Hello again blog, how I've missed you! September saw the arrival of Mum and Dad O'B and much travelling but no posts. Consequently I've much to catch up on - starting with Ireland!
First trip in September started in Dublin, where we hired a car and drove to Cork with stops on the way.
The whole vibe of Ireland caught me by surprise. People were just friendly - it was so refreshing coming from London. Service people made jokes and strangers stopped to help you if you looked like you needed helping. That said though, there were lots of groups of teenage kids loitering on the streets and loitering kids always seem to make me a little nervous..
Now I thought London was full of pubs, one on every block, but Dublin seems to have around 5 on every block. There's an area called Temple Bar that is just buzzing with food and drink that you must check out if visiting Dublin.
We had lunch at the Temple Bar Food Market, which served up delicious variations of roasted meats on rustic breads ie really yum gourmet sandwiches. It was also here that I tasted Tiffin cake for the first time. Best €2 I've spent so far..
This slice type cake I would say may even rival Rose Smith's chocolate hazelnut slice in taste (and that is saying something huge) but definitely in calories. I think it may be half butter? Since then I've tried numerous other Tiffins (Costa sells its own variety made with Belgian chocolate) but none so far compare to that first one.
After lunch, some sight seeing.
Trinity collage. Mum watching Adam taking a photo of Dad.
Irish Men.
Obviously we visited the Guinness brewery. They have a museum there that covers the making and history of Guinness that's quite interesting if you're into that kind of thing. At the very top there is an amazing view of Dublin and free Guinness to boot!
After Dublin, we hopped into our rented lime green Feista and headed to Wicklow, the ancestral home of the O'Byrnes.
Not an awful lot to do in Wicklow, one local suggested visiting the jail.. I'm serious! They do have some beautiful homes there though and the streets are just charming. So we stopped for lunch at Halpin's Bridge Cafe where the friendly owner was kind enough to share some local history with us. For example Robert Halpin, born in Wicklow, was one of the most important mariners in the 1800s. He captained a ship that laid transoceanic telegraph cables. Howzat?!
We left Wicklow and headed to Kilkenny next.
There's something about driving down narrow, windy, bumpy country roads that puts Adam in rally car mode. I'll admit I am prone to motion sickness but it was surely exacerbated by "someone's" driving. Quick on the accelerator and hard on the break. I felt like scrambled eggs in the back seat.
Fortunately there were many pretty spots to stop and recover.
See?
Back in the car and passing another tractor.
At the airport we saw a little boy playing a toy tractor. He and his father(?) were discussing whether they preferred round hay bales or square ones. They decided upon round, I quite agree.
Passing through Kilkenny (as in where the beer is from). Stopped for a drink at The Hibernian Hotel. Food looked amazing and would have loved to have tried it, but alas it was a wee bit early for dinner at that time.
After Kilkenny we made our way to Waterford (as in the crystal) where we stayed at a B&B for the night, but not before having generous servings of dinner at the Days Hotel restaurant - just about the only place we could find that was open and serving dinner on a Sunday night.
Next morning we drove to Cork which strangely I have no photos of. It was somewhat cleaner and quieter than Dublin I think and didn't have loitering teens. After a spot of window shopping we were off to the airport and on our way back to London.
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