Ireland without the Kiddos

Shannon and I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Ireland this summer minus the girls. Shannon was able to pawn the girls off to the Grandparents in KY (thanks again -- we owe you big time) and meet in in Ireland for a week long, kid-free week. 

We both flew into Dublin... Shannon flew out from the US and I flew in from Italy. Shannon had an afternoon to tour around and see some sites prior to my arrival. Once I arrived we hit the streets of Dublin! Knowing that we would be eating a lot of Irish/Pub food, we decided to hit up a Thai restaurant. It was just nice to eat out and have options beyond Pasta and Pizza. 

The streets had character and there were bars and restaurants at every corner. Of course, very cliche, but the temps immediately got our attention. We wore pants and a light jacket which is a complete departure from the temps we've both left. 

The Liffey River splits the city in two -- the blue collar part of the city to the north, and the white collar part to the south. 

Our first stop the next morning was to the Trinity College. We took the Book of Kells tour and checked out the library. 

Beautiful school grounds. 

And an impressive book selection in the library. 

The Dublin Castle wasn't your typical castle.. the only remaining part of the original castle was the circular tower. 

This is the Christ Church Cathedral... we both got a chuckle at the grounds because there were food vendors selling funnel cakes and hot dogs. 

We departed Dublin after hearty Irish breakfast and headed to Waterford. 

We toured the Waterford Crystal factory and was pleasantly surprised. Shannon got to hold a people's choice award and I held a The Players Championship gold trophy. 

And just like the Mercedes-Benz tour, the tour ended in the Waterford Crystal store where you could buy just about anything. 

The next stop was in Cashel. The picturesque castle is really the only thing happening in the town but we happened to find a pub that had good food and live music. The Bed and Breakfast we stayed in shared the field with the Abbey. 

The next morning we walked up the hill and took the tour of the Rock of Cashel. The views from the top were pretty sweet. A lot of green... which was a common theme throughout Ireland. 

Celtic Crosses in the cemetery area. 

We then headed to the Dingle peninsula. This was the weather we were anticipating -- fog, mist and cool temps. 

We parked the car near the beach and hiked up a hill to catch some more views. 

We weren't the only ones on the hill that we climbed. There were a handful of people but there were more sheep. We noticed that Ireland has a lot of sheep, in fact, more sheep than people. 

The driving was interesting. They drive on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right side of the vehicle. This is how we drove in Japan, so it wasn't that big of a change, but all the cars in Ireland are manuals. This was the first time I've had to drive a manual from the other side of the road and from the other side of the car. We drove through a pass that seemed harmless but the ceilings dropped and the road narrowed. We were not able to see what was on the other side of the shoulder, probably a steep cliff, so I just kept my eyes on the road and followed the car in front of me. 

The spent the next day mostly at the Cliffs of Moher. 

We were blessed with a blue sky day. 

We took advantage of the awesome weather and hiked all around the Cliffs. 

The pictures didn't really display the size of the cliffs. If you zoom into some of the photos you can make out little people walking around on the cliffs. They were unreal.

The highlight of our trip to Ireland. 

"If only we could do these kid-free trips more often...."

We quickly stopped at the Burren Nat'l Park. The scenery here was quite different then what we had seen in Ireland up into this point. Everything was a dull grey. 

We overnighted in Tralee and Shannon bought tix to a traditional evening of folk songs and dance. It was really good but we noticed we were the youngest people in the theater. We briefly commented on that leading up to the show, but this solidified that most vacationers we ran into were old. haha. The next morning we drove out of the tip of Clifden and climbed a hill to see the 12 points (mountains). 

This was the Kylemore Castle. Breathtaking views. 

Fresh mussels were popular in western Ireland so we ordered a few. 

This was our overnight in Sligo. We walked the small town before calling it a night. Because Ireland is so far north, the sun didn't set until 10pm. 

We woke up the following morning fairly early to hit the road to Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. 

Pretty interesting landscape. 

"The Organ" at the Giants Causeway. 

And then it was on to the rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede. Another blue sky day.... maybe Irish weather isn't so bad! 

Shannon on the rope bridge. Only 8 people were allowed at a time on the bridge. 

One impromptu stop was to the dark hedges. We noticed a lot of Game of Thrones ads and tour busses out and about and realized Ireland was used in a lot of the filming. The dark hedges was one of those spots. We stopped for a few minutes to check it out, along with dozens of other nerds. 

Then it was on to Belfast. Another great weather day! 

Belfast City Hall. 

The Titanic was built in Belfast. The Nomadic was a sister ship of the Titanic. We walked over to the Titanic Museum (pictured in the background) but didn't take the tour. 

Then it was back to Dublin for the last night. 

We got a little rain on our Food and Drink tour of Dublin, but it cleared up on the walk home. The tour was good... a lot of good foods and drink and we were taught how to make Irish Coffees which ended up being pretty tasty.
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We had a great trip. The people were really nice, it was easy to get around and we loved the Irish countryside. We kept joking on the lack of "I'm hungry...", "Are we there yet?", "I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore...",  and "I want Ice cream..."We jammed packed the trip and was able to see most of Ireland. Thanks again to Gramma/Pa in KY for watching the kids! Let's do it again next year! 

Solo Trip to Deutschland

Shannon and the girls headed to the US mid-June. I decided to head to Germany during one of my 4-day breaks to see the sights that Shannon and the girls wouldn't be interested in such as the German car museums and factories and driving around on the autobahn. I found a cheap flight into Frankfurt so I pulled the trigger.

From my readings, Frankfurt is known for their sky scrapping buildings. 

But it also had that German feel to it..

I overnighted in Frankfurt and the following morning I went for a stroll around town. This is the city from a bridge that crosses the Rhine River.

The driving was probably my favorite. I was able to open the car up a bit on the autobahn as I passed through the lovely German countryside. 

I drove down to Lake Konstanz which is on the Germany/Switzerland border. I brought my trunks expecting people to be swimming in the water, but I didn't find any place to jump in. 

I drove through the Black Forest as well on a pretty neat road. It weaved throughout the area, through passes and over mountains.  I intended on renting a sporty car but they gave me this VW. It was pretty darn fast and it was fun to drive. 

The views from the Black Forest were pretty sweet. 

The Mercedes Benz Museum was probably the highlight of the trip. 

At the end of the tour, they conveniently dumped you out in the showroom where you could purchase a new Benz. I called Shannon from the showroom to ask for permission, but she said "no." 

I was also able to catch up with some old friends who are stationed in Germany. It was good to see them and their families. They took me to the a bier garten on the last night which was a treat.

Overall, the trip was good. It was good to see southern Germany and catch up with some old friends. However, it was strange to vacay/travel solo without the family and honestly, it was a little boring and quiet. It was cool for the first day, maybe two, but it reaffirmed that traveling with the family is more exciting!