Churches, Castles and Small Villages

We got up early on Tuesday morning leaving our hostel heading south west. Actually our hostel is worth a mention. When we were travelling I told a few people that we were staying in hostels and for the most part they really are much better than people think. In this case I would say it was pretty on par with what many people would think. I wouldn't say it was a good one - there were at any time a hundred or so 12-21 year olds - well some of them looked like they were twelve anyway. It became pretty clear on the first night that we were in the older bracket too as Sam and Nick found themselves in a room with two men over 60 years old (at least they try and make the room age appropriate). Anyway, we have left there now and have stayed in two much better ones since.

Where was I... oh yes, we left Dublin and headed South West for about an hour and a half to Kilkenny. Our first stop there was the Kilkenny Castle, which dates back to 1195. It was a really interesting castle from the outside, with beautiful gardens to one side and a huge park to the other side. We did a quick self guided tour through and had lunch outside.

After our trip to the Castle we checked in to our hostel and went for an explore through the downtown area. The village was really cute with little knick-knack stores, tea and coffee shops complete with cobble stone streets. In fact the whole village was like it was out of a story book with a tiny population of only 25,000.

After our exploration of the little downtown we checked out several of the local churches which dated back to 500 A.D. and a still fully functional within the community today. We headed back to the hostel as it started to get dark and cooked a curry for dinner.

We were only in Kilkenny for the night and left early on this morning heading further south west. First we checked out the Rock of Cashel, which was initially built as a Palace around 500 A.D. and was later (in the 1200's) turned into a monastery until the monks decided that it was too cold to stay there in just robes in sandals. Nick and Amanda went through the Castle, while we explored the nearby village, which had several other smaller castles and abbeys. 

From there we drove to Blarney and saw the famous Blarney Castle, where you can kiss the Blarney stone to get the gift of the gab. However, we quickly got back on the road and drove to Killarney where we are going to spend the next couple of days... we we'll probably be in the national parks but for those who are looking at maps we are based in Killarney.  After a bit of an effort finding the hostel (which is a few km's out of town - more on that another day) we got settled in before driving to downtown Killarney for an explore and a well earned pint. We then got some groceries and have just finished one of Sam's red wine rice risotto's not bad for a bunch of backpackers in a hostel.