Ireland Vacation

We left Dublin and headed to the country. The roads here are so narrow. It makes it a little stressful driving on the left without a shoulder and a super narrow road. Alan has become a master of driving in Ireland. Unfortunately I cannot add pictures because we can only use the hotel's computer, not access through our own computer. So, here's a run down on Day 2:
We stopped in Athlone (middle of the country). We went to the castle and walked around the outside (it was closed for the season). We did some shopping and had a great lunch in a small local cafe. After that we went to Galway. It had a fun pedestrian mall area with many shops. It started to rain so we headed to our hotel in Castlebar. After much searching for a place to eat (many places are closed on Mondays) we found a restaurant that had great food. We called it an early night to get ready for our next day.

We arrived in Dublin at 5am. We found our rental car and headed out to our hotel. Luckily it was early Sunday morning and there was little traffic. Alan and I both had to concentrate and really think about driving on the left hand side of the road. We made it to our hotel with only one wrong turn. The hotel had availability and let us check in early. It was great to sleep and shower before going into town. We started our day at the Guinness Brewery. We learned about the brewing process and even got to pour our own pint.

Next we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. This early Irish Bible dates back to 800 AD. Wow. It was beautiful. We finished our evening with a couple pints and live Irish music.

It was a great but exhausting day. Tomorrow we are off to the Western coast of Ireland in County Mayo.