10 Days is Apparently Not Enough

When I was first making plans for our trip I used Oktoberfest as a bookmark and then filled in the beginning gap with Iceland, London and Ireland.  I figured 10 days in Ireland would give us a good taste of things, without being too rushed.  WRONG!  Turns out we could've easily filled 10 days in 1 spot with the amount of things to see and do.

Waiting in the rain for a cab

We started our Ireland journey by taking a train from London.  Apparently trains and record setting rainfall don't really see eye to eye.  There was a ton of flooding on the tracks and luckily trains still go through, they just go really really slow!  We arrived at the dock just in time to catch the ferry across to Dublin.  The ferry was much larger then I imagined with 5 decks just for vehicles and was more of a cruise ship then ferry.  The pilot warned us that it could be a rough 3.5 hr ride due to the weather (more record setting rains and wind).  Fortunately, the boat's stabilizers were really good and the ride was relatively smooth.  We arrived in Dublin at 5:45 PM.

There were 2 lines when we finally got off the boat: 1 for cabs and 1 for the bus.  Since we had to get to the airport to pick up a rental car (and it was already getting late) we opted for the cab.  Sometimes it pays to spend a little extra.  After a 45 min wait (in the rain) for a cab we headed to the airport, after a quick stop to get cash so we could pay the driver.  We got in our rental car at the perfect time of night when its not quite dark but you can't see anything (of course it was still raining too).  Adam did a great job of driving a manual car on the wrong side of the road and our GPS lead us straight to our first B&B in Arklow, about 1.5 hrs south of Dublin.

Kilkenny Castle

From Arklow we headed out to Kilkenny where we had hotel reservations for the night.  It was drizzling when we arrived in Kilkenny so we found a pub to have lunch (and get a Guinness).  We spent the afternoon walking around town visiting the Castle of Kilkenny, the Black Abbey and other random site around.  We tried to visit the Smithwicks brewery but all their tours were sold out.  We were able to go inside the Black Abbey and see the most amazing stained glass.  It was truly breathtaking and is something everyone should go and see.  After touring in the rain it was finally time to check into the hotel at Lyrath Estates.  It was a couple km outside of town so we ate at their restaurant and had a relaxing night.  If we had to do this again I wouldn't stay at the Estates and would instead choose a B&B that was in town.

In the morning we packed up the car and headed towards Killarney, where we decided to spend 2 nights.  Packing and moving everyday gets old.  We picked a B&B that was in town so we could walk to the pubs to join in the Arthurs Day festivities.  On our way from Kilkenny to Killarney we stopped at the Dunmore Caves, Rock of Cashel, and Blarney Castle.  The cave was neat (except for the 30 screaming children who happened to be in our group) and reminded us of our Belize trip.  We refused to pay the fee to enter Rock of Cashel (which was under a major restoration) and opted to hike the path around it.  We did pay the fee to see the Blarney Estate, Castle and Blarney Stone.  It was well worth it, especially since you can't see anything from the road.  We crawled through all tunnels and explored the castle, hiking all the way to the top where the Blarney Stone is.  We were very thankful to be here during a non peak time and only had to wait behind 4 people to kiss the Blarney Stone.  It was nothing like a imagined and sliding down on your back over the edge of the castle's top floor is a little freaky (even with medal bars that are supposed to save you from dying should you fall).  After a jam packed day we reached Killarney and settled into our B&B, then hit the town for dinner a couple drinks.

You can check out our best of pictures here:
Best of Ireland

London

London proved to be quite a change from Iceland, and with good reason as it has 5 times the population of Reykjavik and a much longer history!

We arrived at London Heathrow airport around mid day and managed to successfully navigate the public transit system to two separate destinations.  Our first stop was in central London, near Leicester Square, where we picked up our London Passes which would be our key to several of the most popular tourist spots over the next two days. The second stop was our hotel, the Hilton Docklands Riverside, which required a combination of subways and busses to reach.  The hotel was made up of several buildings that used to be part of the busiest port in the world and have since been renovated to make a nice hotel and conference center right on the shores of the river Thames. After checking in, we ventured across the river to the canary wharf area of London where we visited a museum and had dinner. 

