Ireland - Day 1 - From Dublin to Renvyle
Our day began really early when we left home for the Frankfurt Hahn Airport at about 4:30 am. At the airport everything was pretty uneventful, and soon we were on the plane and in the air. We had a very smooth flight (which I have been told is rather unusual) and a perfect landing in Dublin at about 9.00am local time. Our next step was the rental car pickup at the airport, and then it was Tims job to take us onto Irelands roads. Driving on the left side, of course, as our rental car, navigational systems and multiple road signs told us repeatedly.
Our first stop was Trim Castle, the biggest anglo-american castle...somewhere.
Anyways, it was in fact pretty impressive - and we walked around the castle grounds for quite some time to take our first photos on this trip. It was drizzling most of the time we spent at Trim, but we did not let that darken our mood. We all brought plenty of rain-equipment, because after all, we're in Ireland, what did we expect?
The next challenged presented itself in finding a supermarket to buy some of the necessities for daily life, and more importantly, something to have for lunch. We continued towards our final destination and succeeded both in finding a supermarket and buying everything we needed.
After that it was just another two hours of driving separating us from our destination Renvyle in the Connemara Region. It ended up being quite a bit of a longer trip, because we stopped multiple times to take in the landscape, and of course, document it with our cameras.
During one of those stops Tim and I were surprised by the moody irish weather. We had just gotten out of the car and walked a few meters to get a better shot, when suddenly rain just started to pound down on us, then turning into hail. I had neglected to put on my raincoat, thinking we'd just be out of the car for such a short time, and within minutes, we were wet to our bones. But we took even that with good humor, put on another change of clothes and continued our adventure towards Renvyle. The second time we saw rain pouring down just a bit farther down the road, we hurried to get back to the our dry and safe car, so there were no other nasty surprises for us.
We arrived in Renvyle at Castlehouse B&B at around 6pm. The host is really nice and gave us a very warm and friendly welcome, and the rooms are great - we even have a fantastic view out to the atlantic ocean.
So that's it for today. #SK