Ireland! We loved it! We were there for 8 days and I made the comment after about 4 days, “I could live here!” It was beautiful and very green. There were lots of stone ruins and stone fences. Lot’s of sheep and in the whole island we saw about four policemen. I wondered about that and then I realized the people were so nice, they didn’t need policemen!
If you decide to drive while there, you need to realize they all drive on the wrong side of the road! Like the lady at the car rental told me, “Stay left, and you’ll be right.” I had heard the the food in Ireland wasn’t great, but we never had a bad meal there. We liked the food! Even the food from gas stations was good!
The first day we got there and got our car. That afternoon we visited Dublin castle. It’s in the middle of Dublin. It has a great courtyard and a few gardens. What you can see inside is like the old mansions if you’ve ever visited one.
Dublin is a historic city and quite attractive and quaint as far as big cities go. (I’m not fond of any big cities.) You have to remember when you are parked to out and feed the parking meter on a regular basis. If you like big cities I suppose Dublin would have a lot to do.
The next day we left and went to Kilkenny castle. Kilkenny castle looks a lot like you would think a castle should. It’s fully restored and has a large grounds with it. Definitely worth a visit. The inside was one of the nicer castles I’ve seen.
From the large yard it’s very picturesque and photogenic. I would highly recommend a visit. Again, parking is a bit of an issue there. If it’s a nice day, plan on taking a walk on the many walk paths there. It’s very pleasant.
We left there and drove to a small village called Inistioge. I’d heard that it was a picturesque historic Irish village. I was very surprised at the lack of tourists there. On the way into and out of town there are stone arch bridges with 6 or 7 arches each. Very beautiful!
There was also a small but beautiful park there by the river. It would have been a good place for a picnic.
There wasn’t even a restaurant open in town! We found a small grocery store and got food for lunch. As we found all over Ireland, the lady in the store was very nice and told us of a garden called Woodstock that was near there as well as a nice waterfall.
We found Woodstock and parked there. There weren’t a lot of other people there so we had it mostly to ourselves. There were steps to it so we had to leave poor Marty under a tree while Hattie and I explored it. There was a large stone ruins by the garden, but we couldn’t go up to it. They had a fence around it.
The gardens were nice but not as maintained as others we saw later. However, it was probably the best arboretum I’ve ever seen. It even had a couple of giant sequoias in it. It had two long lanes with trees planted all along them. The whole thing was very large, at least 60 acres or more.
There was one of the coolest greenhouses in the garden. This place was one of those hidden gems that aren’t well known but are great to visit. After we left, it took us a while to find the waterfall. It wasn’t large but was very picturesque.
That evening, we were late heading toward our room for the night. It made it worse because we were starving. Luckily, we found a place beside a circus that advertised bar food. It was a delicious meal and a great way to top off the day before we got to bed.
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