Week 72-73: Road Trip through Ireland

It has been a couple of weeks since we shared an update. During week 72, we were preparing for our big Irish adventure and week 73 was spent doing the adventuring.

March 12:

The day we had been looking forward to since we booked this trip. Our bags were packed, animals dropped off at the pet hotel, and we were on our way to Salzburg for our first flight of the day.

The Salzburg airport is much closer for us, but it usually means mulptiple flights to get to our final destination. However, we prefer the 50-minute drive to the Salzburg airport and dealing with a layover rather than driving 2.5 hours to Munich or Vienna for a flight.

We landed in Frankfurt, Germany around lunch time and, a few hours later, finally made it to Dublin!

*Green jacket, green door, green plants*

The first two days in Ireland were planned for exploring Dublin and walking around the city, but the majority of our trip was for an epic Irish road trip.

Once we landed, we made our way to the rental car counter and picked up our car. In Ireland you drive on the left side of the road and the driver’s seat is on the right side of the car. The drive to the hotel from the airport was a wee bit nervewracking, because this was our first time driving like this…during the Irish rush hour…and it was raining.

We made it to The Trinity townhouse where we were finally reunited with our friend, Nate. We had not seen him since we left America in 2020!

We all went to dinner at a speakeasy called The Blind Pig and had a great first night.

March 13:

Our real first day to get out and explore. We went to a few sites like the Trinity Long Room which is the Old Library building at Trinity College. Home to the Book of Kells and over 200,000 of Trinity's most ancient books. Unfortunately, it was closed when we got there, but we were still able to walk around the campus.

Next, we went to the Dublin Castle. This Castle is at the heart of the city. It was built in the 13th century by King John of England. The castle was made for city defense, Royal Treasury, and administration of justice.

After researching a bit more about the castle, I learned there are approximately 30,000 other castles and castle ruins in Ireland.

Next up is the Ha'penny Bridge. A 206 year old pedestrian bridge. There was really nothing too special about this bridge other than the fun story of where it got its name. People used to have to pay a toll to cross. The price rose to a “penny-ha'penny” (1½ pence). Hence… “Ha'penny”.

We meandered through the streets and walked past the Fusilier's Arch and Anne’s Street umbrellas. In person, the umbrellas are underwhelming, but if you take the picture in the right angle, it looks much more impressive.

By now, we were getting hungry, so we walked to the oldest bar in Dublin–The Brazen Head. It also happens to be the fifth oldest in the world, dating back to 1198.

After lunch, we walked 15 minutes to the Guinness Storehouse. The factory/museum is located at the St. James' Gate Brewery in Dublin. Also known as, 'The home of the black stuff’.

As we walked closer, we experienced whiffs of something being roasted. Almost smelling a little like chocolate. As we approached the factory, we soon realized where the smell was coming from.

I pre-booked our tickets, so we bypassed a long line of people waiting, which felt good. We did a self-guided tour. Throughout the 7 floors, we learned about The Story of Guinness, who invented it, and walked through “the world of advertising”. When we reached the top, we entered the Gravity Bar rooftop, which overlooked the whole city and is where we saw a glimpse of our first rainbow in Ireland.

Our tour ticket included a pint of guinness. None of us had ever had a guinness and I can say for certain none of us will ever have it again, ha. It looks like it would be great. The smell is actually enticing. It looks a bit like chocolate milk, but it most definitely does not taste like chocolate milk.

We left the storehouse and relaxed back at the hotel for a couple of hours before making our way back out for dinner.

*Cute street on the way back to the hotel*

We went to Sophie’s, a rooftop restaurant perched atop the Dean Hotel with a 360 degree view of Dublin. When you get off of the elevator at the top, you have a chance to sit on swings and wait for your table to be ready.

March 14:

After a big first day, we had breakfast and drove 30 minutes to Howth–an Irish village on the Howth Peninsula, east of the city. After parking, we checked out a lighthouse and began our first hike of the trip on the Howth Cliff Trail.

It took about 2.5 hours to complete and was insanely windy, but with blue skies. Fun fact, Prince William and Kate Middleton were seen walking on this trail a couple of years ago.

After the hike, we were starving. I thankfully scouted out the coolest lunch spot ahead of time, so no time was wasted looking for food. We sat down at The Dog House Blue's Tea Room Restaurant. This restaurant is a hidden gem. The decor is a little weird, but so cozy, and they serve the world’s best brownie. Literally. I wish it was closer so we could go back.

