European Adventuring, Part 3: Ireland
AHHHHH, where did I leave off?!? Oh yes, Londontown! Oh London, how I love you so and what a wonderful trip you were!
So we jetted off nice and early the morning of Tuesday after electing to take a cab to Heathrow (cause it’d be cheaper than taking the train for all 4 of us) especially since we had to leave at 5:45am.
We got through security and all of that rather quickly, got on the plane, and, not kidding, I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep so fast! I.was.out. HA! My mom snapped this super flattering pic of me snoozing away too. Lovely.
Once we landed in Dublin, we grabbed our rental car and headed out -- we were going to try and make it to the Dingle Peninsula before checking into our B&B for the evening.
Mike took the wheel -- and a good thing cause it was a manual transmission and my dad knows how to drive those but I think Mike was more seasoned with a stick since he last car was and it came back to him so naturally! He really was an amazing driver tooling us all around Ireland these past few days!
Anyways, so we headed out to Dingle and my goodness what an absolutely PERFECT day we had! It was just GORGEOUS and the colors were just STUNNING!!!
We found a cute little restaurant to stop for lunch, and then headed off for more driving! Golly we did a lot of driving these past few days but it was so worth it with the sights we were able to see!
On our drive we were on the coast and came across a beach, so, duh, we HAD to stop! This was so great (the weather was spectacular!) and we got a lot of great snaps on the beach. And I continued to jump my way through Europe too. Haha!
We then came upon this amazing rock/mountain overlook and this was probably one of my favorite places we saw -- the weather made it SO perfect and I could have snapped pics there all day long! And, of course, I did some more jumping too!
We stopped at the Dingle Pub for dinner which was delish before heading to our B&B for the evening back in Killarney.
The B&B was soooo pretty -- we strolled around the grounds for a few pics at sunset (which was at like 9:30pm!!) before calling it a night and retiring from our long day of driving.
The breakfast on Wednesday morning at the B&B was so tasty! Everyone loved it and our B&B host was so nice and friendly and accomodating. I wish we could have spent more time there!
We headed out about 8am on our journey that was going to take us 5 or 6 hours to drive the Ring of Kerry. It was quite windy and spitting rain and after 11 days our luck seemed to run out with the weather and we finally got a taste of that UK/Ireland icky weather that I remember! HAHA!
We saw this old castle/graveyard and had to stop for some pics, and that was the BEST weather we had all day! Just a bit windy but not rainy. The rest of the day we were SOAKED!
But it was worth it -- even with the crappy weather we saw some amazing sights and sounds!
Seriously, how gorgeous are these snaps from the Ring?!?!? STUNNING! Cannot imagine what it would have looked like if it was sunny!
The biggest part of our day was spent driving the Ring of Kerry, which we thought would take us to mid-afternoon. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, try again!
We were HALFWAY DONE at 2:30pm when we stopped at this cute little restaurant right on the beach in Ireland! Oh how I would have loved to snap more pics here but that’s all I got cause SOOOO RAINY.
Mike got the seafood gumbo and it reminded me of the scene where they eyeballs pop up in Willie’s soup in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom so I had to take a video to show Patrick! HAHA!
We then headed towards Kilkenny where we were staying for the night before heading to Dublin first thing Thursday morning for our last Ireland adventure before flying home on Friday.
We saw a few other castles and neat sights, but again, SO WINDY AND SO RAINY! So that cut some of our sightseeing short.
We ate at seriously the most DELICIOUS Chinese food restaurant for dinner (at like 8pm!!) about an hour and a half before we rolled into our hotel, that we’d spend less than 12 hours in! HAHA!
Once we got to our hotel we were BEAT. I edited my snaps from today and called it a night -- and poor Mike was exhausted from driving 13 hours today too! Oh what a day!
Thursday we got up, ate a quick breakfast, and headed about an hour and a half to our hotel in Dublin to drop our stuff off and go exploring on our last day!
Mike had I had plans to meet his mom’s cousin for dinner that night, so we had a lot of time before that to do some touristy stuff before then.
Golly, today we just SCREAMED tourists. In a town that no one was familiar with and big ol' maps helping guide is to where we were suppose to go. HA! Clearly my mom and I well documented this.
So once we took the little tram (about 8 mile) from our hotel into Dublin's city center, we went exploring!
