Monday, October 19, 2009

Ireland, day 5 (Ennis to Sligo)

First up on Wednesday were the Cliffs of Moher, which we had skipped the night before. We made it there quite early, and it was freezing, plus it was raining off and on. It was miserable at first, but it cleared up somewhat. It was still cold and windy, but at least the rain mostly stopped. We wandered around the cliffs for a while, and climbed to the top of O'Brien's Tower. We could vaguely see the Aran Islands across the ocean through the mist, and looking inland we could see part of Connemara.

Once we left the Cliffs of Moher we headed to Ashford Ca
stle (aka Winterfell for Christian, though I'm thinking it's more like King's Landing >_>). We got waaaaaay lost on the way there. We missed one little turn off and spent probably 3 hours driving in a big loop. We finally made it there though, and it was completely worth the delay. The castle and the grounds are massive. It would have been nice to have a bit more sun, but it was still good enough weather. We wandered around the castle and all of the gardens (there were I think five of them? I don't even remember) for a while and I took way too many pictures.

We left Ashford and headed to Westport House. We got lost on the way there yet again, so we didn't take the time to do the tour or anything. Jade grabbed something to eat and I wandered around a little bit, but then we continued on. We were originally going to head over to Achill Island but had to skip it as well. I was disappointed but we just didn't have the time after all of the getting lost that day. Out of the entire trip that was the only thing we'd planned to do that we never got to, so I figure I can live with that.

We headed north towards Sligo to our hotel for the night, Markree Castle.
It was fantastic, and I'm glad I was so determined to stay in a castle. We had a little tower room in our room with a writing desk, and a spectacular view of the back gardens from our windows. Before dinner we went around and explored the outside of the castle and the grounds. We ate in their restaurant which was excellent but entirely too fancy for us. Jade went out for a bit and I wandered around the castle - then when she got back we wandered some more and took videos at midnight, complete with a trip out to the car in the pitch black. I swear the place is haunted. Seriously, it was awesome, but parts of it were just creepy as hell!

And that was our day - picture entry will of course be posted soon, and possibly another picture entry dedicated to Ashford, since I took so many there!





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1. The Cliffs of Moher
2. A random picture taken out the window on our looong roundabout way to Ashford
3. Ashford Castle
4. This was near the entrance to Markree Castle. I have no idea why, but it was hilarious.
5. Our first look of Markree Castle as were coming down the driveway.

2 comments:

Niall said...

Wow, that castle is awesome :D You two were so lucky to have a great time :)

Oh, and as for the weather...Ireland is even more erratic than England :D

Christian said...

It's Winterfell damnit :G! I wanna gooooo! Take me baaaaaaack! >.>

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