We woke up and walked over to the little Insomnia coffee shop inside the Spar (the local grocery). We grabbed some breakfast like things there and the coffee and ate breakfast in our apartment. We’d made plans with the taxi driver who brought us to our apartment on day one to come get us at 10 and bring us to the airport to get our rental car. We were all gathered outside at 10.
Nothing happened.
Finally, at 10:15, Sara and Jason walked around the block and found a van taxi to come get us. We didn’t get the card of the guy who had agreed to come so we couldn’t call him. We’re guessing he just flat forgot. No matter, this guy was also hilarious and got us to Enterprise straight away. We liked him a lot, got his card, and plan to call him for our next couple of airport runs. The van for all five of us with luggage from city center to the airport rental car area was 26 Euros. Amazing.
Now, the fun begins! We are free to roam! Sara takes the wheel with Ash navigating, which is great since they were both in the lessons and learned the road signs, etc. Our number one goal is just to get the heck out of the city and the traffic and get onto the Motorway. The mini van is just perfect. We all fit well and the luggage we brought is just right. There is a third seat that we thought we’d use but there is absolutely no leg room. As in, I’m not sure anyone ever could sit back there. Strange design. We began our drive south to Kilkenny and learned to understand the GPS we rented. Since we don’t have mobile phone use unless we’re somewhere with WiFi, we couldn’t use any of our normal GPS options. We’re finding that this isn’t the best GPS we’ve ever used, but we’re getting used to it. It gets us to the right places but it really isn’t intuitive. Sometimes you can’t quite tell which way it wants you to go and this is made worse by there often aren’t posted street names unless you are right in a village. Anyway, Sara was doing great driving on the wrong side of the car and road and before long we made it to Kilkenny.
This was to be our first castle! Yeehaw! Kilkenny is so cute. We found a wonderful restaurant for lunch. The meals here aren’t rushed. The food comes out fast, is delicious, and there is zero hurry to get you out the door or “turn the table” for other guests. It’s really nice. I tried a Jamison and coke after lunch and it was nice!
We cruised up to the castle — walking and leaving the car where we parked on the outskirts of town. We were about 45 minutes early for a tour but there was a self guided option for something like 6 euros so we jumped on that. The castle was lovely — nice tour through there. It had been restored and lived in so there were some areas that were more modernized because of structure concerns from the original, of course. We enjoyed the pictures of the original and the many things they were able to leave in place. The grounds of the castle were also incredible. There was a lovely garden in the back, long, rolling green fields in the front where some local kids were playing. We joked that in the US you wouldn’t be able to get in the grass much less play sports at something like this. And the grass was still perfect!
After the castle, we wanted to see the cathedral but we thought we better move the car closer because at some point Mom would get tired and not be able to have another really long hike back to the car. So, Sara, Ash and Jason went to get the car and mom and I stayed at the roundabout outside the castle. It then promptly started to rain. At least it wasn’t a major downpour. Mom had a rain jacket on but I just had a sweatshirt. About 10 minutes into that, she suddenly remembered she had an umbrella in her purse. Geez!!
So, they picked us up and we went to see the beautiful cathedral. Sara dropped us and found a parking spot. It was gorgeous but didn’t take more than a few minutes and then we were ready to walk around. The town is full of lots of shops. They don’t have large malls here so everything you need is in small shops scattered throughout the town. We walked and explored. It drizzled much of the time. Ash and Jason found a pub called Paris Texas, which is an actual city in Texas! So crazy. They went in briefly but didn’t get to find out the full story. We’ll have to look it up.
We decided we best get on the way to find our lodging for the night so we looked up the hotel in the GPS and took off. All was well and we found it in no time. We pulled around back of this cute little B&B looking place and were starting to unload the car when a man walked right up to us and said, “You’re in the wrong place. You’ve got the wrong house!” No one ever said the Irish weren’t direct! We said, “no, we’re staying here tonight.” He said, “You don’t have a room!” Sara said, “yes, I’ve had a reservation for weeks.” He said, “No, you don’t.” Finally, I pulled up the confirmation code for him to look at. He looked at it and said, “castlecomer.” I stared at him. He said, “This is Carlow.” I kept looking at him because I had no idea what that meant. Then he said, “You’re in the wrong town.” UGH.
So, we got the heck out of there as fast as we could since he obviously did NOT want us around. We were only about 15-20km away from castlecomber, thankfully. The hotel we ended up with was very cute! It had its own pub and restaurant which was great for that night and the next morning. We were supposed to have 2 rooms as they had triple rooms with 3 beds but the one that Sara, Mom and Ash got had a double bed and a twin...not really ideal. So, Sara was able to grab another room so we fit better. The rooms were nice and confortable and clean and we had a good night there. Ash, Jason and I took a short walk through the village. Short because the village was tiny! But, cute, clean, well kept. Very nice.
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