Dublin City

First, I want to make a public apology to Jerry Wommack, at whom I laughed when he said he returned his Irish rental car with no passenger side hubcaps or mirror. I failed to grasp the magnitude of "narrow" when he described the roads. I fooled myself, thinking that a compact car would somehow protect me from this problem. Well, two freshly damaged curbs are testament to my distorted thinking. Sorry, Jerry. You were right.

The roads are ridiculously narrow. As in a Smartcar looks like a wideload here! Having said that, I should have also thought twice about a manual transmission. After driving an automatic for a few years, I've frequently forgotten about that pesky clutch. I've popped the clutch so many times, we both have whiplash! In Dublin, near St Patrick's Cathedral, I pulled into an unbelievably small parking garage, where I piloted the car about an inch from each stall lane and right up against the concrete barrier. When I went to start up the car, I forgot that darn clutch, instead I found out that the bumper is essential in protecting concrete walls.

We arrived in Dublin an hour later than scheduled, which was pretty good, since we left Dulles two hours late. Immigration and customs took less than ten minutes, and the ride to the rental car was about the same. They set us up in a Nissan somethin' with a really crappy map. Which, by the way, is my other complaint; besides the width of the roads, the Irish appear to have very little concern over street signage. Therefore, my idea, "It's OK if the map is vague, we'll keep an eye out for the street sign," was flawed from the beginning. We did make it to St Patrick's Cathedral, which was beautiful. Built most recently in the year 1220, this is the site where St Patrick baptized the converts of Dublin. It is still an active place of worship, though we skipped the sermon. We also walked up to the Christ Church Cathedral built in 1028. It is a large structure and probably bigger than St Pat's. Love the flying buttresses!

We motored off to Kilkenny but not before Kim had a lack of sleep/lack of food combo meltdown. Poor thing, I finally just pulled over, trying to explain you can't just stop when you see something, because there is NO room on the street to get out of the way. Before I finished, she gave me a Linda Blair look and said, "I don't...think...you un...der…stand. I have...to eat...now!" then her head spun and I pointed to what looked like a convenience store.

Although we got out of Dublin and headed to Kilkenny, it wasn't without detours, due to poor signage/map problems. Kilkenny is a terrific little town. It's got a medieval European look, with narrow (shocking) streets, hidden walkways, and cobblestone lanes. We got settled in our room over the Metropole Pub and enjoyed some pub grub before taking a walk. We decided to turn in early, hitting the rack around 7:30, due to utter exhaustion.

We're planning to tour the Kilkenny castle tomorrow before seeing the Rock of Cashel and walking the grounds of the Ballyseede castle; our terminus for the night.Read more