So, there are a lot of stories as far as our honeymoon so I am going to have to do it in parts. This is Part I and consists of our first four and half days of our trip. Very full and very fun. You are more than welcome to read all or part of it. I know it's long and almost a book but there was so much to write and I read over and still didn't seem to catch everything. I took over 1,000 pictures, so for a complete compilation I suggest you go to Facebook. :)
Well, the flight was horrid. I have sworn never to travel that far by air unless I have a nice comfy, squishy first class ticket. As it happened, we were quite the opposite and we ended up in the back row right next to the bathrooms, and oh! were they awful! Needless to say, we were not happy about starting the honeymoon in such a fashion and coming off the plain we were two very grumpy newlyweds.
I have never been out of the country except to Niagara Falls with my parents while we lived in Jersey but the difference is obviously minimal and I don’t quite count that trip. So, getting through the line to get into the country was quite an experience for me, not a happy one as we were tired (we had gone to bed at 4:00 AM after the wedding and then woken up at 6:00 AM to catch breakfast with our families and then our flight and this was now one and a half days later due to the time in the air and the time change), ornery, and dirty to boot. So, we stood in the line for about an hour before we took two seconds to flash our shiny new passports and we were then sent on our way to finally enjoy our honeymoon.
After that, the sorrow continued as we struggled with the roads and driving on the “wrong” side, while Brandon was quickly forced to learn how to drive a manual car. This was not an easy task in our haze of exhaustion. So, we twisted and turned as we made our way down the highway to our first hotel, the Fitzpatrick Castle, in the suburbs of Dublin.
This had been my wedding hair. We took it out as soon as we got to our hotel.
(On a side note, while we were doing the twisting and turning, we had apparently flown into Dublin at the same time as our wonderful President Obama. We saw the helicopter that carried him from the airport to where he was doing business in Ireland. Quite a treat! There was military absolutely everywhere on the roads and you could feel the tension and excitement of the country in the air. They think quite a lot of President Obama. It was interesting to hear their take on politics and our government throughout the trip.)
The security on the roads for President Obama.
Anyway, back on topic. Our first hotel was fabulous. It was an older hotel and had quite the musty smell (our hallway smelled of whiskey and cigars) but it was beautiful in its traditional architecture, elegantly old, I would say. The actual hotel was not actually a castle but right outside was the remains of one and even that Brandon and I ogled at. We had been upgraded for free in the hotel to a beautiful suite for our honeymoon. They had Traditional Irish music playing in our room when we walked in and chocolates and fruit for the occasion. The view was breathtaking as we looked out onto Dublin Bay. The castle is set up on a hill and our room, I was sure, had the best view in the whole place!
Our view from our room at the Fitzpatrick.
That night we ate our first meal in Ireland in the cute little pub in what they called the “Dungeon” of the castle. It was delicious and we got to meet a few locals, where we immediately fell in love with not only their accents but their demeanor and character. It felt like we had finally gotten started.
The next day we decided to go to Dublin (after a delicious breakfast-in-bed!), and get our first experience under our belt. I am sad to say that it was underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fabulous city but that’s exactly what it is, a big city. If you have ever been to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Orlando, or even any international big cities like London, Paris, etc., then you have been to Dublin. Big lights, big shopping malls, busy streets, government buildings, churches, lots of people, so on and so forth. It just has a bit more history then any of our big cities. So, we hopped on a tour bus and toured the city that way. It was quick, easy, and we covered a lot of ground in just one day so we wouldn’t have to do it again. We took tons of pictures and I could go on for ages about what we saw but really this was not the most exciting part of our trip. We did see the Guinness Store House, which was cool to see how they made everything (keep in mind, Dublin think their beer is superior to the southern part of Ireland’s beer, called Murphy’s. They like to have civil war over it often. Ha!). And the highlight of the bus tour was when we stopped at the original city wall of Dublin that was built way back when in the time when the Normans were ruling sometime in the 12th Century, I believe. Very old, very ruin-y, and very cool! So we concluded the tour happy that we did Dublin in one day and it was out of the way.
On the tour bus in Dublin.
Brandon with a Guinness at the Guinness Store House.
That night we went to a more rural area for dinner. We went to a pub called the Merry Ploughboys. A place they said where we could get authentic food and hear authentic music. I am sure it was all authentic but it was very tourist-y. Which was fun and the food was delicious and the entertainment was good but we tried to stay away from the more tourist-y places from that point on. But there we were able to get up and do a bit of our own Irish dancing and since I am like every other Lower on this earth and have two left feet, I was terrible but it was a blast! :)
In front of the Merry Ploughboys.
Irish Dancing!
So, on to the next day, which was a moving day so we packed up our four bags, and pushed the little rental car towards the west side of the island, the pretty part, to Kilronan Castle. It was about a two-and-a-half to three hour drive to the northwest where it is all rural and the towns are smaller than Malad and all farming towns or coal towns! Now, this castle/hotel was reconstructed from a real castle and boy, was it gorgeous! It is right outside of one of these tiny towns that we passed through and it seemed like we might meet lions and tigers and bears, oh my! for all the people we saw going through the winding roads.
