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Date Posted: 16:00:37 09/07/04 Tue
Author: elisa
Author Host/IP: DSL212-235-108-2.bb.netvision.net.il / 212.235.108.2
Subject: Irelanda! (o paseando por los mundos de Dios - y que lindo son!)

Our grand tour of Ireland started out in Dublin. We spent two and half days doing all the silly and fun touristy activities these included: making full use of the "hop on/hop off" double decker tourist bus and visiting:
Trinity College to see the Book of Kells (one of the oldest and best preserved Christian Bible manuscripts), the Trinity College Library (very beautiful 17th century architectural style - from the 17th century until today it receives a copy of every book published in Ireland and Great Britain), the National Museum (to see beautiful pagan Celtic jewelry and to learn a bit more about Irish history), Grafton Street (its their upscale and touristy walking mall area), Dublin Castle, Dublinia (a very touristy recreation of Mideval life in Dublin), Oscar Wilde park, James Joyce tour, St. Patrick's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), ChristChurch (Church of Ireland - Anglican), Phoenix Park, the Guiness Brewery (this was a great deal of fun and at the end of the tour I got a pint of the Black stuff which I shared with my children - Noa and Yonatan). At this point we felt that we had "done Dublin" and so we decided to pick up a rental car and head out of the city.

As most of you probably know in Ireland as in Great Britain they drive "on the other side of the road". As I had driven on the other side of the road in Cyprus during the month of July (I think I shared with most of you that I was in Cyprus in July for a work conference) I didn't feel any real serious anxiety or angst about taking on this challenge. Actually it really is no big deal and takes only about fifteen minutes to overcome the strange feeling of sitting on what for us is usually the passenger side -- but for them is the drivers side.

Throughout the driving part of the trip I needed to constantly remind myself that:
1. I had to enter the traffic circle going clockwise (to the left) and not going counterclockwise (to the right)
2. I had pass cars on the right and not the left
3. In dealing with turns my mantra was: "low left, high right" that means the left turn is directly into the closest lane of traffic with traffic coming towards you from the right, (so I had to remember to look right and not left when making a left turn) and the right turn is across at least one lane of traffic (and the traffic is coming from the right and the left and you need to look both ways before moving forward even one single inch!)

Apart from that I really didn't have any fears or issues as driving is driving and anyway I am left handed and it was a really cool and challenging driving experience!

Our first stop outside of Dublin was a sea-side town called Brey. Brey is south of Dublin on the Irish Sea. We had a really fun time on the beach here and just basically hung out all the late afternoon and evening. Oh yes, the sun doesn't set in Ireland to after 9 pm close to 10 pm this is because it is so far north and also because somewhere along the line they like the rest of Europe moved their clocks forward two hours for the summer or may-be they are like that year round -- I don't really have the answer to that one.

From Brey we set out towards Powerscourt Gardens - which is a beautiful cultivated garden which incorporates the Wicklow Mountains as their background. We then took the Wicklow Mountains Scenic Route and at this point realized that we didn't want to go to anymore big cities because the Irish countryside is absolutely gorgeous and we wanted to spend as much time as possible enjoying Ireland's natural beauty (besides Ireland isn't really the place to go see works of art and museums - its just not their strong point). We stopped at Glendalough Monastry which is from the Middle Ages and is surrounded by a beautiful park with many nature walks. After the Monastery we went through the Wicklow Mountain Pass and drove to Kilkenny.

The weather was a mixed bag...always a bit of drizzle for part of the day sometimes a downpour but always a bit of sunshine. This combination of weather is what makes Ireland the Emerald Isle and so we didn't really mind...we always had raincoats or umbrellas with us and since it doesn't rain in Israel in the summer time we really enjoyed having the warm rains. The temperature ranged from 10 C (about 42 degrees F) to 20 C (about 68 degrees F).

In Kilkenny we visited the Kilkenny Castle, Rath House, Black Abbey (a Middle Ages church built by the Catholic Dominican Order), St. Canice's Cathedral and enjoyed ourselves doing a bit of shopping and window shopping. Kilkenny is a small town so it was a great deal of fun. We stayed in a local Bed and Breakfast. This is what we did throughout most of the trip. Staying in Bed and Breakfasts is fun because you have a chance to get to meet the locals.

