Ireland: Day 1: County Wicklow and County Kilkenny

Arrival into Ireland

Ah the start of our adventure. Not sure what to say about this and if this was an ominous indicator or not but we hit a few bumps straight out of the gate. Well maybe not straight out of the gate, but into the second gate.

I was meeting my sister at the airport since she lives south and I live north of the city and she’s a good hike away so she shuttled in. I grabbed an uber, who was running a bit behind and he was absolutely focused on going 5-10 miles under the speed limit the entire time. Which made me quickly realize my first folly. As an adult I have come down with an affliction, car sickness. I am fine if I am driving and most of the time in the front passenger seat as long as there isn’t a lot of winding roads and super warm in the car but sitting in the backseat makes me queasy. Digging through my bag I realize my trusty motion sickness pills that I always keep on me have managed an escape from my bag and is no where to be found. Really? I am going on a road trip and I don’t have any motion sickness pills and I now get car sick…..Grr.. Oh well, I can pick some up at a market or at the airport.

We both get to the airport with no problems, check in and hang out until it is time to go. Leaving Minneapolis we had an uneventful flight to Boston. Then the waiting started. Our original plane was not available to us due to scheduled maintenance and now we were being delayed. Hmm.. Makes you wonder why was this our plane if it had scheduled maintenance, and if it truly was scheduled why would they not have accounted for this earlier and had the alternate plane ready and available. So now we wait, and wait, and wait. It turns out that the plane we were now taking was actually at JFK in NYC and not in Boston, so we had to wait for it. Oh but wait, it wasn’t like we were waiting for the flight from JFK to BOS, this was an empty plane we were waiting for. Our flight crew was all here in Boston but we had to wait for this empty plane to leave JFK, which kept getting further delays for unknown reasons before it finally took off to Boston. Then once it arrives, all of us grumpy, hungry, cold and tired by this point in time, oh by the way did I mention it was freezing cold in this terminal and nothing was open at this time of day? Anyways, by the time it arrives we have to wait further and longer, because they have to clean it now. Why they couldn’t have cleaned it while it was sitting doing nothing at JFK I do not know. So after a 3-4 hour delay we were finally able to jump on the plane and get to our seats.

My sister and I discussed who would take the window seat to vs from Ireland to get some views in, and I had the flying to Ireland leg. We get to our seats and I have the best view you can imagine! So this is a window seat, eh? That’s okay, by the time we were rounding closer to Ireland I fixed it and Ireland was just as beautiful as we had imagined.

The queue to get through customs was insanely long. Due to our delay we were arriving closer to noon, so at this time many other international flights were arriving, vs my initial plan of getting in earlier in the day where maybe there wouldn’t be as many people arriving for shorter queues. Oh well, you have to roll with the punches.

Now its time to acquire our noble steed for this trip and get our rental car for this adventure. Okay, I rented the car, my research told me I could decline car rental coverage since I am putting it on my American Express and they cover car rentals coverage for accidents in Ireland. Doh, nope, we were told at the counter (not sure if this is accurate or not) that isn’t quite the case. Yes I could decline coverage but they would put a 5-10K Euro hold on the car until it was returned. What?! Seems utter nonsense to me, but selecting their insurance for coverage wasn’t going to be as hefty as it was previously thought so I selected that so I have options for continuing to use my card while in country. Now when I was researching rental cars before I made my reservation there were options to do full coverage within the rental reservation at the time which I did not select, but maybe that would have made things easier once on site.

The rental car agent asked if we needed maps, no we have one. Have we driven in Ireland before? No. Okay best tip. Seriously he was right, this was the best tip ever. He said whatever country you are in, whatever side of the road they drive, the driver is always the middle so think me in the middle when you are turning, etc. What a simple concept!! We were stressing about the driving on the left aspect and were expecting us to forget due to instincts but this was a simple thing to think about when you question where you go. Me in the middle.

Now its time for us to be officially on our way. We have made it to Ireland!!! First things first and get out of the urban areas and explore the countryside.

County Wicklow

Our adventure started in County Wicklow, we were quite behind schedule due to the delayed flight so we had to scrap some of the sights we were planning on seeing here but that doesn’t stop us from driving through the winding roads and stopping by some pretty views.

Sure, the initial driving seemed a little daunting with being on the wrong side of the road and the widths of these roads are oh so tiny, thankfully I rented the smallest of cars I could get. I know these roads are barely the width of one lane in the states but is considered ample enough room for two-way traffic so we just learned to hug the tree line best we could. Hugging the edge of the roads make it super easy to just pull off when a scene entices you like this little scene.

We were quite surprised that we didn’t see as much green as we had been warned of, but this area had these brown shrubby bushes blanketing the fields, we were a little early in the season yet but we think that when it gets to blooming it is heather. At that moment it wasn’t the prettiest of views but imagining it all lit up with purple blooms you could see how this would be a place to sit and enjoy for long periods of time.

We continued forward over the gaps (mountain passes) and the winding path and we found this little car park indicating a nearby waterfall but while we didn’t have the waterfall at first we did see the narrow little river babbling around the rocks, and it felt good to get out and stretch our legs a little bit. In order to see this waterfall, Glenmacnass Waterfall, you needed to continue further down the road to get a good view looking back onto it. It wasn’t that major waterfall with a huge flow of waterfall dropping down, but it didn’t fall as much as it quickly sloped down this ridge of rock, sliding down until it met to the bottom.

It was getting late and we still had a way to go to get to our hotel (and hopefully a little exploring), so it was time for us to leave Wicklow and head into County Kilkenny.

County Kilkenny

We jumped onto the M9 and quickly arrive to Kilkenny. This was the only place I had pre-booked, figuring we may be a little tired and jet lagged, and we were. We arrived at our hotel, the Kilkenny River Court Hotel, at around 5:30 that evening, quickly checked in, did a little wardrobe change and set off to walk about the town.

We were on the east side of the river and decided to head east first and wander up and down the street before we crossed over to view the castle.

What I love about Europe is they are not afraid of color or being unique. The little shops along the road are so vibrant in color, and they even have a sense of humor as seen by Mr. Sweeny Todd’s Barbershop. Although I may skip that one myself. We stopped by and took some pictures of St Johns Church of Ireland.

We popped over the river and started to walk down down the canal walk, which way to the castle? Don’t go that way, never go that way, we joked in the worm’s voice from The Labyrinth, just as we saw a secret door opening that lead to a darken stairs that went up. Arriving at the top you were in a blanket of trees that soon opened to a park and then the castle, Kilkenny Castle to be exact. Our first official castle stop. Now it was too late in the day to go inside for a castle visit but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying all it had to offer on the outside.

We knew it was going to be an early night for us, so we decided to find a place to grab some food enjoy a few moments of relaxing before we retired for the night. Naturally we decided to stop at Kyteller’s Inn. This inn was established back in the 1300’s and was owned by a woman who was later declared a witch (she escaped her fate by slipping off to England) but her accomplices did not fare as well and this Inn is supposedly haunted.

Now did we see any haunting aberrations, no but we did enjoy a nice meal and some live music. A girl who had been studying dance was encouraged to showcase some skills, she was asked a jig or a reel and selected a reel. Now when I think a reel I think the old south, the Virginia Reel, and this reel felt more jiggy to me. So after our yawning got the better of us and we retired back to the hotel we had to look up the difference between a jig and reel. We found an interesting video that broke it down, actually a jig is slower than a reel and the best way to determine between the two is if you can saw strawberry or rutabaga to the beat. Strawberry is a jig and rutabaga is a reel.

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Our daily drive: