Honeymoon: Euro Trip - Day 11

I felt better in the morning, and we got up at 7 and started getting ready for the day. We got all packed up and went down to breakfast. It was a continental spread plus the kitchen menu if you wanted something specific. We both had stuff from the continental breakfast counter and Ben ordered a traditional English breakfast, we shared part of it. Ben had a coffee and an apple juice and I had orange juice. The food was delicious. 

Ben asked if we wanted to do the Kilkenny Castle tour since we didn't get to do the Blarney Castle the day before due to the rain. I said, "let's do it!"

We went back to the room, finished packing up our stuff, made one more sweep and then took it out to the car and then checked out. From there, we decided to walk around the town for a bit before our castle tour at 9:30 that morning. We walked to the virtual cache, Clash of the Ash: Kilkenny (GC890ZT) and we learned about the popular sport of hurling. It was a very big deal in Ireland. We had to pose like one of the people in the statue and pretend we were hurling. 

We walked along the River Nore and saw some swans. We got to the castle grounds, but we were still too early. We had to kill about a half hour, so we walked along the trail system out to the duck pond to grab, My Favorite Park (GC5298C). We walked past several people jogging and walking dogs. It was a quick grab and an easy going walk. We got our names on the log, put it back and made our way back to the castle for our tour.

The castle was open for our tour. It was a self-guided tour, and it took us through all the floors of the castle. There were lots of rooms to look through. It's amazing how much history those walls have seen over the course of time.

Kilkenny Castle was built in 1260 to control a fording-point of the River Nore and the junction of several routeways. It was a symbol of Norman occupation, and it is original 13th century condition, it would have formed an important element of the town's defenses with four large circular corner towers and massive ditch, part of which can still be seen today on the Parade.

In 1967, Arthur Butler, 6th Marquess of Ormonde, sold the castle for £50 to the Castle Restoration Committee for the people of Kilkenny. The castle and grounds are now managed by the Office of Public Works, and the gardens and parkland are open to the public. The Parade Tower is a conference venue. Since 2002, ceremonies for conferring awards and degrees on the graduates of the Kilkenny Campus of the National University of Ireland, Mynooth, have been held at the castle.

Once we were done walking around inside the castle, we used the restrooms and did the earthcache, Kilkenny Castle (GC6QA6W) outside. It took us a little bit to find all the pieces we needed but we did. We had to change our itinerary because of the rain from the previous day. We wanted to go into the Wicklow Mountains to see some waterfalls but decided this wasn't the best time of the year to go. We walked back to the car in the parking garage and headed towards Bray. 

We took the highway and we were glad to see that highway didn't take us off the road somewhere weird, through tight narrow roads and back on the highway again. We did drive through several hundred roundabouts though and saw a double rainbow - we heard that was good luck in Ireland. We had to know exactly which exit we needed before we got there because driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road messed with our minds.

We made it to Bray, and the traffic was on the heavy side for some reason, but we were able to get to the roads we needed. The only time I've ever heard of this town was through geocachers who have visited Ireland to grab a specific cache at Bray Head, a hill, that forms part of the Wicklow Mountains. I figured since we were here and had some time, we needed to go grab Europe's First (GC43). This is the first geocache placed in Europe.

We found the streets that we needed to turn onto to find the parking lot we needed to start our hike. We grabbed what we needed and opened the cache page to follow some instructions that were left by another cacher a couple months back. They had described an easier, less muddy way to the cache. We started up the hill and followed the step-by-step directions to get us to the next waypoint. I am glad we wore pants and sturdy shoes on the next section. It was a narrow trail through a bunch of scratchy bushes, a large scree pile and it was like that all the way to the cache. We did take a few breaks to catch our breath.

We were almost to the cache when we passed two women sitting off the trail enjoying snacks and drinks. They asked us if we were there to get the cache, we said yes, and they replied, "you guys are close." We dipped down on the trail and found rocky outcrop the ammo can was hiding in. Ben and I spent some time going through its contents, writing our names on the log and getting a few pictures with it. This was definitely a destination cache - the view from up there was amazing! We put everything back and walked back up to the trail where the two ladies were.

We spent about 20 minutes talking to them. They were from the Netherlands, their caching names were Vader and Zoon, and were on a week long holiday in Ireland. They told us about some of their adventures they've been on so far that week. We told them where we were from and they were excited to meet people from Washington State, since that is where the headquarters of geocaching is, and they had several questions for us. 

They told us we needed to go to the top before we left the area. We took their advice and started the hike up. We thanked them for the short hang out. It didn't take us long to get to the top of the hill. There were a bunch of people up there getting pictures with the cross. It took us a while to get a picture of it without people in the background of our pictures. We also worked on the earthcache, Scree Slope at Bray Head (GC80PB5) while we were up there. It was windy.