As for the castle, you walked in and the lobby was a huge entry way with a crystal chandelier. The receptionist walked us across the hotel to the elevators to make sure we didn’t get lost. Kilronan is set up on a hill as well overlooking a gorgeous lake with fir trees surrounding the entire area. The grounds expanded for acres and acres and were as green as you could possibly think of when you think of Ireland, but it is every shade of green in the Crayola Crayon box. The whole area, including the castle, was absolutely breath-taking. Our favorite part is what we called ‘the Great Room.’ It was a large common area where guests could get wi-fi (the only place in the entire hotel) and sit and chat or whatever was necessary. It was decorated like an old castle with suits of armor, big tapestries, and rugs that extended the entire area. The couches were comfy too and since we kept in contact with our parents via the internet and joys of Skype we spent a large amount of time in that room.
Our castle of a hotel, the Kilronan!
The first night we got there we decided to eat dinner at the restaurant on-site since we were forever away from everything else. Little did we realize the classiness of this specific restaurant. We headed down in our jeans and t-shirts that we had traveled in. I took a quick second to freshen up but that was about it. When we got down to the restaurant we wished we had checked the dress code because not only was it a high-class restaurant, there was a maitre d, the nicest place setting with every knife, fork, and spoon you could use in good etiquette. We had to make sure no elbows were used on the table, no hunching, and make sure to definitely go from the outside in with our silverware, which by the way, was really made out of silver.
We were placed in front of a huge fireplace in a room overlooking the beautiful grounds. The server was fabulously pleasant and was extremely patient with us while we tried to figure out etiquette of the nice restaurant and not to show how much we were tourists, which was inevitable, of course. The food was absolutely delicious; the dessert was to die for.
Our dinner at the Kilronan.
Let me stop here and explain how meals work in Ireland. First of all, it doesn’t matter where you go, every restaurant is a four course meal. You have your appetizer, your meal, dessert, and then the after-dinner coffee. You have to plan on sitting down to dinner for at least two hours, if not longer. Dinner is to say the least, a big deal there. And you sit and sit and sit after you are finished and they will not bring you the check unless you ask for it. Not because it is bad customer service but because it is good customer service. They want you to enjoy and relax during your meal rather than feeling rushed and on the go. It is a completely opposite mindset than American living. It took time to figure this out and adjust. Something else, is they refuse to serve dinner after 9:00 PM. That is when the restaurants shut down and the pubs open for a good time and you are hard pressed to find somewhere to eat after 9:00 PM. There were many a nights where we starved because we simply forgot to eat dinner before 9:00 PM and there was no such thing as Denny’s there.
Before we left, the wonderful server told us to head down to the pub in the basement for some drinks. And that is when we met Cian.
The pub was dressed in golds and reds in a very elegant medieval fashion and the bartender was friendly and welcoming. As we ordered our beers, I noticed the entertainment, which was blaring from TV set’s strategically around the four-room bar. Lady Gaga was currently streaming a recent music video and as song after song went by I realized that music is just the same as it is over here, which I was quite pleased about. I got to enjoy my music in an Irish pub. Oh man, best of both worlds! After a few beers, we decided it was time to head upstairs to talk to the parents over Skype.
We talked with my Mum about this and that and the bartender, Cian, was so nice that he continued to bring up beers to us without even asking and even gave us a few on the house! We were so thrilled with the experience. He was a bit younger than us, and after his shift was over and he sat down and chatted with us. We got along so well! In fact, he is now one of my Facebook friends and we keep up with each other there! Quite the experience!
Anyway, we went to bed late but we were up bright and early to get our first sightseeing day started! We had breakfast in bed, the only meal there that wasn’t the best but still yummy. Once we were up and going, we left in search of the coal mine that one of the little town’s nearby had survived off of up until about ten years ago. The locals had said that it was quite a treat to tour, so we started our day with that.
The road that we got lost on. Most roads are like this in Ireland.
Small, broken down buildings that were uninhabitable, every few feet.
It was hard following directions there and after a few turns in what we thought was the right direction we were lost immediately in the green hills. Honestly, we didn’t mind that much and didn’t fret. The views that we came across were stunning. I can’t explain the beauty of the countryside in Ireland. It is breathtaking! So we wandered around the hills for awhile, down small, tiny roads that our rental barely fit on, and that is saying a lot because our car really wasn’t all that big. There were cows and sheep everywhere! And we began to discover that every few feet you went down these tiny cattle roads you could find another cute ruin-y of a building to ponder what had once been there. It was all just fabulous and we were only a few hours into our day.
We finally stopped and asked for directions to the coal mine and found it in a few minutes. We hadn’t been that far off, just had taken a wrong turn. The building where you bought tickets was a cute little hut that was now set in front of the coal mine. It had a cozy café inside (every place had a cozy café where you could order a pastry of some sort and coffee) with a fireplace that was on since it was a bit chilly that day. We watched a movie presentation (that was very homemade) about the history of the mine and then we headed in.
