Day two was probably my favorite. We woke up early with plans to head to Dingle and stop at Cahir castle (near the Rock of Cashel) along the way. We had rented a car the night before and Daniel tested out his skills sitting on the opposite side of the car and driving on the left side of road (we didn't die, he did quite well, obviously).
We arrived at the castle right at opening time and so had it to ourselves for a good while. After watching a short video (and realizing we had been pronouncing "Cahir" wrong the whole trip).
It was awesome. There are a few displays, but a lot of it is left alone and they let you poke around to your heart's content. Just what we wanted.
The stairs were scary steep with not a lot to hang onto... a little rough navigating with my camera, but so much fun to climb!
The town grew up right next to the castle, so you you could see a lot of town from the windows facing that direction.
When we explored the dungeon, it looked so foreboding we weren't entirely sure we were allowed to go in. Luckily, Daniel was the brave one this time and checked it out first... we followed soon after.
and those dungeons led us through narrow stairs all the way up to this little turret! We could see the historical bridge and the land around for quite a way from here.
One of the last things we did was climb up some stairs built into the wall (no railing *gulp*) to stand on the wall. My small fear of heights made me a bit shaky, but Erin and Daniel made sure I didn't die, and the view was amazing!
From the castle we headed across the street to a little restaurant and chowed down on some *delicious* paninis (we got to choose what was in them). It was the perfect amount of food and they had coke to keep Daniel awake while he drove us to Dingle and Erin and I snoozed (we did a lot of that on the drive, poor Daniel). Daniel did all of the driving as it cost quite a bit to add another driver to the rental. As we got closer, the countryside being Ireland personified. Green, stone walls, sheep and cows hanging out in the fields. It was gorgeous. We pulled over a few miles before we got into town to capture what we had been watching go by.
Once in town, we checked out the local Catholic church and explored some amazing frescos done by an American artist.
In this one, the apostles are based off of local characters while Jesus is based on a french tourist. Isn't that awesome? That, and this girl is *talented*. There's another room that tells the story of the founder of the Presentation sisters (the convent on the grounds was their mother house). All four walls were covered with the fresco... just really amazing.
There was a little chapel in the old convent where a famous stain-glass artist did the windows on the side. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the individual windows, but the chapel itself was gorgeous. With the light drifting in, it was like breathing in all of the prayers and songs that had been lifted up there.
While at the church, the wind and cold had picked up and we were all starting to get pretty chilled. We headed back to The Grapevine Hostel and it's sweet little fire to warm up and figure out our evening plans.
Erin and Daniel did all of the navigating, and I happily left them to it. My eldest sister got the map skills, those were all given out by the time I came around.
We ended up in Murphy's Pub, all chowing down on Irish stew and brown bread. So warm and comforting after a chilly day!
But don't worry, we still had a little more in us. From there we headed to *another* pub (okay it was our third pub, the second was very full and the music slow to start), called An Droichead Beag (The Small Bridge) where we ordered our drinks and settled to to listen to some music. Ignore the part of the video where I forget I'm videotaping and decide to sing along *right* in your ear. You can't see much as there was very little light there, but it was pretty much perfect.
This is totally awesome! Ryan and I went to the Dingle Peninsula when we were in Ireland. It is where his family immigrated from several generations ago. Someone in his family has done a very complete genealogy and we knew that when the family came to the US they left behind the youngest son (why?? who knows!!). So we went to town and tried to talk to someone at the Church about finding out something about him. We were unsuccessful but it was still neat to see!
ReplyDeleteLove seeing all the wonderful pictures of your trip- so awesome! *And you look cute in the photos from the castle!