Woke up at 4:00a and struggled to stay in bed and sleep until 7:00a.  Seven hours ahead of Illinois time and trying to adjust my day and night.  Only a light mist/rain until mid morning and then it cleared up and was just damp until afternoon when the sun finally came out.  The high temperature got up to 60F and low tonight is expected to be 48F.  The morning still required a raincoat, but the afternoon was nice out, kept my hooded fleece with me putting it on, taking it off, putting it back on throughout the day.

The morning was spent walking around, picking up a pastry from a cute little bakery.

Random pictures taken from my morning stroll.

Back to the Guesthouse for an early lunch, leftover shrimp salad and roll.  This visit I was determined to take a tour of the Rosenkrantz Tower and Hakon’s Hall.  Both buildings are on the grounds of the Bergenhus Fortress & Castle.

The Rosenkrantz Tower was erected around 1270.  The tower was badly damaged in the explosion that shook the harbour of Bergen in 1944.

Harkon’s Hall (Kings Hall) was erected between 1247 and 1261.  The Hall was badly damaged in the 1944 explosion, but was restored and used for official functions.

Since the weather had cleared up and the sun was out, I rode the funicular up to the top of Mt. Floyen.

At the top there are a number of well marked hiking trails.  I chose the trail to the lake and back.

The walk down to the city center is about 2.5 km.  The decline basically is switchbacks all the way down and then stairs.

STAIRS… this town is filled with stairs.

Time to have an early dinner.  One of my favorite restaurants is also a fish market located right by the harbor and has a great fresh Salmon Burger.

And the view from my table is pretty nice too.

A little evening walking before heading to the Guesthouse for the night.

So, we have returned back home and our world has quickly turned upside down with Jayde’s diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes.

It has been ten days since we left Ireland and I am still unpacking slowly and going through all the stuff that I collected.

All I know is, I HAVE TO GO BACK!

I really did okay after the first day of driving manual across the country with the whole sit on the right and drive on the left thing and keep to the left.  The roundabouts were an adventure, and I did forget to pay the M50 toll.  

Today we head back home.  Slept in a little later and went down for breakfast at 9:00a.  Enjoyed my last full Irish Breakfast (minus the white & black pudding on my plate).  Jessica had the poached eggs and Emma ate off the cold buffet offerings.

We had reorganized and packed our luggage the previous night in Kilkenny knowing that when we dropped off the rental car we had to be more mobile and would be walking a couple of blocks to our place.  Also, it worked out well that when we were at the airport after dropping off the rental we had our bags weighed at the Aer Lingus counter to know if we were within the weight limit on our bags.

Left Harrington Hall and walked along St. Stephen’s Green to Leeson Street to wait for the Aircoach bus to take us to the airport.

Checked in and just waiting now for our flight home.  The flight leaves at 3:45pm Dublin to O’Hare.  We visited the Vat Refund counter and got our tax refunds processed back to our credit cards, which will take 4 to 6 weeks.

Visited all the Duty Free shops at the airport, the liquor shops offer free tastings to get you to buy more Irish whiskey!!  We found a good spot to settle into comfortable chairs to wait for our gate to be announced on the board.  Thank God for free Wi-Fi courtesy of Dublin Airport.

Emma said there will be cliff notes added to the blog and Jessica said she will be adding some footnotes.

We enjoyed our travels around Ireland and hope to return to the emerald isle again.  The country is breathtaking beautiful, the people are warm and easy-going making you feel welcomed.

All the best!

Cynthia, Jessica and Emma

Nicola’s husband, Eamonn prepared our breakfast for us.  Besides being in the kitchen cooking, he was watching their three small children.

We got on the road by 9:30am and made it back to the Dublin Airport right at 11:00am to turn in our rental car.  We used Dan Dooley Rental and would recommend them.  We took the AirCoach bus to the city centre and got off at Lower Leeson Street and St. Stephens Green and walked a couple of blocks back to Harrington Hall.  We have the same room we stayed in our first night in Dublin; Room #16.  Once we dropped off our bags in the room, we headed out to walk around Grafton Street and look for a place to eat.  Found a place in Temple Bar to eat.  After our meal, Emma found a pastry shop and picked out a couple of tarts to take back to the room and Jessica and I walked over to Trinity College to see if you could still get in to see the Book of Kells.

Fish & Chips

Slow Cooked Beef & Guinness Stew with Roast Vegetables and Button Mushrooms, tender Beef reduced in Red Wine & Guinness. Creamy mash & crispy Pastry Lid

Duo of Freshly Steamed Mussels and bowl of Creamy Seafood Chowder served with Brown Bread

After leaving the Old Jameson Distillery in Middleton, we were on our way to Kilkenny for the night.  We did have a bit of a hard time finding Newlands Country House, but after re-reading the directions and turning around we found the house.  It is in the country!  We met our host, Nicola, who showed us upstairs to our room.  The house is lovely and our room was spacious and overlooked the back of the property, which was a pasture with a horse grazing.  We dropped our bags off and headed into Kilkenny to get a bite to eat.  We ate at Kyteler’s Inn, a pub that Nicola recommended.  Kyteler’s has a history to it:  It is a medieval coaching inn named after Dame Alice Kyteler, a 14th century witch who once lived in the building.  After our early dinner, we walked around Kilkenny checking out all the sights.  Came across Kilkenny Castle, Rothe House, and St. Canice’s Cathedral.

