Gottfried Travel Adventures

July 20, 2019 Today we enjoyed Dublin and crammed as much as we could into our last day in Ireland. We had a 10am bike tour scheduled that took us to the statue of Molly Malone, a fictional character from an Irish tune. She sells cockles and mussels and apparently her body too. Her overflowing boobs are rubbed shiny from those wanting some extra luck. The other stops on the tour included Dublin Castle,  which stands on the site of the first compound where the Vikings fought the Irish over the millennia at the confluence of the Liffey and the Poddle Rivers. The Poddle River now runs underground and a tour of the Dublin Castle will take you to see it. I will get a tour of this place next time I’m in Dublin. So much history!! Then we went to St Patrick’s Cathedral and the statue of Benjamin Guinness, who gave $220,000 pound sterling in 1860 (which would be about $40,000,000 today) for the restoration of the church. St Patrick baptized a lot of Irishmen on this site and it’s seen a lot o

July 19, 2019 It took all morning to drive to Dublin from Kilkenny and drop off the car, but we’re glad that we survived driving on the left all week without wrecking! We took a bus from the airport to a stop very near our hotel on Fleet Street. Fleet Street is right in the thick of the action. After checking in, we headed out to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College and then to the Archaeological museum. We saw the chalice that a man and his son discovered with a metal detector at the Rock of Cashel that they were paid 5.5 million Euros for in 1980. The guide said that after that, everyone got a metal detector. Ireland subsequently decided that if you found anything, it belonged to Ireland. We met Amanda at the Temple bar(everyone else had gone back to rest for a little while). David and I found an authentic Italian restaurant, so I could taste the lasagna here in Ireland. David got a flatbread dish that was excellent. The lasagna was only so-so. Our musical pub crawl was fun

July 16, 2019 We awoke early to our already packed bags from the night before and headed out at 8:30. Our first stop - the Cliffs of Moher. The weather is perfect and the site is incredibly beautiful. We hiked half of the rim and took lots of photos before getting back on the road toward our second stop, Adare. Rose Brady had recommended it and the town. It is like a fairy tale. We are at Aunty Lena’s, which at one time had been a courthouse. I have to confirm with Rose if it’s her family’s place since Aunty Lena’s last name was Chawke and so was Rose’s. We walked around the town after lunch and then set out for our destination, Neidin House in Kenmare. The drive between Killarney and Kenmare was through a National Forest with mountains, a large lake, and tree lined windy and narrow streets. It was nerve wracking passing the tour buses, but we made it! We checked in to our room at Neidin House and took a nap prior to heading out to the town for the evening. The whole day, Amanda an

July 18, 2019 We left Kenmare at 8:30 headed toward Kilkenny. We made a stop at Rock of Cashel, which was very interesting. A series of Pagan kings ruled here between 388 AD and 1101 AD. At the top of the hill, there is an artesian well and St Patrick baptized King of Munster in 450 AD. The building on the site were begun in 1100 - a round tower first, then the chapel in 1127 made of sandstone and finally  the cathedral out of limestone.  Some interesting facts: the direction of the spiral staircases were decided because most people were right-handed and in order for someone to be able to defend themselves against an attacker coming up, they had to be able to draw their sword and swing it with their right hand. Also, to make a window covering, like glass, they would use the intestines of animals and stretch the membranes very thin and let dry. They would dry rather clear. Although the kings that ruled here changed hands fairly often, the last one donated the Rock to the Catholic Chur