Beautiful Ireland

Matt and I are back safe and sound, despite our 30 plus hour ordeal on our trip back from Rome. We had so much fun, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of wine (and beer thanks to Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria) and did a lot of walking.

Since we went a lot of places, and had so much fun in each place I thought I would break the trip up into several posts. I also plan on posting more pictures on Flickr so keep yours eyes peeled for those.

FIRST STOP--IRELAND!!!!

First things first, Guiness does taste better in Ireland.


Full Guinness=Happy T


Empty Guinness=Sad T


We flew into Dublin on the 27th of June. We had rented a car so as soon as we got there Matt got to learn very fast how to drive in the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. He did very well, and I'm so glad we rented a car because it gave us so much more freedom, even if back roads in Ireland are barely big enough for two cars, and both those cars are going way way to fast. After going to get some lunch we headed back to our B&B which was so very cute. I felt so bad, because all I wanted to do was go to sleep, and our super cute hostess wanted to talk. After a great nap we woke up and went to find some dinner, but nothing around where we were was open, so for dinner we had a pint of Guinness, and I have to say it really does drink like a meal.

The next morning we headed off to the dingle peninsula, which is on the SW corner of the country, in the county of Kerry. Our first night we stayed just five minutes outside of town. It was just the cutest little town, full of shops, and pubs, and surrounded by the most beautiful country side I have even seen. The Next day we moved on to a B&B in downtown Dingle right in the middle of everything.

Our first day we rented bikes, we could have ridden the whole peninsula (about 25 miles) but ran into some problems. After about 2-3 miles into the trip Matt's bike tire popped, so we had to walk our bikes all the way into town to get him a new bike. We set off again, this time in the other direction, rode about 5ish miles, took a break for lunch, in a wonderful cow pasture, and decided to call it a day. Who were kidding 25 miles...

That night we decided to take advantage of the local dingle night life. Most pubs after 9ish have Irish music jam sessions. There was a big pud right across the street from our B&B so we went there first, had a pint, then decided to move along because it was so loud and crowded that we could not hear the music. We walked up the way a popped into a great little that was not crowded or, loud at all, and the band KICKED ASS!!!! They were an Irish bluegrass band that did covers of, the White Stripes "hotle yorba", Johnny Cash, and Violent Femmes "waiting for the bus" (J--I thought of you when they did this one). They were awesome!!!


After one more day of site seeing, and shopping we headed back to Dublin. We stayed again at the first B&B, it was about 30 minutes from Dublin. In the morning we went into Dublin but only stayed for a few hours. We liked the smaller out lining cities much more so we decided to spend our last night in one of those instead of the city. We went to Skerries which is on the beach, a beach the reminded me a lot of the Oregon coast. We went for a nice walk, and had a wonderful seafood dinner. It was the perfect end to what I hope will be the first of many trips to Ireland.


Stay Tuned for the next Fun filled installment....Paris! Paris!