 

Day two started off with another trip to central London and a visit to the Burroughs Market. The number of people packed into such a small area to buy fruit, veggies, bread, meats and other various goods was astonishing.  From there we walked across the London Bridge, visited the London Tower, toured the Tower Bridge and walked around the very impressive St. Paul's Cathedral.

 

The weather turned nasty on day three but we were determined to see a few more sights before we left. Our first stop was the pier in Greenwich where we caught a City Cruises boat up the river towards Westminster.  The boat tour was not at all what we had envisioned and we were glad to get off. We saw the house of the parliament and Westminster Abbey before heading towards Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately it started to downpour as soon as we arrived so we took a couple of pictures and hightailed it towards the nearest tube station.  We took this opportunity to book our travel to Ireland and enjoy a couple of ales in a local pub.  We finished our day with a wonderful dinner at an Italian restaurant called Zizi across the river from our hotel before hitting the sack for a long day of travel.

Our commute to the train station via the public transit system was the craziest yet as we joined thousands of Londoners on their way to work on a Monday morning.  Julie and I crowding on to overflowing subways with two backpacks each was quite the sight, and I'm sure an annoyance to the rest of the passengers.

Iceland Review

We had a great time and Iceland and could have easily spent another 2 weeks exploring. Our first outing was the Golden Circle Tour, which is the most popular tour in Iceland. It was a great 8 hr overview of what Southern Iceland has to offer - volcanos, old volcano lakes, Geysir (what geysers are named after), bubbling pots, glaciers, and Thingviller National Park.

 

 

 It was absolutely beautiful and our guide Vigga was great. We would highly recommend Netbus to anyone visiting Reykjavik. The next day we were supposed to go on the Southern Iceland Tour because the Glacier Tour was no longer offered (lesson learned - visit Iceland before Sept 16^th, that's when everything slows down), but when the bus arrived to pick us up we learned they were extending their glacier tour and offered us to go the next day for the same price as our Southern Tour.....of course we accepted I LOVE glaciers. So instead of another tour we headed to the Vikin Museum and got a private tour of the Odin - a coast guard boat that was used for 50 plus years up until 2006. They allowed us to visit almost every room in the boat which was different from most museums in the US. After we finished our tour we headed back to the room to pick up our swimsuits and left for the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon was different then I expected. The water wasn't very warm when we first got in, but you could find some nice spots if you searched. I think we expected to see something more natural but we found it very commercialized. It was one of the few places I've seen where the pictures turned out better than reality. When we go back I will skip the Lagoon in favor of one of the local bath houses which will be much cheaper and less touristy. The next morning we headed out at 7:30 for our 14 hr Glacier Lagoon Tour. It was about a 5 hr ride out to the lagoon and when were arrived we were greeted with tons of icebergs, it was breathtaking. We had the option to spend $35 each to take a boat ride but after watching people being packed on the boat like sardines we decided to take the walking tour while the rest of our bus group packed in a boat. We had a great time walking around the lake and taking pics. The lagoon had a short 500 m river that ran into the ocean and you could watch pieces of ice float out to sea.

On our way back to town we stopped at 2 waterfalls Skogafoss and Sleijalandsfoss.  They were just as impressive as the Golden falls we saw on the Golden Circle tour. We arrived at Sleijalandsfoss just around sunset and were able to walk all the way around the falls. Some of my favorite pictures we have were taken from behind the falls looking out to the setting sun. After arriving back at our room around 9 we headed out for our first meal on the town - having a kitchen saved us a ton of money as food is crazy expensive. At 4:30 AM the next morning we caught our ride to the airport and headed to London. We will definitely be back to Iceland!

More picture once we get internet that doesn't take 20 min/picture to post....