Kylemore pictures...finally

Okay, so more than a week later, here is the promised pics of the Abbey.

Kylemore Abbey from the road

Up close to the Abbey

The chapel dedicated to his wife.

Kylemore Abbey in Connemara

Today we set out fairly early to the northwest to see Kylemore Abbey.  Along the way, we stopped at Connemara Marble, a multi-generational family run stone business.  Beautiful stuff and a nice presentation by the patriarch.

On we went to the Abbey. We grabbed a sandwich at the cafe and headed to the Victorian gardens.  I'll attach some pictures tonight after they are downloaded.  We then walked on to the Abbey itself.  It had been built in the 1800s as an estate for the local landlord, an Englishman who fell in love with Ireland, but later the mansion became a boarding school run by Benedictine nuns (hence the ''Abbey'').  Also on the path was the church built to honor the man's late wife who died of ''Nile Fever''.  The tomb of both were further on.

Tonight we go to a castle for a banquet and an entertainment.  That will be a seperate posting tonight or tomorrow.  I leave soon, so I better get moving.

Everything's So Green!

So we made it to Ireland at about 10:30 Sunday morning... Irish time. That means we arrived around 4:30 AM Texas time!  Yikes! and no nap time for several hours.  Okay...to business:

Houston went fairly smoothly.  Of course I ended up having a pat down because of the metal in my leg.  Minor detail.  Flight was loooooooooooooong.  Wasn't able to sleep very much at all, per usual, but survived well by doing yoga stretches in the back of the plane.  Heathrow airport in London was a stinkin' nightmare.  Too many fliers and not enough passport/security personell. I will say that the British Airways people did try to help, but there just weren't enough of them. With a 2 hours layover, we were nearly late for our plane- it was loading as we walked up.  Dublin Airport on the other hand was lovely.  Quick.  Organized. In-out-gone.

Our first night is in the Hotel Mespill in Dublin.  Very nice, older hotel with good amenities in a picturesque area of town.  Since we couldn't check in for a couple of hours, we all went out for some food.  Most of us went to Beshoff Bros for the fish and chips (not me).  Kathy and I took a quick nap, then it wa down for orientation which went well.  Our tour manager, Alocoque (que is silent), has everything well organized on the face of it.  We'll see.  After that we went on walk-a-bouts. We explored a bit then wound up back at the hotel from which we went to Searsons for good food and good jazz.  They messed up the dessert, but they did take it off the bill.

 We just got back a few minutes ago.

Tomorrow we will tour Dublin then head for Galway.  Another post tomorrow night.