Ireland - Day 11, April 25

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7:40 am
Up. Did some stretching & leg exercises. Beautiful morning. Sounds of birds (dove, misc & cuckoo?) as well as wind in the trees & sheep.
Breakfast of cereal, toast, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms
music of Bing Crosby
The music was strangely appropriate for the house and surroundings.  While I never would have picked it, it was enjoyable.  Of course, it didn't hurt that the house and grounds were were nearly ideal and that almost any music (almost) would have been fine.


Views from the room


Views of the room.

10:24 am
Fitzgeralds gift shop
This particular shop seemed to go on and on forever.


Fitzgeralds pub

10:59 am
Walked to Avoca Handweavers


Pretty stream on the way to the Handweavers

11:50 am
Meetings of the Waters
The Meetings is a pub and gift shop at a spot where two rivers join together (hence the name).

 

1:08 pm
Ballynock forest?
It was hard to tell exactly where we were on the Wicklow gap road as the tourist map we had was none too precise.  It didn't really matter as we didn't have a specific route we needed to follow.  We were just out for scenery and we found plenty.

1:26 pm
Brown waterfall, Wicklow gap
Yet another pretty spot to stop and take pictures.  The waterfall was brown due to the peat the water had been running through.

1:54 pm
Stopped by the garda at the Sally gap. Military vehicles.
We had heard from our host that there was a movie being made somewhere up in the mountains.  Evidently it was originally going to be filmed in Wales, but they didn't have the right scenery for the movie and subsequently moved to Wicklow.  I didn't get a picture of the vehicles, but did later get a picture of a girl dancing in the middle of nowhere.


Just miles and miles of purplish brown.  It's probably gorgeous in the fall, but now simply pretty and empty.
This would be a really *bad* place to be stranded.

2:25 pm
Enniskerry

2:59 pm
Bray. Yuck. Traffic just like Waterford.

4:26 pm
At Ennereilly beach. Seaview road kinda sucks. Golf, trailers, hedges
The upper half of the seaview road really was pretty bad.  Most of what one could see was either golf courses or trailer parks.  There was very little sea to view.  The lower half (back toward Arklow) was much better.
The beach needed a good cleaning, but farther away from the entrance, things got better and more interesting.

4:46 pm
Found a starfish & threw him back in the water
I'm weird that way.  He'd obviously been chewed on by a bird and was far from the water so I tossed him back in, in the hopes that he was still alive.


It's hard to make out here, but Susan took a moment to stomp some knotwork in the sand.

5:32 pm
In Fitzgerald's pub, having a glass of Guinness & a rum with coke. Susan says she saw a cast member on the way over (the taller workman of the pair).
The pub looks very different from the show.  It's at least twice as large as it appears on tv and I'm guessing they use the hidden half for equipment.  And if you're wondering, yes, Ballykissangel is the main reason we stayed in Avoca. Sometimes you just have to be a tourist.

6:15 pm
Back at Sheepwalk.
And changing for dinner.

7:23 pm
Kitty's
Montana East Coast, Cabernet Merlot
Wicklow Lamb, Trout, Raspberry choc cake
service went to s**t after dessert.
Funny people in horn rimmed glasses who slam wine when tasting it.
We went to Kitty's of Arklow and dinner was excellent.  The lamb and trout were wonderful and the dessert just lit up our taste buds. Service was good as well right up to the time dessert came.  Unfortunately at that point we suddenly became invisible.  We didn't notice until after we'd finished dessert and became aware of the fact that the waitresses were completely ignoring us.  They would serve a table not eight feet away (repeatedly) and not even glance in our direction.  It finally became so ridiculous that I had to get up and walk to the bar and ask for our bill.  It still took an incredible amount of time for them to get that to us. Up until that point, the evening was a good one.
I've since heard that in Europe, if you order dessert, it's expected that you'll be there for some time and will be left alone.  I don't know if that's true in Ireland (if you have any insight into this occurrence, please let us know), but it would be nice if the wait staff would at least glance at the table to see if the customer is trying to get their attention.
On a lighter note, I thought it was amusing when some people near us sampled their wine by sniffing it and immediately slamming the contents of the glass.  It could have been perfumed paint thinner and they wouldn't have been able to tell (until it hit bottom).
Just to close, I recommend Kitty's, as the food is very good.

10:26 pm
Back at Sheepwalk.

 

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Last modified: Thursday, April 24, 2008