Ennis to Limerick

Bunratty and Limerick Aug 30, 2006 - 85 Photos

The morning was the usual: breakfast, then we packed and were on the road at 10am. We hung out at Bunratty castle and village for much longer than I had expected - 3 hours. It was raining when we got there but we didn't let that hamper our fun. Nor did we let the obnoxious German tour group spoil our fun either (did it say this was an entrance. No, it was an exit. Would you please get out of my way. This staircase is for going UP not down.) Sigh. Remember to click on the photo at the right to see more interesting shots.

We drove to Limerick and checked into the Jurys Inn. Then we followed Kate and Michelle to drop off their car. Somehow we had thought the car drop off was at the train station, but it turns out it's no where near there, but in an auto dealership. However, as we found out later, the car dealership has nothing to do with the car rental place and the car rental place never seems to have anyone behind the desk. We had to wait and wait when we dropped off Kate and Michelle's car. It was worse the next day when I was trying to catch a train at a certain time and the guy was no where to be found and not answering his cell phone. Like I said, I'm not renting from Irish Car Rentals again.

We all piled into the van and followed Sheila's directions to the University of Limerick - where she works. We had a blast the rest of the day with Sheila and her family. First we puttered around the campus, had a snack at the coffee shop, saw the installation of self portraits (some were pretty weird, some were pretty good), drove to the Hunt Museum and went through those exhibits. They had a good "treasure hunt" activity for Elias who really got into it. One of the questions was "how old is the vase in the picture of the Hunt family." I guessed maybe 100-150 years old. Elias put down 1200 years. I sort of chuckled to myself. It turns out the vase was over 2000 years old (might have been older than that, but Elias was the closest).

Then we walked to a tavern, had a drink while Elias and Ruben made a came of coasters, then Ruben and Sheila made eyes at each other.

Dinner was fantastic at a place called Copper and Spice restaurant. The only weird thing there was apparently you had to be buzzed in to enter the restaurant. They must have had some kind of break in...

After dinner we went to have some tea and coffee at their lovely house in the country. Matthew and Finn hit it off really well - Finn was teaching Matthew how to do Hurling and Gaelic Football. Matthew hit a tennis ball with the hurling stick like he would hit a baseball and managed to hit it out of their back yard (going, going, gone). Then they came inside and proceeded to dessimate the chocolate bread and tarts that Sheila had laid out for us. We also shared in some tea and coffee I had brought from Bus Stop Espresso. I was so glad to be able to meet Sheila and her family in person and I hope we get to visit them again either in Ireland, the states or anywhere in the world.