Well good morning!
Day two got off to a (thankfully) slow start, as we all worked our way through jet lag. My strategy was to go ahead and sleep for ~12 hours, which was tough, but I persevered.
We had planned to do a local hike called the Knockfierna, which was featured on the Adare website. As we discovered upon arrival at what we believed was the starting point, the next point was nowhere to be found. After wandering for a bit, we went into the Visitors Center, where we were informed that, despite being featured on the Adare website, the hike actually started roughly 20 minutes away by car. Because of course it did. The woman who dashed our hiking hopes was able to provide an alternative, however, and we opted to do the local churches and river walk.
This allowed us to see most of Adare's center, which the website refers to as the Prettiest Village in Ireland. It is, in fact, very picturesque.
After our rather blustery walk, we stopped at Auntie Leana's for lunch. The beef stew was the lunch special, and I wasn't going to not get the beef stew special (also delicious, though I may pause on my beef stew-a-day plans to sample some other local delicacies).
We also stopped by the grocery store again to round out our dinner stuff. I think that it's interesting that our receipts have asterisks by any Irish-made products, and there's a summary line at the bottom that lets us know how much money we spent on local products.
We drove to County Shannon in the afternoon, and went to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. The idea is that it's a living village (representative of different areas of Ireland in the 19th century) with a restored castle. The castle itself was damp, cold, and did not undersell in its frequent warnings of uneven and slippery steps/ tight quarters - while I would probably not be interested in living there, it was pretty neat to explore.
The village itself was also very cool. We didn't see it in actual operation, but most of it was open to walk through. Lots of farm houses from different areas (rural, mountain, etc.), mills, town shops, etc. Almost everything smelled really strongly of smoke and peat.
We got back to our Villa around six. Dinner was vegetarian tikka masala and naan (an Irish-Indian delicacy, obviously) and movie night.
And now we're off to our Ring of Kerry Tour!
Have a great day!
Day two got off to a (thankfully) slow start, as we all worked our way through jet lag. My strategy was to go ahead and sleep for ~12 hours, which was tough, but I persevered.
We had planned to do a local hike called the Knockfierna, which was featured on the Adare website. As we discovered upon arrival at what we believed was the starting point, the next point was nowhere to be found. After wandering for a bit, we went into the Visitors Center, where we were informed that, despite being featured on the Adare website, the hike actually started roughly 20 minutes away by car. Because of course it did. The woman who dashed our hiking hopes was able to provide an alternative, however, and we opted to do the local churches and river walk.
This allowed us to see most of Adare's center, which the website refers to as the Prettiest Village in Ireland. It is, in fact, very picturesque.
After our rather blustery walk, we stopped at Auntie Leana's for lunch. The beef stew was the lunch special, and I wasn't going to not get the beef stew special (also delicious, though I may pause on my beef stew-a-day plans to sample some other local delicacies).
We also stopped by the grocery store again to round out our dinner stuff. I think that it's interesting that our receipts have asterisks by any Irish-made products, and there's a summary line at the bottom that lets us know how much money we spent on local products.
We drove to County Shannon in the afternoon, and went to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. The idea is that it's a living village (representative of different areas of Ireland in the 19th century) with a restored castle. The castle itself was damp, cold, and did not undersell in its frequent warnings of uneven and slippery steps/ tight quarters - while I would probably not be interested in living there, it was pretty neat to explore.
The village itself was also very cool. We didn't see it in actual operation, but most of it was open to walk through. Lots of farm houses from different areas (rural, mountain, etc.), mills, town shops, etc. Almost everything smelled really strongly of smoke and peat.
We got back to our Villa around six. Dinner was vegetarian tikka masala and naan (an Irish-Indian delicacy, obviously) and movie night.
And now we're off to our Ring of Kerry Tour!
Have a great day!
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