Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Kilkenny

From Trim, we continued or road trip to Kilkenny and on the way we stopped at the Irish National Stud farm and Japanese gardens. 

We had a great time there touring the gardens and learning about the retired race horses and the eccentric man who started the farm and how he bred and raised horses.




Scott rekindled his love of horses and spent most of the tour here petting and feeding them.

They were so beautiful and apparently worth millions of dollars (or they were in their hay day, get it??!?!).  I'm definitely in the wrong line of work.



















We made it to Kilkenny to explore the castle grounds and have dinner in town.




Before dinner we made a quick stop for a pint at Smithwick's.  Even Scott got his first taste of beer.

He wasn't a fan.  (He barely touched foam to his lips for the record.)



Others were more into the beer.


We only wish we could have spent a little longer in this cute town.  It did not disappoint. 


Monday, March 11, 2019

Trim


From Dublin we rented a car and the road trip began.  Our first stop was Trim, but on our way we detoured to check out Newgrange.

It was really interesting. Apparently it had been in ruins on farm land for ages until archeologists decided to rebuild it.  

The views were insane as well.


We got to go inside for a tour and learn about the sun placement at the equinox lighting up the entire inside.

Postcard views

By late afternoon we made it to Trim just in time for a tour of Trim castle, which turned out to be the boys favorite castle of the whole trip.  And since it was so late in the day we ended up having a totally private tour.

Running the castle grounds like we owned the place.


Also, fun story, this was the castle the used when filming Braveheart.

That evening we went out for a nice long walk around the castle grounds.









Another highlight of the trip was this walk and sunset, followed by a huge full moon.






Truly Ireland magic!

Dublin Continued


Our last day in Dublin was spent exploring parks and Dublin castle.







And of course the occasional distillery ; )

From here Grandma and G-pa took the boys back to the hotel and out to dinner while Brian and I had a night on the town.

We started with a Guiness tour.

While its neat and a definite must do once in your life if you get the chance, we both felt like it was pretty commercialized.  At one point we both felt like we should be getting on a disneyland ride. 

But we had a great time nonetheless

And there are great views from the top



I don't like beer but I had to at least have one taste while I was there right?? When in Rome.


Then Brian did another flight tasting after our first pint

This room was crazy, the music was so loud I felt like I was in a club, but at one point some of the staff did some traditional dancing so that was pretty fun.



From Guiness we actually headed back to Jameson for more drinks.  And the drinks did not disappoint. Whiskey sours for dayssss.  I was tempted to go for a third but didn't since we hadn't had dinner yet. 
We also met a fun couple from Colorado who were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary (did I mention we were celebrating our 10th a little early?!).  Their kids (20 somethings) were mad they didn't get to come a long so we made sure to take lots of photos for them to send back.


That night we headed to Temple Bar for dinner, live music and some more drinks.





This particular bar was packed, but they were only playing covers of American songs so we didn't stay long

Catching our train home. Party people!



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