Ireland Travel Log Day 7

Today is our last day at the Manor. We have our final breakfast and prepare to make the drive to Dublin for the remainder of our vacation. We asked if there was anything to see on the way there, and the reply was the Rock of Cashel. So we pack the car and prepare for our journey. It is raining today; this is probably the only real bad weather day we have had so far. After an hour of driving, we find the Rock.

The Rock of Cashel started out as a fortress around the 45h or 5th century AD. A church was later added to the castle, around 1101 to 1111 AD. It has been sacked and altered numerous times over the centuries, and restoration of the castle began in the 1980's and is still going on today. They had a small theater set up to see a film of the history of the Rock, and it had different languages at different times. When we got there, it was showing in German, so the attendant told us to come back in about 40 minutes for the English version. So we strolled around the grounds and took pictures. In one section, the painted walls were overrun with green mold that was destroying the original images. They are working to protect and restore what they can. After the 40 minutes, we went back to the theater, and proceeded to watch the film. In Italian. Which we don't speak. At this point, too lazy to get up, we watched the presentation anyway, while another couple decided to take pictures of theater room during the presentation. And I thought I was bad with a camera...

After the Rock, we decided to grab lunch in town before continuing on, and found a nice little cafeteria to eat at. Oddly enough, this was my first opportunity to grab one of my favorites: Sheapard's Pie. I guess the Manor was too nice for this ordinary dish. After lunch, as we exited, there was an English woman dressing down a staff person about the food. She found it too cold and the tables not wiped fast enough for her, and it was such a shame since this place is so near a popular tourist attraction. Not wishing to be rude, we waited for her to finish before attempting to exit. The English woman seemed to lose steam as we waited and stared at her, so she promptly left. As an aside, the people there were cleaning tables as fast as they could for how they were staffed, and the food was pretty warm for a cafeteria style lunch. Oh well, too each their own.

We pressed on and arrived at our last at our final destination, Clontarf Castle. This is a castle that has been modernized and turned into a hotel. We stayed here the last time we visited, but after the Manor, it just wasn't as nice as we remembered it. Eh, guess we got pretty spoiled, since this really a nice hotel. We ate dinner in their bar\restaurant as the nice place was already booked for the night. After dinner, we unpacked and crashed.