Adventuring with Herbert Putkey

Unfortunately we only had a week for our tour of Ireland. There were some sights I really wanted to see, so that meant a few days of long driving.

We started in Dublin. I used my Hilton points for a free stay at the Conrad for two nights. It had a good location right next to St. Stephen’s Green, a large park in the heart of the city. We did a tour of Trinity college and a historical walking tour of Dublin. We also met Tessa for a dinner and some bevies.

Next stop was Dingle, in the southwest. We rented a car and drove there, stopping at the Rock of Cashel in the Plains of Tipperary along the way. It was a beautiful sunny day as we explored the rock and it’s cathedral - a striking site as you approach since it is so much higher than the surrounding land. We stayed at the Mileston B&B in Dingle, and the owner was full of information on what to see and do, including a detailed map of the peninsula. We rented bikes and did the 47km loop, which was great.

After that we went on to Doolin, famous for it’s traditional Irish music. Unfortunately it’s now completely for tourists. It was still a nice place to stop, and it was close to the Cliffs of Moher, which were well worth going to.

From Doolin we went on to visit Theresa’s relatives in county Monaghan, about 1 hour north of Dublin. We had an interesting tour of their home-made hydro-electric dam and 12 ft water wheel. I was very impressed.

Our final stop in Ireland was Belfast. We dropped the car off at the airport and took the bus from there with Tessa. It was already late afternoon when we got to Belfast, so we dropped our bags off at the hostel and walked around the “Golden Mile”, which wasn’t really that golden. We then went for dinner and then drinks at a cool place called Muriel’s. We were all tired so we tried to get a good night’s sleep, but unfortunately we were staying at the loudest hostel in the world. The next day we were exhausted so we went for breakfast (at McDonald’s - everything else in downtown Belfast was closed on the Sunday morning) and Theresa and I took the ferry to Scotland.

The Ireland album is up on picassa.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under travel, Europe, Ireland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.