Driving across country - thank goodness for the ring-bound atlas of Ireland, insist on nothing less - we stopped for a late lunch in Cashel, host town of, well...the Rock of Cashel .
It's an impressive old castle / church complex perched on a hill at the edge of town. It's the highest point in the area, so it commands good views (and therefore was hotly contested by the local rulers until they handed it over to the Church around 1100 AD). The tower of the complex, tall (90 ft) and very longlasting, was also built around 1100.
We got back to more typical Irish rain while we were there - low cloudy with periods of rain sweeping in and out every 10 or 15 minutes.
As we worked our way towards Dublin, we slowly graduated to larger and larger roads - from the narrow and twisty rural country roads, to the better and faster secondary roads, finally to the motorways into Dublin and the ring road around it. After days of brief maximums of 100 kph, we felt like we were flying on the motorways!
We didn't go into Dublin after this long day's drive; instead we headed the additional 45 minutes north to Drogheda, an ancient medieval town (founded in 911 AD) on the river Boyne. Nick and Rachel have their first home there (anyone interested in a nice house with easy access to the train to Dublin??), and offered it for us to spend a couple of nights. Rachel greeted us there and we took her out to dinner at the "d" hotel in Drogheda, a sister hotel to the "g" in Galway. (Drogheda seems like an odd choice for this hip style of hotel; I wonder how it's doing?) The place was empty of practically all furniture, but her kind neighbors brought in a sofa and a couple of beds for us to sleep on!
No comments:
Post a Comment