We hit up the Jameson distillery to get some booze for my brother, and then headed into the city (walking!) to see what we could come across.
We found some super old churches (one of them the oldest in Dublin!!) and liked exploring those. It was a gorgeous day (albeit a tad windy) but we really had a blast looking at these super old buildings.
We walked around for a bit more and hit up the souvenir shop (helllllo, P, R, and A all need gifties!) before finding a cute little pub to have lunch at.
Lunch was DELICIOUS. Probably the best fish and chips I've had since we got here! And Mike got a Guinness and he thoroughly enjoyed it...clearly :)
We then decided we wanted to sit for a bit and found a hop on hop off bus to take us around Dublin and show us all of the sights!
Ohhhhh, what sights we saw! Seriously, in the less than 2 hours we were on the bus we covered nearly the entire city!
We then went over to Trinty College to go see the old library and Book of Kells.
The Book of Kells was okay, but the old library! GAH! That was just GORGEOUS and worth the price of admission just for that!
See?!! GORGEOUS!
Mike and I parted ways with my parents -- they wanted to sightsee a bit more and we wanted to head back and get checked into our hotel before we were meeting Mike's cousin (well, Mike's mom's cousin...or second cousin...anyways someone related!!!) for dinner.
After we rested and strategically packed our suitcases (cause they were full when we got here, and now with the things we got they were BUSTING!!! HAHA!) it was time for dinner so we strolled down to the lobby to meet Ann and her son Chris and his partner Lisa.
Oh what a wonderful dinner we had!! It was SO wonderful to meet-up with these guys and we had such a wonderful time catching up -- I mean, thank God for Facebook she already knew so much about us and our kiddos!
Once we got back from dinner we crashed...I finished up editing some pics and this here blog post and got our stuff semi-packed so in the morning we could wake up and roll out to the airport to get home!
It was an incredible and amazing vacation and trip -- I am so glad my parents tagged along too, we had so much fun with them and saw some incredible things! However, we can NOT WAIT to get back home and squeeze our three babies! We missed them so much and cannot wait to see them SO SO SO soon!
I hope you've enjoyed these musings from our European Adventures in June 2018! I've linked the other two parts below if you want to read them (again?!?!). HA!
So we jetted off nice and early the morning of Tuesday after electing to take a cab to Heathrow (cause it’d be cheaper than taking the train for all 4 of us) especially since we had to leave at 5:45am.
We got through security and all of that rather quickly, got on the plane, and, not kidding, I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep so fast! I.was.out. HA! My mom snapped this super flattering pic of me snoozing away too. Lovely.
Once we landed in Dublin, we grabbed our rental car and headed out -- we were going to try and make it to the Dingle Peninsula before checking into our B&B for the evening.
Mike took the wheel -- and a good thing cause it was a manual transmission and my dad knows how to drive those but I think Mike was more seasoned with a stick since he last car was and it came back to him so naturally! He really was an amazing driver tooling us all around Ireland these past few days!
Anyways, so we headed out to Dingle and my goodness what an absolutely PERFECT day we had! It was just GORGEOUS and the colors were just STUNNING!!!
We found a cute little restaurant to stop for lunch, and then headed off for more driving! Golly we did a lot of driving these past few days but it was so worth it with the sights we were able to see!
FaceTiming with the big kids on the beach!
On our drive we were on the coast and came across a beach, so, duh, we HAD to stop! This was so great (the weather was spectacular!) and we got a lot of great snaps on the beach. And I continued to jump my way through Europe too. Haha!
We then came upon this amazing rock/mountain overlook and this was probably one of my favorite places we saw -- the weather made it SO perfect and I could have snapped pics there all day long! And, of course, I did some more jumping too!
We stopped at the Dingle Pub for dinner which was delish before heading to our B&B for the evening back in Killarney.
The B&B was soooo pretty -- we strolled around the grounds for a few pics at sunset (which was at like 9:30pm!!) before calling it a night and retiring from our long day of driving.
The breakfast on Wednesday morning at the B&B was so tasty! Everyone loved it and our B&B host was so nice and friendly and accomodating. I wish we could have spent more time there!
We headed out about 8am on our journey that was going to take us 5 or 6 hours to drive the Ring of Kerry. It was quite windy and spitting rain and after 11 days our luck seemed to run out with the weather and we finally got a taste of that UK/Ireland icky weather that I remember! HAHA!
