Kylemore Castle nee Abbey!

Ok, trying to get back to the story. These late nights and quick mornings have kept us on the move and not every pub is conducive to my Pulitzer Prize style of writing! While I may be sitting at bars that were once occupied by Keats, Joyce, Wilde and Shaw, I don’t feel comfortable allowing my keen wit and sharp tongue to stoop to their level of drivel! To that end, now that I’ve been sober for over 5 minutes, we can get back to the show! So where were we…

Oh yes, last we left our Handsome roguish Hero, he was deftly warding off the evil spells of three heinous witches! Oh wait, I hope they don’t have access to the new Blog link. Just in case, we are going to go fiction for a bit and just say our sturdy American lad was managing to cart his three sturdy American maidens around the Emerald Isle.

Waking up in Athelon, bright and early, well, only early enough to make sure the local coffee shop was open, we took another stroll downtown to get some wake up juice and some nourishment for Harold. As you can see in picture 3, Harold had already digested his early morning scone and busily working on finishing that cold pizza from the night before. We had about an hour and a half drive to Kylemore Abbey, our destination for the day.

We got there a little before 10 am, with partly cloudy skies hanging around, but no rain to be seen. The Abbey, originally Kylemore Castle, was built in the mid 1800s as a wedding gift for a bride (I am glad Denise and I agreed to a $50 limit for our gifts!). The gentleman was not a Lord, but his dad was a local who had built up a huge import/export business after moving to England. His son, after inheriting his father’s wealth (hint hint, cough cough) loved the area so much after honeymooning with his wife at a local hunting lodge, purchased 13K acres and preceded to build the castle. After his wife died unexpectedly, after bearing 9 children (so not too shockingly), the husband stayed mainly at the Castle, building a mausoleum for her and a small cathedral. Then fast forward 20 years and he was broke - things that make you go Hmmm. Fast forward to the 1910’s and a group of nuns from Ypres (who happened to be Irish) offered to buy the dilapidated Castle for pennies on the dollar. The current mortgage holder, having had zero offers over several years, ended up selling for $100K or so pounds which the nuns didn’t have. Being smart and resourceful, they started a school, charged a shit ton for young rich women from around the world to come to, and they paid off their new loan in 13 years… So guys, don’t trust a Nun who says she has enough money to buy your castle, you are getting bamboozled! And don’t send your daughter’s to an expensive private Nun school because again, you are getting bamboozled! (Oh crap, I think this is called a run on paragraph - sorry, got sidetracked!).

So the short of it is, don’t trust Nuns unless you’ve recruited them to buy you real estate and run your school!

By the way, we also finally found the rain, which was timed perfect as it started when we sat down to a beautiful Nun inspired meal grown in their garden and the rain was finished shortly before we were finished. That apple pie drowned in warm custard, was Awesome!!! Glad my doctor was traveling with me and gave me the go ahead to eat it! Yummy!Leer más