*Best brownie from The Dog House Tea Room*

The next day, our Irish road trip began, so as we made our way back into Dublin, we stopped at an Irish ALDI to buy car snacks. Eric obviously works for ALDI and works with the Irish market, so to see one of the stores was pretty cool.

March 15:

Our time in Dublin came to an end and we hit the road for the first stop of our Irish road trip.

Around 11am, we pulled into Glendalough (Glen-Duh-Lock), located in the Wicklow Mountains National Park. Aside from the hiking trails and lakes, the world famous Monastic Site and Round Tower is located here. Founded in the 6th century by St Kevin.

We were on a bit of a tight schedule, so we only hiked a section of the Spinc Trail.

Carved by the melting ice of an ancient glacier, the Glendalough Upper Lake is one of the most scenic locations in Wicklow and Ireland.

*Nate and Eric at Glendalough upper lake*

After two hours of hiking, we drove two more hours to Rock Of Cashel, aka St. Patrick's Rock.

Set on an outcrop of limestone, the Rock of Cashel is one of Ireland’s most visited attractions.

Two of the most famous people of Irish legend and history are associated with the Rock of Cashel.

St. Patrick, whom according to legend, arrived in Cashel in 432 AD and baptized King Aengus, who became Ireland’s first Christian ruler.
Brian Boru. He was crowned High King here in 990 AD. He is the only king who was able to unite all of Ireland under one ruler for any significant period of time.

Fun fact, Queen Elizabeth II is descended from the Irish High King Brian Boru on her mother’s side.

We grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald’s. Although founded in America, the parents of the brothers who founded McDonald’s were Irish immigrants. I have eaten McDonalds in 5 countries now. For some reason, I find this stat cool.

Another hour and a half of driving and we pulled up to our hotel for the night in Cobh, an island just south of Cork.

Cobh is known for being the Titanic’s last port of call.
On April 11, 1912, the Titanic departed Cobh and set sail for New York.

March 16:

Another day of tight schedules, but wonderful adventures. After a quick hotel breakfast, we drove 45 minutes west to the Blarney Stone.

When we arrived, there were only a handful of other people. Lucky us!

We purchased tickets to go inside the castle and to kiss one of Ireland's most beloved treasures. After walking up several stairs and a narrow, spiraled staircase, we reached the top and prepared for our big kiss.

Kissing Ireland's Blarney Stone is a tradition that has been around for centuries and is said to give a person the gift of eloquence and persuasiveness.

Nowadays, to kiss it, one must lean backwards while holding onto an iron railing. In the past, visitors had to be held by the ankles and lowered head first…

In our covid world, the stone is sanitized after each person. Probably a good idea when you consider 400,000 people visit the stone each year.

We had big plans to hike Ireland’s tallest mountain, Carrauntoohil, measuring 3,407 feet. Eric and I hiked a mountain in Austria over 5800ft, so we knew we could conquer this mountain if we just had enough time and good weather.

*Carrauntoohil is the pointy one in the middle*

To get there, we drove 90 minutes to Killarney National Park located in Kerry. One of the most scenic corners of Ireland. We had blue skies the entire time, but then as we were pulling in, it started to rain and hail. We got out and still hiked for about an hour before having to turn back.

We are pretty bummed we cannot say we reached the top of this mountain. However, there was something better waiting for us at the other end of the rainbow.

*Eric and Nate at Inch beach on the Dingle Penninsula*

We got back in the car and reached our next town for the night—Dingle. Dingle is situated, unsurprisingly enough, on the Dingle Peninsula, which stretches 71 Km into the Atlantic.

Our hotel for the night was the charming B&B Greenmount House. The Greenmount House is a family run operation. It opened in 1977 and, since then, they have provided 4 star Luxury B&B accommodation to guests from all over the world.

After we checked in, we sat for maybe 15 minutes and went back out again. We were chasing after the sunset and arrived at Cé Dhún Chaoin. A pier situated at the northern end of a small secluded bay surrounded by rocky cliffs.

I would add this spot to one of our most favorite places in the world.

Collectively, Dingle was our favorite place in all of Ireland. If we ever go back, we will stay here again.

