So we arrived in the small town of Cashel around...a bit past 9 pm. We had called a hostel from the bus station in Dublin before parting with Cynthia and Danielle and Danielle's guidebook. It's a good thing we called, because otherwise I don't think anyone would have been around to let us in. Oh wait, no one was around anyway. Gio had talked to an effusively friendly Indian lady on the phone, who said Come On Down! We'll be waiting for you! But when we actually arrived we rang the doorbell and waited a few minutes before a blonde lady came from the B&B next door, looked at us suspiciously and asked if we had reservations. Gio told her he had called earlier, but she apparently didn't have our names written down. I don't know why this was a problem, because after staying there I'm pretty sure there were only about 3 or 4 other people (MAX) staying there, and TONS of free beds/rooms. The lady did eventually warm up...so maybe she had dozed off next door and was grumpy to be woken up, I don't know.
Anyway, we got our keys and settled in (trying not to disturb the one other person in our room, who was already sleeping), then went down to the kitchen and had some tea and bread and cheese, following our first course of apples, crackers and cheese which took place on the bus (with us cutting our white cheddar using an edge of the box it came in--now that's resourcefulness). In the hostel kitchen we regaled ourselves of the absolutely delicious brown soda bread someone had so generously left in the "free" box, as well as the surprisingly good supermarket brand tea, also marked "free." Obviously my birthday dinner was quite extravagant.
Afterwards, although we were exhausted and it was FREEZING cold outside (but amazingly clear), we couldn't really face ending the day having basically done nothing but sit on a bus, so we decided to go for a wander around Cashel. We had decided really last minute to go there, and basically didn't know anything about it except that there was something there called the Rock of Cashel, which was apparently impressive. So we wandered the streets for a bit, passing lots of cozy-looking pubs (which were surprisingly packed for a Monday night), appreciating all the Halloween decorations in the store fronts, and generally enjoying the unrivaled adorableness of the town. It was like a town straight out of Disneyland, only if Main Street USA was actually Irish, and had more pubs. And was colder. It didn't seem overly touristy though, which was also amazing. A place of extreme cuteness and picturesqueness without the feeling that everything in it is made for/aimed at tourists (and separating them from their money) is something pretty special. All the time we could see a huge stone fortress/castle looming over the town, lit from below, with the crescent moon hanging right above its turrets. We assumed that was the rock of Cashel, but since there were all these brochures about how to get there by bus, we assumed it was farther than it looked. Nevertheless, we decided to walk towards it, and before we knew it, we were at the base of the immense, ancient, awesome thing. As we were gaping at it, the lights turned off, turning it from a majestic fortress to a massive dark and incredibly spooky presence. This is what we had come for. The crisp and very chilly air, the twinkling stars and beautiful moon, the colored leaves blowing around the abandoned streets, the dark castle on our right and a couple scary gates leading to an even darker path on our left--we could only imagine what lay beyond it. WOooOoO--getting in the Halloween mood!! As I stood in awe looking at the castle and how much it had transformed with the turning off of the lights (I swear, it never wore off--The Rock of Cashel took my breath away anew in every change of light, at different every angle, as if I was just then seeing it for the first time)--Gio unlatched one of the gates leading through the stone wall, and it opened slowly, with a long drawn out creak straight from a horror movie. The leaves rustled in the path beyond, a small square of it illuminated by the moonlight, the rest absolutely pitch black. We couldn't resist that, being the couple of spooky kids that we are, so we started tentatively down the path. But, being the couple of scaredy cats (with overactive imaginations) that we also are, we didn't get very far. Gio dared me to do something that had to do with going farther beyond the point where I couldn't see a thing, and while I was hesitating something spooked us (or maybe we just freaked ourselves out) and we started running back to the gate and slammed it shut. Whew. We made it out of there alive ;o). We walked around the base of the dark castle (plus graveyard) for quite a while longer, before heading on back towards the town, where we ran into the ruins of an old monastery, right in the middle of some apartments and a small strip mall. This place was amazing, though for some reason even spookier--it seemed to emanate a malevolent presence rather than the majesty of "the rock." And there were graves inside, and strange shadows. Or maybe we were just getting ourselves worked up. When we eventually made it back to the main street of Cashel, we made another tour looking in the windows of a few of the unbearably cute pubs, most of which promptly turned off their front lights/open signs/etc--apparently pub time had passed. So we headed back to the hostel and tried to go to bed without waking the now two people who were in our room (both snoring males, much to my dismay).
