Glendalough

It has been a busy couple of days with much adventure. We rode the bus to Glendalough, a glacier valley south of Dublin. The roads are narrow and often our driver would pull to the side when another bus or farm equipment came in the opposite direction. Added to my simple confusion that we were on the "wrong" side of the road it was interesting.

First, the weather has been amazing..sunny and warm and windy. But no rain!

We hiked a bit on arrival Friday, viewing the lakes, an old mining village, a very old monastic area and beautiful scenery.  Then checked into our basic hostel. Dinner was wonderful. I ate a beef stew with brown bread and Ed had venison sausages and vegetables. We retired but were awoken at 3am to much noise.  Apparently the restaurant staff thought someone was too drunk so they put him in our hostel. They did offer us a free full breakfast and coffee for the annoyance. 

We hiked over 20km around Glendalough. Returned to town to a wonderful meal with veggies, bread and a great hot apple dessert. We have spent some time washing (ourselves and laundry) and prepping for our next destination. Tired. Till next time!

Dublin

We arrived in Dublin early this morning. We chose not to ride the hop-on/hop-off bus to see the city. We took the public bus to the downtown area and went exploring on foot. Although we saw some neat things along the way, we found Dublin to be just another big city. Unlike in Spain where we toured through many cathedrals and paid nothing to do so, Dublin was asking us for Euros at every turn. We did find Christ Church, St. Patrick's Cathedral and Trinity University to be quite interesting and beautiful. We enjoyed walking along and hanging out by the river Liffey that runs through the city. Throughout the day we were able to enjoy some tasty baked goods and we even found a quaint coffee shop on a side street to fulfill our daily portion (needed it to keep us going. We were quite tired). Joan has booked us into an interesting place to stay this evening. A city hostel of sorts. I find it quite amusing that we are by far the oldest people staying here. We look forward to a good nights sleep and heading out to the countryside tomorrow.

On a bridge over the river Liffey .

Here We Go

Sitting in the Charlotte airport awaiting our overnight flight to Dublin Ireland. We are ready for our adventure without an itinerary which was lost to the wonderful app Evernote that decided to eat it this morning! This should add quite a bit to the adventure. Joan quickly reconstructed a bare bones itinerary that should help us somewhat. We should have relatively good access to the Internet while we are there so we will find our way. Check back with this blog soon!