Ireland travel

                                                Ireland 2004

Had a red eye from Toronto where a young child cried most of the night.

Landed in Dublin late May for a self tour.  The Dublin airport had long wait times to enter into the country. 

We only had backpacks so there was no dealing with baggage claims.   But we did have to haul them around the second week when the car was returned.

There is a tour of the Guiness plant in Dublin.   We  took a double decker bus around the city.

I found it a big city hard to find my way around in a standard car where I could not remember how to get into reverse.  (Need to press and hold !)

But the people are very friendly.

Headed south and inland for the night.  A B & B at a farm where we slept for 11 hours.  The breakfast contained much little cooked meat.   From here on in we were vegetarians in a time when that was not popular.  Until then I couldn't believe that blood pudding was named for it's contents !  Ugh.  During our trip we only had a little drizzle one evening in Ennis on the west coast.

Returning back to the coast we were on a one land road with sheep blocking our path.   But the scenery was fantastic. 

When we got to the coast we did some shopping in the town.  Steph got a Gaelic ring.  Going up the coast to Belfast tried to remember to drive on the left side ??? Not always successful and the roads are rather narrow.   Luckily Steph would remind me about the LEFT side.

In Belfast there is a Planetarium we stopped in at.  We saw army personnel standing around but I wasn’t worried at all.   Nice clean city with good shops and lots of churches !

No Titanic attraction there yet.

We had a great B & B just outside the city.  Where I left my and Veronica’s passport.  The owner held them there and we stopped in a few days later to retrieve them.

North from Belfast  we stopped for the night in a small town on the coast - Larne  Could not work the phones at all !  We stayed the night upstairs from the pub we dined in.  In the morning the same guy that showed us our room the night before drove us to the ferry,  We were late for the destination I had planned so we tried to sleep while waiting for the 2 hour Cairnyan ferry to Scotland.  From there we got a taxi to Stranraer.   Did a bit of shopping and returned back.

Picked up the rental car in the Pub lot later that day. 

Heading north I saw the correctly spelled name McAuley on a shop and in the cemetery.  The road wound right next to the ocean.

Saw many castles – some tourist spots and some abandoned.

North to the giants causeway and the carrick-a-ride  -  a rope bridge next to the causeway.   So worth the trip !

We were going to take a boat to Rathlin Island but it was all booked up.

(book ahead)

We dropped the car back off in Dublin and started touring.  Stayed that night in Dublin in  a B & B.  We went out for take away Indian food and back at the b & b discovered we had NO cutlery - so we used the naan bread as intended. 

Took a bus to Cavan where we had a cottage and bicycles.  There was a ping pong table in the hall.   On our ride we discovered an old, old site.  With Steph's U of T training she told us the background.  

Got a train down to Cork for the night.  The train was easy to maneuver.

We ran into other traveler's we met before more than once. 

Up the west coast to Galway where we stayed for a few days.  Finding the B & B left us exhausted and then couldn't figure out how to work the shower.   Best fish and chips in a restaurant near the river .  Pedestrian streets with lots of shopping.  We went into a grocery store for a meal of cheese and crackers.  At the B & B we watched Bewitched. 
We got a ferry to the Aran Island.   There was Gaelic being spoken here.    Pretty quiet and we had the hostel all to ourselves.   There was a very visible grave yard and old church that was below ground.

Back to Ennis for our final night.    Found a nice pub and a great B & B.   The girls got to drink (and did) as the age is lower in Ireland.

Then to Shannon airport which was very easy to maneuver.

Ran through the Toronto airport to get out fast.