Fun day!

The past 24 hours have been AWESOME! The hotel we stayed at last night was fabulous, we got a three course insanely good dinner included in our stay. We had fresh fruit for starters, then Geoff had steak and I had roast lamb, - they were honestly the best meals ever - and we ended with creme caramel and warm brownies with ice cream. About 15 mins after this extravagance we both passed out in our room, and woke up at 8am feeling sufficiently better!

We went to the breakfast buffet (also included in this crazy place!) and Geoff got a full Irish breakfast while I opted for cereal and croissants and a good kettle of tea. Then we headed out for our mourning hike through Glendalough - it was SO beautiful... the weather was sunny and warm, with clear skies for as far as we could see! We started right by the hotel and headed into the valley which was a Early Medieval monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century.

It included the original gateway, St. Kevin's grave, a round tower, a cathedral and a Priest's house. We spent quite a few hours walking around, taking pictures and walking a trail to one of the two lakes Glendalough is known for.

Glendalough

Next it was off to Kilkenny to lunch and visit a castle! We had lunch in a small cafe, and it was really good homemade sandwiches - then we walked around the town until ending up at Kilkenny Castle (see right) for the last tour of the day. (luckily for us, we stumbled in 5 mins before the tour started and they let us join the group!) It was beautiful, and interesting - with many ties to British royalty dating back past the 1400's. Our tour ended at 5pm and we headed onward to Waterford - our final stop of the day!

We are now here, checked in to a Travelodge for the night right around the corner from the Waterford Crystal factory which we are touring at 9am tomorrow! The weather still is nice, and we just got back from a fabulous dinner at Fitzpatrick's, where we got a ton of hints about our upcoming travels, and learned that 'West Kerry has great crack' ! (NOT drugs - apparently crack means fun here, as was explained to us after we looked sufficently shocked!)

Kilkenny Castle