(L) As we were mainly driving around taking thousands of photos today I have "volunteered" Deb to be the chief blogger today... I was originally going to just add a few bits and pieces but she has done such a wonderful job recounting all the days happenings so I leave you to enjoy our wonderful day.....

(D) Our first full day in Kilkenny and once again Liane and I both woke up at a ridiculously early time in the morning. We chatted, blogged, emailed, looked at photos and had our respective coffee and tea until we figured SURELY it would be light soon. So we left the B&B to go for an early morning/no tourists in our pictures photo shoot. We had been told, by the girls when we booked in, that breakfast was at 8am so planned to be back in time for that as for some weird reason one is always hungry on holidays and anxiously counting down the time until the next meal! 

We walked around the deserted streets taking atmospheric shots, maybe a touch darker than we would have liked, for quite some time as it took forever for the sun to rise – not until nearly 8am by which time we were starving! Funny thing was that when we got back everything downstairs was completely quiet and it was obvious no-one was around. We went back upstairs and listened out with care but it wasn’t for another half hour that we heard noises down there and went for breakfast.

We met our hostess Eimer, with whom Liane had exchanged emails, and enjoyed a “full Irish”. Well a full Irish minus the black and white pudding for me and minus that and of course the bacon and sausages for Liane. Regardless we both really enjoyed our breakfast and Eimer was lovely, friendly and chatty. She and Liane exchanged horror stories about horrible guests leaving horrible and unfair reviews on booking and travel sites which I think struck up a bond between us all!

Afterwards we packed our day bags with some picnic supplies and every possible thing we may need such as gloves, hats, rain jackets and the like for our days outing. The morning started out quite fresh and whilst in the open fields of Kells Priory I was thankful for the snood Francesca had made me, in the end it turned out to be a perfectly lovely day and we are yet to have any of the rain predicted since we’ve arrived…… so far so good anyway! 

After walking around admiring the remaining architecture of Kells Priory, a 12th century Augustine priory, and taking photos whilst dodging inordinate amounts of animal scats – possibly of sheep, we popped back in the car and headed towards Thomastown for our next stop – Jerpoint Abbey.

Liane had a brief discussion with a dog walking couple as to the best ways to get there as there were two options. They said one way had wider roads and was shorter than the other….. of course we chose the longer route with thinner lanes/roads! Knowing us we would have chosen that regardless however the added attraction was the couple mentioned there was a tower along the way – Kilree Tower. Apparently there was a monastery on the site, founded in the 6th century but I don't know when the round tower itself was built. Regardless of the actual age of it, it was fantastic that they told us about it as it was such a beautiful little spot, a graveyard full of autumn leafed trees and just totally gorgeous – and it would have been so easy to miss without knowing about it.

That little side excursion done we made our way to Jerpoint Abbey, a ruined Cistercian abbey founded in the 12th century, which we were lucky enough to visit without a single other tourist being there the whole time we visited. No-one to ruin our shots – fabulous!!! It’s a beautiful site and goodness knows how we’ll manage to whittle down our photo choices. In the afternoon of each day we have blog and photo time where we put all our photos together and then choose which ones to use. Most times, even after individual culling, we each have 200 photos to put in the choice pool so it’s definitely hard to choose!!!

Next stop was a brief look around Thomastown which, perhaps because it was a Sunday, seemed rather closed up, flat and uninteresting. As we walked around we had a few chuckles (again) about Irish road signage as one of the road signs we saw gave a choice between straight ahead or turning left but it was a definite T intersection so you really HAD to turn left or right – as Liane said, the person living in the house at the junction really wouldn’t appreciate people driving straight ahead! We figured out in the end that the right hand turn was “straight ahead” and as this was the way we had to drive out of town we were very pleased we’d discovered this on foot!

When Liane and I first began planning our trip one of the places we considered basing ourselves in for this part was Inistioge. We ultimately settled on Kilkenny as a larger town so more dining (and pub??!!) options but we both wanted to at least visit Inistioge so we headed there next. We enjoyed a sweet but yummy hot chocolate with marshmallows (the latter unrequested, just how it came) at the Woodstock Arms. It’s an interesting, and rather fabulous, thing I think they way that pubs here, as in England, are also places to get hot drinks and in general are just more family and community orientated rather than just a place for the drinkers of alcohol.

Liane went for a wander whilst I was finishing off emailing Greg and she accidentally stumbled across the very bridge that 2 minutes earlier she’d been saying that, having seen all the photos of it, she really wanted to find. This seems to happen quite regularly – we “accidentally” discover just what we want to find right under our noses! We enjoyed our picnic lunch at a table by the river and then wandered around taking photos and generally enjoying being in such a pretty spot.

By then, even though it was only around 2pm we were pretty much worn out so went back to our B&B where we whiled away the afternoon chatting etc before heading out at 7pm for dinner. Eimer had told us that her husband Tomas, a musician, was playing his guitar and singing at the Kyteler’s Inn at 9pm and assured us that “his music won’t blow your head off like”. The plan was to have dinner first, stay for maybe a half hour or so to listen to him play but we certainly had no intentions of staying until closing….. again with the plans of mice and men!

Dinner was lovely, staff friendly and the place in general just had a good and happy vibe. Liane and I both noted and commented what a surprising mix of people were there – really all ages from around mid twenties to over 60’s, yet everyone interacting with each other. We remarked on this over and over to each other as the evening wore on – it was just SUCH a different experience from being out at a pub in Australia. Tomas started playing and right from the start we knew we were in for a treat. He played fabulous Irish music like Whiskey in the Jar and Dirty Old Town but then there were other songs that we didn’t know but it was obvious that everyone in the bar did as they all sang along – young and old, ALL of them!

The pub was absolutely packed yet a couple of the girls were fast waltzing along to a song and later one of them paired up with a guy and they did this fabulous quick stepping routine to another song. The atmosphere in the place was just wonderful.
When it came time to expand the repertoire instead of the same boring old standard covers we get in our pubs (God if I ever have to hear Sweet Home Alabama or Mustang Sally again!!!) Tomas played and sang Hallelujah (which was AMAZING!) and Leaving on a Jet Plane…..the latter I really enjoyed as I NEVER thought I’d hear that sung live anywhere ever! 

Eimer came over to our table and insisted on buying us a drink and chatted to us and later others wandered over and somehow we became a crowd…. At one point Liane had a farmer, Claud, tell her that if she had come to Ireland in search of an Irish farmer then he was indeed the one to fit the bill! She told him no, she was taken, but he took her hand and held it as he continued to insist that he was the Irish farmer she’d come looking for. Claud’s friend Clive eventually dragged him off….. and then in comes Ray. He also was enamored of Liane and wanted to hold her hand as he tried to convince her that he was the man of her dreams. It was all hilarious but the really, really funny thing was that for some reason Liane has great trouble understanding the Irish accent. As in totally can only pick up one word in about twenty – so I was called upon by the potential suitors to interpret…. Maybe you had to be there but it really was hysterical and we had a totally great night – lots of craic!