Even more folks out late last night, and the street sweeping machines start at 6:30am … I was amazed to see not one but several street sweepers going yesterday during the pouring rain. The gutters are certainly clean, and as Claudia said, probably they do this a lot because there is no smoking indoors most places so everyone smokes outside, and the cigarette butts go in the gutter … yuck.
Up early and repacked our taxi driver arrives early, and off we headed to the airport. We got our rental car from Sixt … Claudia decided she does not want to drive so it will be mostly Larry and sometimes me. I hope I can do this OK … it has been 7 years since I’ve driven on the other side of the road. We headed out from the airport - always a fraught moment as there are many ramps and merges to navigate, once we were out on the main freeway (motorway here) it is much smoother, and one is not constantly confronted by the odd feeling of going the wrong way on a one-way street. Larry drove and I navigated, which worked well.
We arrived in Athenry about an hour early, and luckily our hosts Chris and Orlando were fine with that. The former church looked really lovely and historic, and Orla (our female host) was incredibly friendly. We unpacked and went to our rooms on the second floor, a room with a queen bed for Larry and another room with a twin for me and a queen for Claudia, and a shared bath. There was also a bell tower which I did not climb but Claudia and Larry both went up the narrow winding staircase. The lower floor was the living room and dining area, plus their kitchen and office space - they run a company that produces marathons and half-marathons and other races in Ireland, and the hosts are both runners. We got to meet their dogs, and older female Lurcher named Bird who was very sweet, and a new male rescue greyhound mix named Petey who was very energetic, and about whom Bird did not seem very excited to see hanging around. It was nice to have a dog lean on me again, I miss Marley.
We decided to go to Athenry Castle, which we had read about on the way. First we had a nice late lunch at The Old Barracks, sandwiches and soup and very hot fries. A few blocks away was the castle, a 13th Anglo-Norman square Irish tower was standing strong, surround by the former wall inside which was a getting hall and with several guardhouses. The castle was four floors, and had been properly excavated by archaeologists after being abandoned for decades and overgrown. The four floors had new local wood floors put in, but the stonework remained same, and we could look out the slit windows where archers would defend the castle. The castle was the center of a 70-acre walled town that was very prosperous at the confluence of two rivers. We were almost the only ones there and the woman running the site gave us a very informative private tour, and answered our many questions. She like others we’ve met seemed so pleased that we had come a long way to visit the land of our ancestors.
Back to the church/airbnb and we had a nice time relaxing, and met Chris, the male host. He told us some of the history of the, buying this place 20 years ago and doing three years of renovations.Larry took a nap, Claudia and I chatted, then I had a long call with Barney while she called JJ, and we all chatted together and ate some dessert. We had a last visit downstairs, enjoyed the peat fire and petted Peter and Bird again and chatted with Zoila and got into the lovely comfy warm beds. What a lovely place. It would be nice to come back someday.
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