thing? A nice Renault Fluence, automatic with the steering wheel on the right hand side. We opted for full insurance coverage just in case a rock wall or a misplaced curb or even a crazy American ended up in our lane.
There is the vehicle and G&K's friend Martin. Martin met us at the airport in Shannon and guided us to New Market on Fergus, our first stop in Ireland. We checked into Hunters Lodge and soon were out exploring the local pubs.
O'Neills was the first, a small little place run by a very nice elder O'Niell and her sister.
The first of our many pints of Ireland's finest. There they are - the two sisters with K&L.
We spent most of the evening visiting with Martin and his wife Kay.
The little town of New Market, day & night.
This is a panorama from across the street from our B&B.
Tuesday, April 12, New Market to Dingle
So starts our tour of Ireland and our first real day of driving. I should say, Greg's first day because he was doing he driving. I was doing the navigating, such as it was. Mostly I sat there but occasionally I sat "I think we should have turned back there."
In between my navigation chores, I took these travel photographs of our party in motion.
This more or less our route through Ireland, starting on the left at Shannon and looping southwest to Dingle, then southeast to Kinsale and finally northeast to Dublin.
First stop was Dromoland Castle Estate, a former castle, now a hotel, beautiful grounds, gardens and a golf course.
We waked around and admired stuff for a while. The weather was still cooperating - it was a beautiful Spring day.
Soon we were on the road looking for Bunratty Castle, built to last in 1425.
Bunratty Castle is part of a "Folk Park", lots of old-looking buildings with thatched roofs and smokey peat fires.
Lot's of color and photogenic settings.
The buildings, other than the castle, probably don't go so far back but this little church was relocated stone by stone from Ardcroney!
After a few more photos (didn't Monet or Manet or one of those guys do a series of haystacks?) it was time to visit the Bunratty Toilets and move on.
Which is another way of saying we were working up a Guinness thirst and getting hungry. After lunch we stopped to photograph the Dingle Bay, somewhere east of Dingle.
Arriving in Dingle, we checked in at The Greenmount House. www.greenmounthouse.ie.
Our room and our B&B, the Greenmount, in Dingle.
This is a pano view from our little balcony. This was a great place, just a block or two from town.
A fine Irish Dinner was had at Ashes, Est. 1849, www.ashesbar.ie. Excellent fish chowder to start with lamb stew as the entree accompanied by some fine French red. Then we went over to the Court House for some traditional Irish music and a Guinness or two.
Wednesday, April 13, Dingle
The next day was a little blustery and rainy so we took the opportunity to go on a road trip around the Dingle Peninsula. Here are some of the sights.
We saw many interesting sights including The Dubeg Fort where we were able to "walk back 2500 years in history" after, of course, paying five Euros each for the privilege.
It actually might have been an interesting walk if the wind weren't blowing at about 50 mph.
Here is a photo of our GPS navigation unit. As you can see, our main navigation problem was avoiding crashing through a low stone wall and careening into the ocean.
Fortunately we didn't slide into the ocean. We made it back to town and decided to explore a couple world-famous Irish Pubs, starting with The Dingle Pub, above. It was mid-afternoon and not very crowded, high time for a Guinness!
Next up: Dick Mack's
This guy is not Dick, he is Oliver Mack. I think Dick Mack was his father or grandfather.
The place used to be a shoe store but the bar business turned out to be more profitable, so they gave up on shoes. However, they never cleaned out the evidence of the shoe business. You can still see bins of leather and buckles and so on. In fact nothing much changes here. There are still "cozies" on each side of the bar where women could go and have their pint in privacy long ago when women weren't supposed to be out doing that sort of thing.
This guy is "signing" a shot glass that we bought here at Dingle Crystal. He is a master craftsman he got his training at Waterford Crystal, just up the road.
We spent a fair amount of time at The Court House Pub run by Tommy and Saundra O'Sullivan. That's them below..
Tommy is on the right and runs an excellent "session" on most nights. He plays a couple vintage Martins (one at a time), has a great voice, and a great pub. We spent the whole evening there dining on Pringles, peanuts and Guinness and soaking up the craic!
This is Dingle. Very nice.
Ireland, New Market and Dingle
Paris, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