Emma’s Roast Beef

Jessica’s Chicken Panini

Smoked Haddock and Salmon Fishcakes

Warm Sticky Toffee Pudding with Cream and Ice Cream

Kilkenny Castle was built in the 1190’s.  It was a Norman fortress overlooking the River Notre.

We found Rothe House, a Tudor merchant’s house, built around two courtyards.

St. Canice’s Cathedral is up on a hilltop, flanked by a round tower and built in the 13th century in an Early English Gothic style.  It was sacked by Cromwell’s forces in 1650.

Here are a few photos of the streets of Kilkenny.

It’s Saturday, and we checked out of the Old Presbytery in Kinsale and drove a little past Cork into Middleton to tour the 18th century restored Old Jameson Distillery.  This was on Emma’s “Must See” list.  We got there early before the first tour at 10:45am, which gave us time to browse the Jameson Gift Shop.  The tour was very well done explaining the history starting way back with John Jameson and walking through the old factory hearing all about the process of making the finest triple distilled whiskey.  At the end of the tour the tour guide asked for eight volunteers to do a whiskey tasting.  Hard to believe but it was actually hard for eight volunteers to step forward.  Thus, Jessica, Emma, and I raised our hands to be volunteers.  The tasting consisted of tasting three whiskeys:  a Scotch, which is a two distilled whiskey, an American (Jack Daniels), which is only distilled once, and Jameson, a triple distillation.  After the tour and tasting, we enjoyed a glass of Jameson Irish Whiskey with Ginger and Lime.

Our room was on the 2nd floor and last night right outside our window, the local Kinsale Ghost Walk Tour stopped for a story about the building across the street.  The Tour group consisted mainly of young kids and these kids were laughing and screaming hearing about the spiders in the walls and they had to board the room up and no one goes in it anymore.

Another great breakfast!  Jessica had the porridge, Emma had crepes filled with fresh fruit, and I had a crab frittata.

The drive from Killarney to Kinsale took about two hours.  Another beautiful sunny day with cooler temps – mid 50’s.  Kinsale is a small harbor town and hilly.  We had a hard time finding the Old Presbytery Bed & Breakfast.  Ended up having to drive through the town on streets that are way too narrow even for one car.  Once we found our place, we checked in and then headed out to check out all the picturesque shops in town.

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The streets of Kinsale are filled with cute colorful shops, pubs,and businesses.  Interesting fact about Kinsale:   In 1915, just 10 miles offshore from Old Kinsale Head the passenger liner, Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine.  Nearly 1,200 people were killed, sparking America’s eventual entry into World War I.

We ate an early dinner at Kitty O’Se’s.  After eating we stopped at the Old Bank House Cafe and I picked up a Lemon Meringue Tart.

Jessica and I took a walk to see Desmond Castle, only a block away.  The Castle was built around 1500.

Next we took the river walk along the water towards Charles Fort.  Didn’t make it all the way to the Fort, turned back.  We still had good daylight walking back to town and came across St. Multose Church and took some good photos.

It got cold last night and there was frost out on the ground this morning.  The weather app on my iPod said it was 39 F at 8:00am.  Mary prepared us a lovely breakfast; Jessica had the Scrambled Eggs with Smoke Salmon and Emma and I had Mary’s Crepe Pancakes…. delicious!

We thanked Mary for sharing her beautiful house in the woods with us and said our proper good-byes.  Mary and John close Friars Glen for four months over the winter.  We hope to return and stay at Friars Glen again.

We arrived in Killarney around 12:30p and the temperature was about 57 F.  After first passing the road we needed to turn on we found Friars Glen Country House.  The house is tucked inside the Killarney National Park and has the look and feel of an Irish cottage.  Mary is our host and Bridget, who works at the house are both wonderful.  Our room was ready when we arrived.  We brought in our bags to our room and Bridget came running to our room to let us know that there was a red deer outside the breakfast room windows.

The afternoon was spent exploring around Muckross House.  This is  a stately Victorian manor built in 1843 and set at the edge of Killarney National Park.  Queen Victoria stayed at Muckross House in 1861 and the owners  nearly went bankrupt preparing for the royal visit.  We treated ourselves to a jaunty car (horse buggy) ride to Torc Waterfalls.

We ate a very early dinner at 4:00pm at Molly Darcy’s.  The restaurant was convienently located close to our lodging and Muckross House and Bridge said Molly Darcy’s had good pub food.

Molly’s House Pie – Cottage Pie with Beef

Molly Darcy’s Burger with Mozzarella, Rocket, Basil, Red Onion and Chips

Chicken Wings

Dark Chocolate Brownie with Pecan Nuts, Chocolate Sauce and Hazelnut Ice Cream

Banoffee Pie with Caramel, Digestives, Fresh Cream and Banana

After our meal we dropped Emma off back at Friars Glen and Jessica and I visited Ross Castle.   Ross Castle was built in the 15th century and was the last stronghold under Irish control to be taken by Cromwellian forces in 1653.