From Kilkenny we took the Scenic Route to Cashel which has a middle ages cathedral (ruins) and then on to Caher which has a middle ages Tower House (we all would call it a castle but its really smaller and so they call them Tower Houses). From Caher we drove on to Blarney where we spent the night and then the following morning we went to kiss the Blarney stone in Blarney Castle. The children and I agreed that this is really an overdone very touristy activity and that it was a real pity that with all the money they charge to see this castle (it was the most expensive one to get in to) they really haven't done anything in terms of fixing it up a bit and/or providing a guided tour of the grounds or Castle.

From Blarney we drove on to Killarney at this point we were deep into the South-Western side of Ireland and actually very close to the Atlantic Ocean. We spent two days in Killarney. While there we went to the Killarney National Park which has a well maintained tower house with a beautiful exhibit and a guided tour. We also went on a boat ride on the Lake here. This was really tons of fun. After our Boat ride we spent the rest of the day doing walks through the National Park -- this included "discovering" an old copper mine.

Then we started the scenic drive around the Ring of Kerry (this is one of the penisula's in the south-west) we went through the Gap of Dunloe (it was formed during the ice ages and has very beautiful flora), out to the very tip of the ring where we went to the beach at Sheep's Head. and then continued our drive around the ring to Kilorgin (at the other end of the penisula).

From Kilorgin we drove to Bunratty (by passing Limerick) (north west). Bunratty has a beautiful Castle which is well maintained and which offers Mideval dinner and entertainment! This was way cool! before our Mideval dinner we spent the day enjoying the Bunratty Folk Park - this is a reconstructed village from the late 18th early 19th centuries.

From Bunratty we drove north to the Cliffs of Maher -- these are on the Atlantic Ocean and are absolutely gorgeous!!!!! They are cliffs with a straight steep drop to the Atlantic Ocean. Very beautiful. Then we took the scenic drive through "The Burren" this is a beautiful area and so we stopped several times along the way for walks and hikes.

We spent the night in Ordmore a small town just outside of Galway. From Ordmore we went further north to Connemara - this is the Gaelic (Irish) speaking part of Ireland and is in our opinion the most beautiful part of the country. We did hikes and walks in the Connemara National Park, and enjoyed the scenic drive on the Sky Road as well as stopping along the way to see the view of the Ocean and enjoy the natural beauty of the area.

At this point our time was starting to run out so instead of going further north to Westport we came back to Ordmore for the night as we decided that it was time to make the long drive from the North-Western side of the country to the North-Eastern side of the country (back to Dublin). We stopped at Clonmacnoise which is a monastry complex built by St. Kieran in 545 AD. As with many other religious centers in Ireland this one was also taken over by the Anglican Church so there are ruins of a Catholic Church as well as ruins of an Anglican Church.

We decided that we didn't want to spend the night in Dublin so we stopped at Trim. If you have seen the movie "Braveheart" then you have seen Trim Castle as it was used as the Castle in that movie. Trim is a lovely small town and as with all the other small towns we visited we had fun walking around and looking at the architecture.

From Trim we drove on through the Boyne Valley (site of the historic Boyne Battle) and then on to Knowth and Newgrange. This was absolutely wonderful. We spent the day at Knowth and Newgrange and enjoyed learning about Pre-Historic, Pagan, Pre-Christian Ireland.

We spent our last night in a town called Navan. This was a large town with a cinema so we went to see the movie "The Village" (it wasn't scary but it was good - if you go see it - ignore everything you have learned about this movie from the previews and/or the commercials).

On our last day in Ireland we took our final scenic drive between Navan and Tara. Yes, Tara is a real place in Ireland not just a plantation in the book and movie "Gone with the Wind". Tara is a very spiritual place and we enjoyed the calm and spirituality of it all. From Tara we drove to the airport just outside of Dublin for our flight home.

The trip was great fun for our family. I highly recommend Ireland as a vacation location...fun walking, hiking, easy driving and if you stay away from the big cities you don't run into too many Irish-Americans doing the roots thing. The Irish-Americans on the roots thing are just like Jewish-Americans on the roots thing in Israel or Mainland Puerto Ricans on the roots thing in Puerto Rico -- the children and I found this discovery very humourous and we really enjoyed watching Irish-Americans taking pictures of everything and looking up their family history at the different family history centers throughout the country (each county of Ireland has a family history center). We found the native Irish to be wonderfully warm, helpful people, who love to hear stories and talk to visitors about all subjects.

Our vacation was GRAND!!!!

Desculpen que no tuve tiempo de traducir esto al espan~ol
Abrazotes
Elisa

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