The next morning we walked around looking for a place to have breakfast, and eventually ended up at The Bake House, which I had spotted when we got off the bus the night before, where we had some delicious cappuccinos and scones, but although the place was packed with what seemed like locals, I think we chose wrong. I had been tempted to go out for breakfast rather than buying something to eat at the hostel because the Cashel food brochure was making my mouth water with visions of hot scones with jam and clotted cream. Apparently the place that served that was the one across the street, which we didn't go into because we couldn't see inside the steamed up windows. Our mistake. Although our scones were good, they were neither hot nor served with clotted cream. And, tragic story, I never ended up getting that particular delicacy the entire time we spent in Ireland, although I never gave up hope!
After breakfast we packed up our stuff and stopped at the tourist office to figure out the bus times, which basically gave us the option of leaving in 5 minutes or several hours later. Since we still wanted to explore Cashel a bit, we decided to take the 2 something bus, so we had a leisurely few hours to pass. We walked back to the rock, which of course looked completely different in the daylight. We walked down the path that had so scared us the night before. We were disappointed to see that there was nothing to be scared of besides some really deep mud (so it's actually good we were too scared to go any further when we couldn't see), but there was an unbelievably beautiful path leading around the grounds of the Rock and down to a valley where some more ancient abbey ruins stood amongst that grass so green that it practically glows, the kind that really can only be seen in Ireland. We explored the ruins (and graveyard), all the while I was cursing my camera's dead battery, as each turn of the corner revealed something too awesome for words, and the light continued to change and render the Rock of Cashel newly awe-inspiring. Not to mention the views of the castle *through* the windows and arches of the ruined abbey. We were eventually joined by a family who seemed to be locals--or at least somehow connected to the place, because the dad was explaining to his kids whose family members were buried here, and whose there. I wondered if they were from the Ryan clan, whose name seemed to dominate the majority of the store fronts and businesses in town. Or maybe the Morellis, who seemed to be the other heavy-hitters in Cashel. But they didn't strike me as Morellis. We pretended they were Ryans. (I found it really interesting how we could identify 2 or 3 family names in each Irish town that were EVERYWHERE). We spent a few hours walking around seeing everything we had seen the night before, most of which looked disappointingly un-spooky in the day, but had the advantage of being open.
We stopped at the church, signed the guest book. As we were looking around another family came in and their son started reading the guest book. I heard him say "AUSTRALIA?!?? That's soooo farrr awaaay!!!" Then, "that's from TODAY!" So I guess Gio's presence provided the kid with a thrill--he seemed to be extremely excited about the thought of someone from Australia visiting the same church in the same day as he did...lol, if only I could be so exciting.
When we couldn't take the cold any longer, we went grocery shopping and headed back to the hostel for a pasta lunch (and lots more tea), punctuated by advice sessions with the Indian lady Gio had talked to the night before--we learned all about Indian folk remedies and recipes (i.e. suck on a clove to help a toothache), and also learned that she often cooks for the guests and he owner's ungrateful kids who complain about garlic and cover their noses when she's cooking with it. Of course all the garlic and spices she said they complain about sounded like heaven to me--why did we have to miss it!? In the meantime we had been swayed by the brochures showing the cozy Sugan hostel in Killarney--it looked like a little hobbit hole with an open fire, colorful walls, etc. Although Killarney was not on our itinerary, we decided that it would give us the time to take a look at a few more things on our way to the Dingle peninsula, such as Cahir Castle, so we decided to make a stop there that night.