We decided to go down the muddy way and grab another geocache, Cache In - Slί de Buitléar (GC5GWND). I had Ben go and find that one. It was a quick grab. We continued down the rough path full of mud, rocks and exposed roots. 

There was even a creek running down the hill on some of the pathways we had to avoid. I noticed also on the way down, there were so many footpaths, and I could see how someone could take the wrong one and get lost. I had maps on my phone, and we were able to get down with ease. 

We heard a bunch of teenagers walking up on another path and it sounded like someone had fallen in the mud. We rinsed our shoes off in the small creek when we got to the rocks and then the eventual stairs that lead back down to the parking lot. I thought this hike would take longer but it was surprisingly quick. 

Since we had to alter our day due to the previous day's weather, we knew we were going to be in Dublin for the night and had to fill in a few more hours with an activity. I remembered Fitzy visited the Guinness Storehouse and that sounded like a cool tour. So, we booked us a tour for 4:30! We drove into Dublin and made our way towards the Guinness Storehouse. We were a little early, but we wanted to make sure we found the customer parking lot and there was plenty of room for us. We drove into the gated lot, and an attendant guided us on where we needed to go. It was easy. We grabbed what we needed and walked the half a block over to the entrance in our rain jackets.

We got in line to get checked in and found out that we could jump into the shelf guided tour at any time, so we did! We learned that they have been brewing beer for 250 years and the 9,000-year lease signed and sealed in 1759 by Arthur Guiness himself! 

It was fun learning the process from grain to glass, the history, the factory, the people, the advertising, the taste testing and beyond. The factory was multi-leveled, and we got to celebrate with a free pint at the top in the gravity bar! We were probably there for at least two hours.

We grabbed a few souvenirs before heading back to the car. But first, we did a traditional cache, The Guinness Logbook of Records (GC1JE8J) a virtual cache, Arthur Guinness (GC7B7RT) and a locationless cache, Where's 25? - Locationless Cache (GCA2025), celebrating the 25th anniversary of geocaching. We grabbed all three. 

We set the GPS to our 5-star hotel. Neither of us have stayed in a 5-star hotel, so we were excited. We pulled up to the historical building, The Dylan Hotel - the foundation was laid by Queen Victoria's daughter in 1900 as a place for nurses to stay while they were employed by the hospital around the corner - and someone was out immediately to take our bags and check us in. Our bellhop took our bags to room 304 and we followed him to get settled in.

We went downstairs to the restaurant and looked over the menu. It kinda looked like we were probably the only guests they had that night. The hotel and restaurant were virtually empty. The fish and chips looked delicious, so I ordered the Atlantic Hake with fries and mint pea mash. I just had water with mine. Ben ordered the halibut and a double of the rare Midleton Whiskey. The hotel surprised us with free champagne because Ben told them we were on our honeymoon. We thanked them for the kind gesture. When we were done, Ben asked for the dessert menu. We ordered some gelato and again, they surprised us with a small dessert platter with "Congratulations" written in chocolate on the plate. We thanked them again and felt like VIPs at this 5-star hotel. We paid for our food and went upstairs to relax.

I got cleaned up from the day's activities and that shower was amazing! I put on my bathrobe and slippers that were provided to us in our room. Ben decided to go take a shower as well and put on his bathrobe and slippers as well. 

We watched Super Mario Brothers Movie while I wrote in my journal and made my daily post. We had enough time to watch a second movie, and we chose 50 First Dates and then went to bed around 1 a.m.

Next Adventure: Honeymoon: Euro Trip - day 12

Honeymoon: Euro Trip - Day 10

I got up a couple times over the course of the night to use the bathroom. Luckily, I was able to get back to sleep quickly each time. We set our alarm for 8 and slowly got out of bed. I saw that the weather was terrible outside. We got worried that we weren't going to be able to go on our Blarney Castle tour. We specifically came to Blarney and County Cork for that tour. 

We got ready and went downstairs for food at the breakfast nook. Ben ordered a full breakfast of the menu, and I had the continental breakfast. It had the usual English breakfast plus other goodies. We talked about altering our day due to the rain. We decided we were going to drive into Cohb and do the Titanic exhibit first, then the Blarney Castle tour later once the rain lets up. I was not happy that we had to change our plans and there could be a possibility of not being able to go see the castle.

We got ready to go and headed out. We aren't sure why the GPS took us on some really sketchy, narrow and water filled back rural roads. We just went with it and trusted that it got us there at the correct time. Along the way, we saw a lot of the hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning in Ireland.

We got into Cobh and thankfully found some parking along the street. We had less than 15 minutes to check in with our tour, but we made it. I couldn't believe I was going into a building, that still stands today, that all of the passengers who boarded Titanic walked through. The history geek in me was nerding out hard! 