March 17:

It is ST. PATRICKS DAY!! The whole reason we chose to come to Ireland was to be here for this holiday. After a delicious breakfast at the B&B, we drove three hours to Clare to see the Cliffs of Moher. It felt special to be at one of Ireland’s top attractions on this day.

The Cliffs of Moher were formed over 320 million years ago. At their tallest, they have a height of 702 ft over the crashing waves of the Atlantic ocean.

The name Moher means “ruined fort”.

Some well-known movies filmed at the Cliffs of Moher are Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Princess Bride.

We walked an hour down the cliffs to Hag's Head, the southern most point of the cliffs. At the end is a stone ruin of an old Napoleonic-era watchtower.

It was time to head out and continue the road trip.

One hour later, we checked into Jurys Inn, in Galway. Unfortunately, Galway was not as pretty as we had hoped. We are not city loving people to begin with, so to see Galway on a night where people flocked to the city and drank too much to celebrate St. Patty’s Day was a mistake on our part. We ventured down Quay Street, the Latin Quarter, and Shop Street. While Galway had the potential to be cute, the piled up trash and broken glass bottles everywhere did not make the best impression on us.

March 18:

We left Galway and went to Menlo Castle. In the summer, this castle is much cooler to look at, because the vines are covered with greenery.

As quickly as we came, we left and drove north towards Belfast. This was our biggest driving day. 4 hours total. At the halfway point, we crossed into Northern Ireland for lunch and picked up a few more car snacks.

Just a few streets away from our lunch spot was our next stop. We completed a hike at the Cuilcagh Mountain Trail Boardwalk. It was much more ambitious than I was anticipating. While I had planned for it to be a 2.5 hour walk, it was definitely a long and strenuous one. The aggressive wind did not help when it came to walking up the hills.

*Sheep along the Cuilcagh Mountain Trail Boardwalk.*

*Eric on the Cuilcagh Mountain Trail Boardwalk.*

After 3 hours of hiking and another 90 minutes of driving, we arrived in Belfast! Between Dublin, Galway, and Belfast, this was our favorite.

We checked into The Bullitt Hotel and had a relaxing dinner at one of the three restaurants the hotel has to offer.

March 19:

Our final sight-seeing day.

We checked out, put our bags in the car, grabbed breakfast from Starbucks, and made our way to the front gates of Belfast City Hall for our DC History "Troubles" Walking tour.

Over 2.5 hours, we learned what caused the start of the Troubles and we visited seven locations in the city where major events occurred between.

Our guide, James, told us his personal story about growing up in Belfast during the Troubles and what life was like for him and his family.

After the tour, we grabbed lunch at Yardbird, the site of Belfast’s oldest tavern.

Our final two destinations were the Dark Hedges and the Cushendun Caves. Both made popular from Game of Thrones and an hour north of Belfast.

The Dark Hedges Game of Thrones scene was in Season 2, Episode 1: On the King's Road in the scene where Arya Stark has escaped from King's Landing. I had big hopes for this spot to take an epic picture on this perfectly tree lined, light filled street, but there were so many people walking around it was hard to get anything super artsy.

Cushendun Caves formed formed over 400 million years ago! The Game of Thrones scene for this location was when Melisandre gives birth to the terrible killer shadow.

It came time to return our rental car and prepare for our departure the next morning. By 8pm, we dropped the car off and checked into the Dublin Maldron airport hotel.

March 20:

The morning came early and we were out the door and standing in the check-in line at the airport by 7am. The line was incredibly long and took forever to get through. Our flight was at 8:35 AM, and at 7:50 AM, we were still in line. I was making plans for us to miss our flight and figuring out how to get back without too much hassle.

By 7:55 AM, we made it to the front. We noticed a guy sneakily trying to get infront of us. Eric confronted him and kindly reminded the guy there was a line and we were next. The people behind us all started chiming in and backed us up saying the guy could not cut in line because we are all trying to make our flights. I am not sure what happend with the guy, but what happened next for us was urgentally speaking to the agent. She gave us our tickets and said to use the fast track line.

We ran through the Dublin airport...bringing our trip’s grand total hiking/walking distance to 80 miles!

Nate was at our gate waiting to see if we made it. We high-fived him as we were running by and made it into our seats on the plane with just a few moments to spare.

Our Irish road trip
was a trip of a lifetime.