Cahir was beautiful, but Cashel was a hard act to follow, and the Cahir Castle paled in comparison to the Rock of Cashel. Killarney was also a bit of a disappointment. It was "cute," but this time in a way that felt very fake. It was filled with glitzy hotels and expensive restaurants and bars that all served the exact same tourist menu, which was posted outside in 10 languages. Every pub advertised "traditional music," but I tend to bristle a little when I come to a tourist trap--I get so paranoid about falling for it that I have a hard time deciding on any place to go, because I want to search out the "diamond of authenticity" in the rough of made-for-tourists establishments. Because of this, we spent a long time walking around in indecision, before finally choosing a cozy pub with an open fire that was very coolly decorated for Halloween, with orange lighting, cobwebs covering the walls and chandeliers, skeletons and ghosts everywhere, etc. We ordered Irish coffees, since we had been wanting to for awhile and figured what the heck, we were in a touristy town so why not order a touristy drink? They cost a whopping 6 euros, but they were also huge, and wore capes. And they were INTENSE. There was a TON of THICK THICK cream--I could feel my arteries clogging, literally, as I sipped it. Once I got through the first layer of cream, the whiskey started to burn my throat out. There was no way I was finishing that thing (which was also huge), as hard as I tried, I don't know if I even made it halfway. The pub itself seemed to be a good choice, though, since it was filled with people of all ages who seemed to be Irish and maybe even local (a lot of them seemed to know each other), and they were all singing along with the traditional music being played in the corner, and actually dancing actual jig-like dances (and yes, these were young people doing this). We were very happy about this development. Unfortunately, after a rousing round of "Fell in Love With a Galway Girl" (or whatever the actual title of that song is), the trad music group packed up and was replaced by a band on the stage at the other end of the pub. They were also quite good, but we didn't really come to Ireland to listen to a cover band sing Blink 182 and Linkin Park songs. Plus it was too loud to talk at that point, even when we finally managed to snatch a spot by the fire on the other end of the pub. So after about half an hour of that we decided to pack it up and head back to the hostel. Easier said than done, and we wandered lost for a bit, but eventually made it back.
It was a comfortable hostel, but I can't say I got much sleep since one of the (already sleeping) girls in our room sounded alarmingly tubercular...or--I don't even know, she was snoring very loud, but it was very...wet_snoring. She basically sounded like she was drowning, all night. Besides the noise, I was also a little bit worried about what lovely diseases we were going to catch from her...
The next morning we went to the rip off little mini mart down the street and bought some peanut butter and honey and bread (mmmm peanut butter--even the horrible British stuff tasted so good to me, I haven't had it for so long! Plus I was a little low on protein). Armed with our newly purchased umbrellas from the 2 euro store, we walked to the national park on the edge of town. We were determined to make the most of our time in Killarney. As the rain started pounding harder (and horizontally), our umbrellas continually turning inside out as we walked through some fields full of cows who looked at us like we were crazy. We headed in the direction of some castle (Roth I think?) And walk 2k or so before reaching some "road flooded" signs--pshaw! we said, and continued. However, a few hundred meters down the road we realized that they weren't joking, and there was no way of getting around it--the road and the woods around was somewhat reminiscent of a very cold Florida everglades. We tried to see if there were some shallower places we might be able to step to continue on, but no dice. We would've needed a canoe to visit Roth Castle that day... Defeated, and soaking wet, we headed back to the hostel, by way of the huge cathedral and a short stop at Dunne's department store, which attracted us with their display of pumpkins. What we discovered inside was the best grocery store in Ireland, with prices that were actually affordable and things that actually looked good (including lots of gorgeous fruits and vegetables, which we were also lacking in our diet of pretty much bread, cheese and pasta). Although we didn't want to load ourselves down too much, we couldn't resist the giant 99 cent cabbages, big bags of carrots, beautiful "capsicums," etc. We stocked up on fruits and veggies and some other provisions and headed back to the hostel for a surprisingly delicious and healthy and satisfying lunch, before heading to the bus station to finally go to Dingle (via Tralee). There is a story to tell about the buses, our tickets, etc, but if you want to know you'll have to ask me in person...
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