Ireland, Day Two: Kilkenny

Kilkenny was a late addition to the trip. My original plan for the first full day was to drive south to Kenmare so we could drive the Ring of Kerry, a popular coastal route with beautiful views but also lots of people. All the instructions for driving it give you tips for timing and routing to avoid tour buses. I was not at all sure this was a great plan, especially given that the rest of our trip was going to be focused on coastal scenery. Surely the Ring of Kerry couldn't be that much better than all the other things to come?

Then I met up with my cancer pal in Indianapolis and she told me Kilkenny was her favorite town in Ireland, and it was close to the Rock of Cashel, which I'd wanted to see. It looked to be about 2 hours of highway driving from Shannon, which seemed like a perfect way to break in the driving situation a bit. So, a couple of weeks before we left, I ditched the Ring of Kerry and booked us a night here instead. 

On the way there we stopped at the Barack Obama Plaza (a highway gas station) to get snacks. ??? I said, "Well, I guess there will never be a plaza named after Trump," and Ben said, "Molly. There already is." YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

The place we stayed  in Kilkenny was originally part of the Kilkenny Castle grounds, so this was a 2 minute walk away. We went there first to check it out.

It was sunny and 70 degrees. It's funny in retrospect how irritated we were by the good weather. I wanted cold and rain! We got too hot walking around this beautiful lawn and were crabby about it.

The castle was a proper castle, not a fortressy type place like Bunratty. It's right in the middle of town now.

It's so funny how they always save the biggest grandest room for the very end on the castle tours. This is the family art gallery.

We got some sandwiches in the castle tea room.

Then we walked around town, which was extremely cute.

I really couldn't get over how cute it was. Over the next two weeks, though, I was to discover most of Ireland's smaller towns and villages look pretty much like this. Some of them were drab and boring, but not very many.

We passed this place, a period house museum, by chance. Our favorite thing! It's Ireland's finest example of a Tudor townhouse.

It dates from the 1590s and was a series of three separate houses, joined by courtyards, going back off the street to a large garden at the very back. They were rich merchants.

The best thing about this type of minor museum is the random collection of objects they throw in. Like this skull from a Giant Irish deer, mounted at the height it would have stood in life. Look how huge that deer was! Its antlers are twice as tall as Ben.

They also had some mannequins dressed in some Tudor costumes, except one of them was very small for some reason, and one was wearing a plague doctor's outfit from the middle ages.

Chilling in one of the courtyards.

Here you can see along that wall they had a bunch of grain grindstones to tell you about how that all worked, even though it didn't have anything to do with the house itself.

No context. Just a dog skeleton.

In all seriousness, though, the Rothe House was super interesting and well done. The back garden has some tame ducks wandering around in it as well, which are always fun. We got too close to their little habitat and the ducks came over to intimidate us into leaving their water alone.

St Canice's Cathedral is the big old church in town, dating from the 1200s.

The big stained glass windows were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell and had to be recreated.

This is the first place we encountered a round tower at a religious site - these are all over Ireland, and are always the oldest part of the church complex (at least, all the ones we saw were). They seemed to all be from the 1100s. You could climb up this if you wanted but it looked horrible.

More of cute Kilkenny!

This is our hotel, Butler House. It was one of the top sleeping places of the trip, for sure.

We had a jacuzzi tub! Unfortunately we also left that window open when we went out to dinner and a million tiny gnats flew in, so we had to keep the bathroom door shut after that to keep them out of the bedroom.

Our very large, quiet room.

And a separate anteroom with another bed! I didn't remember choosing a giant room when I booked the place but I guess I did.

For dinner we went to the Kyteler's Inn, dating back to 1263. It seems hard to believe.

I'd forgotten how you get so many sauce choices in the British Isles.

I got a sampler of three local beers. The one on the left was the best.

It was a good place! But gives me that feeling of confusion as an American where our "old" stuff is from the 1800s. It's hard to tell what's real and what's kitschy.

 Kilkenny was great! A perfect place to start the trip.