It was everything you might expect out a coal mine. It was cold, dark, and damp. The tour guide had worked in the mine for decades before they had shut it down and told us stories to humble any person who works a nine to five job. It was intriguing to see the terrible working conditions and at one point they turn off the lights to show you what it was like to work in the mine as you had to work in the dark most of the time. The machinery was bulky and dangerous and the stories about some of the people that our tour guide had worked with that had been hurt were enough to make you cringe. It was quite the experience. Throughout the tour you learn that they no longer mine coal because the windmills throughout the countryside are used for energy now and put the mines out of business.
About to go into the mine. We look so silly.
Part of the mine.
We stopped to ask our tour guide for a few more humbling stories since we were so intrigued and then we were off on our adventure again. (If you would like to hear some of the stories that the miner told us, there are some more on Facebook.)
Once we were driving again, we decided that is what we wanted to do. Just drive. We had a map of some of the old ruins in the area and we decided to do a very large loop of the area to see some of them. Not only did we see the ones we wanted but we also stopped at everyone that was on the side of the road. It was so amazing to just be driving and all of a sudden a ruin of a castle was just there, sitting, tall and ominous. It was so fabulous! You literally could just start driving and before you knew it you were on top of another ruin.
Our first stop was Boyle Abbey. It was… HUGE! The old gothic architecture was a beautiful and as we went through the Abbey and learned about the history of how it became an abbey and then taken over by King Henry VIII and how the building had been changed to suffice for him, down to the foundation being raised. It was absolutely stunning and the history of the place was fabulous! (If you would like to learn all the history we learned about Boyle Abbey, you can go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle_Abbey) This was the moment we absolutely fell in love with Ireland! We were smitten kittens and addicted to the history and the ruins.
A part of Boyle Abbey.
We traveled the rest of the day around to different castles and Abbeys. We were on our way north towards a large tourist castle and we ran into Ballinafad Castle. We didn’t get a tour of this one but it was still absolutely stunning to see and read the signs that were up. After that we continued on our way north and decided to stop for lunch. It was another pub but I tell you this was the best food we had. Pubs are mostly family owned and the food is fresh and made with a lot of Irish recipes. So we sat in a quiet corner booth with nothing but locals around us. You could tell we stuck out like a sore thumb but for Brandon and I it was perfect and we didn’t mind. We really loved the local part of our journey; we tried to stay away from anything tourist-y.
Ballinafad Castle.
After lunch we drove towards the castle we were planning on but we had to stop yet again. We came upon Creevelea Friary. It was quite interesting. The difference between the Abbey we saw and the friary was that the abbey was being redone and rebuilt so that they could better preserve it. The friary wasn’t being preserved and didn’t have the government working on it so the locals hadn’t gotten to it. The locals believe that a friary or abbey obviously has sacred ground on it so they bury there dead there. There were graves everywhere! You had to be extremely careful of where you stepped or you might step on a tombstone. We walked around in silence to pay or respects while looking at the ruins that seemed to go on forever. It was so beautiful and peaceful. At one point, in the distance, a church bell went off as if almost to go along with the mood that had set it over Brandon and I while we were there. It was sacred to both of us and the church bells going off in the distance seemed to go perfect with our thoughts and our prayers.
Parts of Creevelea Friary.
After the Friary, we finally made it to Parke Castle, which had been our original destination. It was closed but we walked around the entire perimeter and peeked inside to see what we could see. This castle had been completely rebuilt and preserved to be shown to the public. The beautiful thing about this castle is it was built on the side of a lake. It was remarkable and again the scenery took our breath away. We wished we could see it back when there were king, queens, and knights roaming the countryside. The overcast sky put a quiet over everything since we were in the middle of nowhere and we could almost here the horses in the stable and clanking of armor in the courtyard. It was absolutely stunning!
Parke Castle next to a lake.
Notice in the picture, the two different types of colored stone near the top, this is the part that had been redone. You could always tell the parts that had been remade because they white-washed it, they did this for archeological reasons so archeologists later down the line could take one look at it, determine in what era It had been redone. It was very interesting.
We twisted and turned down the tiny roads back to our hotel and returned late. We asked the receptionist if there was anything open that late at night since we hadn’t eaten yet and we knew that eating late in Ireland was next to impossible. The receptionist was ready to tell us that there was nothing open when a nice local said that she knew the owner of an Italian restaurant down the road and they were about to close but could call ahead and say she had some friends coming in. We were so thankful for the kindness that had been extended to us! We made it just in time!
The Italian restaurant was set next to some marshy terrain. It was everything you could want in a family-owned Italian restaurant. Low-lighting, intimate ambience, and Italian food you will probably never taste again because of the uniqueness of it all. We had a window seat and got to watch the sunset over the marshy area and it was quite perfect. Oh yes, it didn’t get dark until after 11:00 PM. I can only guess it was because we were so far north but you couldn’t expect it to get dark until after 11:00. Another interesting tid-bit about Ireland.
In the Italian Restaurant.
When we got back we headed back down to the dungeon bar to chat with Cian and get a few more drinks. And we were off to bed late yet again!
The next morning we were off to yet another one of our hotels but on the way we wanted to stop at a few castles and anything you might see on the way so we set off to look for some more ruins!
...More to come soon! :D
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