Ireland

We traveled to Ireland with our son, Bryan and his wife, Tiffany.  We give our children a senior trip and then decided to give a trip to their spouses as well and Ireland was on her bucket list. It has been a great experience to get to travel with one couple at a time and get to have unlimited conversations and fun times in far off places.  One thing that impressed me about Ireland was how many shades of green there are.  I am sure that I saw shades of green for the first time ever in Ireland.  The night we arrived, this turf covered car was parked in the parking lot.  Ireland is Green.

There are oodles of castles on the Emerald Isle.  We saw several castles pictured below.  My all time favorite castle was one that we stumbled upon while driving.  We followed a sign that said Castel and found a smaller but beautiful castle in the midst of the foggy area.  We didn't do the tour of the castle but we were enchanted when we came back around to the front of the castle after exploring the rose gardens to see that the fog had cleared and the sea was very close to the front of the castle.  We hadn't known that this was an "oceanfront" castle and it added to the magical effect of being there.  Enjoy these castle pics below:

This castle is a more famous castle in Ireland.  It is called Blarney Castle. It dates back to the 1200's and is complete with gardens and even a poison garden where, I guess they would run out and harvest some poison herbs to poison the dinner guests that they don't like.  

This castle is famous for the Blarney stone that you can hang upside down and kiss and be rewarded with good luck.  People from all over the world have kissed this stone.  I decided to pass on this ritual but our son and daughter in law tried it and have been blessed with good luck, so who knows? :)

My favorite part of this castle was the acres of grounds surrounding the castle.  There were beautiful places that you could wander through and even a new modern castle on the acres beyond.  This one was a private residence and not open for touring.

Nice homes in Ireland.

This tourist attraction is called the cliffs of Moher.  These cliffs are famous for being a beautiful green.  It is out of the way but the tourists seem to find the way there through the winding, small roads of Ireland.  When I see small roads, rock walls, sheep and rolling green hills, I will always think of Ireland.

This is the first time that I have seen a pringles dispenser.

Tiffany wanted to see an Irish Pub.  She said she thinks the name "pub" is such a cute word.  We don't drink and so we were not interested in utilizing the offerings of a Pub but we were amazed how hard it was to find one.  We have seen many, many more Irish pubs in NYC or other American cities as in the actual country of Ireland.  

Ireland was a beautiful, intriguing, green little country.  This reminds me of a woman from Ireland, who bought some of my music, and contacted me and said that I should look her up and go see her if I ever visited her "wee" country.  Whatever it may be missing in size, it makes up for in Irish spirit.