Saturday, August 2, 2008

We had a great breakfast at Bansha house before starting out that morning. This is the main house; we didn't get a picture of our cottage. Addie enjoyed looking at the horses in the fields.

Mary, the lady of the house, told us some good driving routes. So we headed for the mountains...so beautiful! Thankfully Addie took a much-needed nap. We drove south through the Knockmedown Mountains.

We got to Lismore an hour or so later. 

Took some pictures of the huge castle there, 

and then drove on to the coast. 

I really enjoyed driving around here with all the windy roads. David drove a little stretch of road too. We drove east to Waterford and went through the Waterford Crystal Factory. I'm not huge on cut-crystal, but do have Waterford so it was really interesting to see how they make it and appreciate the hard work and price!

 

We drove back through Clonmel, a cute little town and then on to Cashel. We wanted to see the Rock of Cashel before it closed, and had a good hour to go on a tour and look around. The ruins were really great. It's been around since the middle ages - 4-8th century or something like that. However, the present-day ruins are from the 11th and 12th centuries.

We also found a nice place called Brian Boru to eat. Brian Boru was one of the kings of this region who went on to become high king of Ireland. Drove back to Bansha via backroads that were only big enough for one car - a little nervous with the turns, but we made it just fine. Mary told us that morning that she had found a young married couple who was willing to babysit Addie, so we planned to meet then at 8. They were early - already there when we got there at 7:50. David got her down while I talked with the couple, from Romania. I don't think I've ever met someone from Romania, other than the people I guess I met when I was in Romania. Talked about how great the Tatra Mountains are. So David and I left around 8:20 to drive back to Cashel to go to Bru Boru, an irish cultural place that has performances at 9 pm in the summer with music, songs, and dance. It was fantastic!!!! A special treat - well worth the expense of the tickets and babysitter even if it means no date nights for a month when we get back! They had 3 harps, 3 fiddlers, about 5 accordian players, 2 flutists, and then many of them would switch instruments or get up and sing a song or even dance. Then they had the dancers, guys and girls, and 2 or 3 special singers. We loved it! 

And afterwards, at 10:30, they all go to a hall down the pathway to do informal dances and songs and let the audience sing or dance if they're able to - and of course they have a bar open, as well as tea and scone which I enjoyed while David sipped on some Irish Cream. We were back at 11:15 and Maria and Andrew said Addie did well; she woke up ready to play but Maria got her back down.