Woke up to miserable weather, so happy to leave Belfast. Still takes me a bit to get used to the fact that it is only 160k to the capital of another country. The drive is quite boring, freeway all the way. Got a hotel in Parnell St about 500m from the Temple Bar area. Dropped out bags at the hotel, got rid of the car back to the airport rental crowd and back to the city. We wandered across to Temple Bar and on to Dublin Castle. There is such a different atmospher...

One of my bucket list items was to see the trouble spots of Belfast. I grew up hearing about the troubles on news and television. We organised the black cab tour of the trouble spots through the concierge of the Hilton Hotel. The bloke that picked us up is in in his 60s and had lived in West Belfast through the troubles. He could describe what it was like living there during the troubles and how it is slowly changing. I was amazed to see the peace wall (massive s...

Leaving Donegal we trudged our bags from the hotel down to the car park. Right next to the car park was an old anchor. Reading the plaque it turns out thus anchor is from a French ship that was dropping off Wolfe Tone and some French soldiers to support the 1798 uprising. They cut the anchor to escape a British attack. The ship, was later captured and renamed as HMS ??? and used in Nelsons fleet. Looking at history maps here I didn't realise how many ships of the...

Today travelling parts of the Wild Atlantic Way through the Connemara on to Donegal. Total distance about 300k. Took us about 9 hours. At times the roads were windy single lane roads with rock walls on either side, fantastic scenery though. We had to cut out some of the scenic drive to get to Donegal to stay the night. I will post some video of the roads to give you and idea of why the drive was so slow. Came across another Abbey that was worth a visit, Kylemore ...

After getting breakfast and fuel got away about 10am. First stop Kilkenny. On the way to Kilkenny we came through Inistioge. A very picturesque village but I was impressed by the old bridge over the river. We stopped to have a look, the river looks like a perfect spot for fly fishing, a nice old bridge with the obligatory church ruins on the bank of the river. It is great the way while driving through Ireland you come across heaps of these places and many histori...