We checked in and they each handed us a card, a replica of what the tickets would have looked like, and I was a first-class passenger, and he was a third-class passenger. 

Our tour promptly started at 11 a.m. and it was us and a family of 8. Our tour guide, Sofie, was doing her first tour. I loved her accent too. This Titanic tour specifically told the stories of the 123 passengers who left the Queenstown Port. Back then, Cobh was known as Queenstown because Queen Victoria visited in 1849. This port was the luxury liner's final stop on its maiden journey, before setting sail on the longest leg of the voyage to New York City and ultimately its sinking into the icy Atlantic.

Sofie took us around the historic White Star Line Building retracing the footsteps of the Queenstown passengers. From purchasing the tickets, to boarding the Titanic - they had to be ferried to the moored vessel because it was too large for the harbor - to their experiences on the Titanic to fighting for their lives one of the world's most tragic maritime disasters. I was in complete awe that this was the same building these passengers walked through. 

After our guided tour, we were able to walk around the museum part learning about the ship, the passengers, the timeline of the sinking, looking at various artifacts, historical data, photos, diagrams, etc. All of it was exciting to me and I knew most of this stuff already. At the end, we both found out our passengers survived. I took various photos and we even purchased a few items from the gift shop. I asked Ben what he wanted to do afterwards and he said, walk around the town for a bit.

We spent about an hour walking around Cobh. We walked along the coastline towards the train station/boat terminal to go grab a cache on the dock. Welcome/Welcome Back (GC9RHJX) was a magnetic micro and it was easy to find. I let Ben grab it from its hiding spot. We got our names on it, took a few pictures and put it back. No one was around which was nice.

We walked back towards town and stopped inside the Cobh Heritage Centre to check out what was inside. There was a restaurant, a shop, public bathrooms and a museum that showcases the history of the area from when it was Cobh, Queenstown and Cobh again. There was some stuff about the Titanic as well. We quickly used the restrooms while we had a chance to and then went into the shop to look around. I ended up buying some Claddagh rings (friendship rings) for my Mom and Rhonda and I bought a Celtic knot ring for myself. The lady was very knowledgeable and even told us how we could get our taxes back when we went home on the goods that we bought in Ireland. We thanked her and we walked back towards the car. But first, we went into a candy store across the street from where we parked. We bought a few things including some Irish cream fudge.

We drove back to Blarney only to discover that the castle was closed for the day due to the rain. That meant, no tours whatsoever. It would have been nice to know it was closed especially since we ordered the tickets in advance, why didn't they send us an email or call or something? We wasted so many hours driving back to Blarney when we could have just moved on to the next part of our trip. It definitely affected the rest of our day. Oh well. We walked around the Woolen Mills store for a while. Then we left for the Copper Coast.

We followed the GPS and these roads are so narrow, and we got stuck behind several vehicles along the way. The it was difficult trying to pass them too. We were sad we didn't get to the Copper Coast UNSECO Global Geopark before it closed. We just moved on and tried finding a pullout or a viewpoint to stop and see the Irish Sea. We stopped at two different viewpoints. The first stop was a view of the sea. You could walk up and touch the ocean, which I did, just to say I did, but you had a hard time walking around because it was so windy. I almost slammed myself in the car door.

The second location was an overlook, and it had a geocache! We enjoyed the cliffs and I walked over to Ice, Fire and Water (GC4ZB3H) to grab the hidden container. It was checked on by the cache owner in September. It was next to a sculpture that looked like a colored razor clam. I barely made it back into the car. I thought I was going to fly away. It was getting dark and decided we should drive to our hotel in Kilkenny and forgo Waterford. It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive to the hotel. We listened to music and talked about random things.

We got into Kilkenny and made our way to the hotel's address. It took us down a skinny one-way street to a covered parking garage. Of course, we had to pay for parking. We grabbed a few things and walked across the street to check in. Once we found out where our room was, we went back out to the car, grabbed our stuff and walked up to our room. Our room was actually pretty cool. We got settled in and went downstairs for dinner. 

The restaurant inside the hotel was called Embers. I ordered half a chicken, potatoes and salad (it actually came with Ranch dressing) and Ben got the surf and turf. I got a beer and he ordered a double shot of whiskey. The food was delicious. After dinner, we went back upstairs and chilled for about an hour. I wrote in my journal and did my daily Facebook post. 

We went back downstairs to the bar to listen to live Irish music and drank another pint of beer. I really didn't need another beer because I was super full from dinner but drank it anyway. We stayed for about an hour and the went back up to the room to get cleaned up and relax. 

I went to bed around 11:30-midnight because I was tired and Ben ended up taking the bed apart because it wasn't comfortable. I had to get up twice because I was so full and had to pee a bunch of times. I felt blah but eventually fell asleep.

Next Adventure: Honeymoon: Euro Trip - Day 11