We saw this old castle/graveyard and had to stop for some pics, and that was the BEST weather we had all day! Just a bit windy but not rainy. The rest of the day we were SOAKED!
But it was worth it -- even with the crappy weather we saw some amazing sights and sounds!
Seriously, how gorgeous are these snaps from the Ring?!?!? STUNNING! Cannot imagine what it would have looked like if it was sunny!
The biggest part of our day was spent driving the Ring of Kerry, which we thought would take us to mid-afternoon. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, try again!
We were HALFWAY DONE at 2:30pm when we stopped at this cute little restaurant right on the beach in Ireland! Oh how I would have loved to snap more pics here but that’s all I got cause SOOOO RAINY.
Mike got the seafood gumbo and it reminded me of the scene where they eyeballs pop up in Willie’s soup in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom so I had to take a video to show Patrick! HAHA!
We then headed towards Kilkenny where we were staying for the night before heading to Dublin first thing Thursday morning for our last Ireland adventure before flying home on Friday.
We saw a few other castles and neat sights, but again, SO WINDY AND SO RAINY! So that cut some of our sightseeing short.
We ate at seriously the most DELICIOUS Chinese food restaurant for dinner (at like 8pm!!) about an hour and a half before we rolled into our hotel, that we’d spend less than 12 hours in! HAHA!
Once we got to our hotel we were BEAT. I edited my snaps from today and called it a night -- and poor Mike was exhausted from driving 13 hours today too! Oh what a day!
Thursday we got up, ate a quick breakfast, and headed about an hour and a half to our hotel in Dublin to drop our stuff off and go exploring on our last day!
Mike had I had plans to meet his mom’s cousin for dinner that night, so we had a lot of time before that to do some touristy stuff before then.
Golly, today we just SCREAMED tourists. In a town that no one was familiar with and big ol' maps helping guide is to where we were suppose to go. HA! Clearly my mom and I well documented this.
So once we took the little tram (about 8 mile) from our hotel into Dublin's city center, we went exploring!
We hit up the Jameson distillery to get some booze for my brother, and then headed into the city (walking!) to see what we could come across.
We found some super old churches (one of them the oldest in Dublin!!) and liked exploring those. It was a gorgeous day (albeit a tad windy) but we really had a blast looking at these super old buildings.
We walked around for a bit more and hit up the souvenir shop (helllllo, P, R, and A all need gifties!) before finding a cute little pub to have lunch at.
Lunch was DELICIOUS. Probably the best fish and chips I've had since we got here! And Mike got a Guinness and he thoroughly enjoyed it...clearly :)
We then decided we wanted to sit for a bit and found a hop on hop off bus to take us around Dublin and show us all of the sights!
Ohhhhh, what sights we saw! Seriously, in the less than 2 hours we were on the bus we covered nearly the entire city!
We then went over to Trinty College to go see the old library and Book of Kells.
The Book of Kells was okay, but the old library! GAH! That was just GORGEOUS and worth the price of admission just for that!
See?!! GORGEOUS!
Mike and I parted ways with my parents -- they wanted to sightsee a bit more and we wanted to head back and get checked into our hotel before we were meeting Mike's cousin (well, Mike's mom's cousin...or second cousin...anyways someone related!!!) for dinner.
After we rested and strategically packed our suitcases (cause they were full when we got here, and now with the things we got they were BUSTING!!! HAHA!) it was time for dinner so we strolled down to the lobby to meet Ann and her son Chris and his partner Lisa.
Oh what a wonderful dinner we had!! It was SO wonderful to meet-up with these guys and we had such a wonderful time catching up -- I mean, thank God for Facebook she already knew so much about us and our kiddos!
Once we got back from dinner we crashed...I finished up editing some pics and this here blog post and got our stuff semi-packed so in the morning we could wake up and roll out to the airport to get home!
It was an incredible and amazing vacation and trip -- I am so glad my parents tagged along too, we had so much fun with them and saw some incredible things! However, we can NOT WAIT to get back home and squeeze our three babies! We missed them so much and cannot wait to see them SO SO SO soon!
I hope you've enjoyed these musings from our European Adventures in June 2018! I've linked the other two parts below if you want to read them (again?!?!). HA!
