Monday, September 1, 2003 (Bunratty - Republic of Ireland)
A run in with the police gets your heart pumping.
Perhaps a parking spot farther away from a school would have been a better
choice. Must keep track of the pennies when the beach is so fuel hungry. The
prettiest town in all of Ireland? Great entertainment in the great hall of
Bunratty.
Day 173. Not too long after finishing last
night’s log entry, I was almost fast asleep when the sound of a car pulled
up not too far from us in the public library car park. After a couple of
minutes, I realised that the car’s engine was still running so I peeked
out through a small gap in the curtain only to learn that it was a police car.
My heart started to race a bit and I was worried that there would be a knock on
the door any minute now from an angry Garda officer complaining about our
presence. Fortunately, there was no knock on the door and the car eventually
left after about half an hour. Perhaps he was just doing his rounds. Actually,
after it left, I felt quite comforted knowing that the streets were being
patrolled.
We eventually awoke to the
sound of dozens of school kids playing in the adjacent playgound. I hadn’t
realised that we were parked right next to a school until this morning but at
least it gave us the extra nudge we needed to kick-start the
day.
The plan was to visit a nearby
abbey. Actually, this was the reason we choose Newcastle West as a place to
spend the night to begin with. After breakfast, we inched around the couple of
streets to where the abbey was located but it seemed quite devoid of life with
no open door in sight. I don’t know if it was the apparent absence of any
other tourists or the fact that it was so early in the morning but we decided to
give the abbey a miss and drove straight on towards Limerick
instead.
With the brick’s
extreme thirst for fuel, we’ve become accustomed to paying close attention
to the advertised prices of petrol at all the filling stations. When the prices
are higher, we only put in a few Euros worth and move on to a larger town where
competition between garages usually means a cheaper alternative can be found
somewhere. The very first garage that we find on the very outskirts of a given
town is usually the highest in price and the prices usually drop several cents
farther into town. The difference in fuel prices can be as much as twenty
percent. Given that a good chunk of our outgoings is in fuel, this can make a
significant difference over a prolonged period of time. Before we left Newcastle
West completely, we stumbled upon a filling station with a favourable price and
topped up.
Several small towns lay
between Limerick and us and one of them, Adare, is one of the prettiest towns in
all of Ireland, according to one of our guidebooks, so we stopped there to take
a look for ourselves. It was, indeed, a picturesque little place but the fact
that the two main tourist attractions, a castle and a priory, were both closed,
substantially diminished our enjoyment of the place. It did have one of the best
tourist information offices we’ve seen to
date.
We arrived in Limerick not long
after departing Adare and found a convenient place to park the brick whilst we
strolled around town. I wasn’t able to find my DS9 season four DVD set
anywhere but Sandy did manage to pick up some new clothes. Walking around any
city or large town is strenuous and arduous enough at the best of times but it
seemed even more so this afternoon. For some reason, we were both a little tired
and irritable with each other. It took a visit to the King John’s Castle
to lift our spirits. Not only was it a very nice castle but the visitor centre
and various exhibits were among the very best that either of us has ever seen.
Throughout the castle grounds and in various chambers, are audiovisual
presentations as well as living history depictions with waxwork figures in
period costumes. We took our time exploring the castle and picked up some
interesting leaflets at the exit. Apparently, just up the road at Bunratty, an
evening’s entertainment can be had in the form of a medieval banquet in
the castle there. We called the central reservations number on the leaflet and
booked ourselves in for this evening’s festivities. We also booked for
tomorrow night in the same castle for an Irish music
evening.
We found a very secluded
spot to park the brick right around the corner from Bunratty Castle and killed
some time watching some more DS9 season one episodes before getting ready for a
fun evening in the castle. I had high hopes that we would enjoy the evening and
I was not disappointed.
Together with
about seventy or so other guests, we were all entertained in the castle’s
great hall by a very talented ground of people dressed in period costumes. These
entertainers sang songs, danced and served out food and drinks also. Together
with a couple of very talented musicians (a fiddler and a harpist) they spent
the better part of three hours entertaining us with good humour, all the while
referring to the guests as ‘my lord’ or ‘my lady’. The
whole evening was crowned by a man from the audience, from Florida, who got up
onto the stage, went down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. It was a
very entertaining night out and I very much look forward to tomorrow
night’s Irish night.
Posted: Mon - September 1, 2003 at 01:16 PM