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Showing posts from June, 2012

IRELAND days 10-14

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Countryside on our drive from east coast to west coast. This was some of the prettiest scenery we saw on a lovely day.  Little towns just spring up out of nowhere. Cute and such a sweet place to live.  This is a police car. On our whole trip driving the entire southern half of Ireland, I think we saw 3 police (Garda) cars total.  Funny sign: no horse drawn carriages on the highway. You'd be surprised how often you see horse drawn carriages in Ireland. Funny to see them banned from highways, you know, where you're driving 120km/hr.  The streets of downtown  Ennis , County Clare, our third and final destination stay. We really enjoyed our time on this side of Ireland.  Driving along the coast of Doolin towards The Burren. Gorgeous scenery and was a very nice drive. Driving through The Burren  Really pretty.  Literally driving along the coast through The Burren.  Bunratty Castle , possibly our favorite of all 4 of the castles

IRELAND days 6-10

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After arriving on the east coast of Ireland, we drove south to County Wicklow along the coast. The drive went from lush green Ireland to mountain ranges. This photo shows just how quickly the terrain would change.  Typical Ireland with sheep. They really are everywhere. All of a sudden, the mountain ranges spit us out into this valley just before we arrived in Wicklow. The town of Wicklow.  After Wicklow, we drove to Glendalough . (Interesting story, really worth clicking the links and reading more about it). It is a very high traffic tourist site. This is the Round Tower.   St. Kevin's Church  Hollywood , County Wicklow. Population of around 100 people. Kinda funny to see "Hollywood" on the side of the hill with sheep all around it. This is taken in the town of Naas , County Kildare, where we stayed at a B&B. Even in town, there are ruins set right among the modern town. This town felt very European. We rode the bus to

IRELAND days 1-5

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(click on the image to look through them gallery style) Ross Castle - the day we arrived in Ireland (trying to get on the right time zone). We'd been awake for well over 24hrs by this point after 14hrs of flying.  Driving in Ireland was quite the experience. Wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road with signage like this!  The coast on the Dingle Peninsula   Looking down from near the top of Mt Brandon Hiking Mt. Brandon The streets of Killarney, County Kerry St Mary's Cathedral This yellow wild flower was blooming all across Ireland. The photo doesn't do it justice. Absolutely amazing.  Cahir Castle . This was a fun day. We drove from Killarney to Naas (west coast to east coast of Ireland) and along the way, stopped at the following two castles.  Inside Cahir. The Rock of Cashel We flew in to Shannon, Ireland and spent the first leg of our trip in County Kerry. The weather was dreary, rainy, overc