Adventures in Cashel and Cahir

Yesterday was a lovely (but wet and windy) day trip to Cashel and Cahir. After much confusion on where to visit this weekend, we settled on these places.

First off, let me say how difficult it can be to get bus schedules...They hide them so you spend hours looking for them. Bus Eireann can be a real pain sometimes...more on that later in the saga that was Saturday.

So Cashel. A LOVELY little town in County Tipperary. A quaint little area set in a beautiful part of Ireland. Green and hills everywhere, and sheep (exceptionally loud sheep) out the whazoo, a setting that one thinks about when they think of Ireland. We walked around and followed signs to the Rock of Cashel, A monestary/castle. The architecture of the building was really awesome. The precisness of all the masonry and artwork on the walls and tombs was amazing. It was set high up on a hill which gave some amazing views below. We went on a cloudy and rainy day, but it really set the mood of the castle. I don't think it would have had the same ambiance if it were sunny. This is the place where St. Patrick was said to have come and was said to be the most religious stronghold in all of Ireland. So that was pretty cool too.

We then walked down a path to another old stone building in the middle of a feild (not an unusal site in Ireland) and poked around there for a few minutes as well. It was an old monestary (the name of which slips my mind at the moment). Afterwards we headed back up to town. While Cashel is a lovely town, it can be done within 3 hours...There's not much to do after that. We headed to a little coffee shop and had a cup of coffee and a pastery then waited for the bus.

Now, back to Bus Eireann. Typically you only put the schedules of the busses that actually RUN to that particular stop. Well no, not you bus eireann, you like to trick the American's (as well as the Finnish since they made the same mistake) and put fake busses on your signs. So we see a bus come that says Corcaigh (Cork) on it. Oh no guys, thats not our bus, we want the one going to Athrone (which stops in Cahir). 25 minutes later, the bus still hasn't come. So we call the company who says we needed to get on the Cork bus. Then WHY the HELL did you have a bus to Cahir LISTED on you sign if we just needed to get on the Cork bus? Then we had an hour an a half to kill. Lucky for us, there was a pub right across from the bus stop. The hour an a half consisted of pints, trip planning, childhood games like MASH and hangman, as well as wondering why we suck at reading bus schedules. Finally, we get on the bus and get to Cahir, where we had ANOTHER hour and 15 minutes to wait for our connection back to Limerick....Back to the pub we went. This time specifically to stay warm and out of the rain, because our luck had completely run out by this point and the weather that held out all day finally opened up and a monsoon touched down in Ireland. We didn't get to see the really awesome Norse castle in Cahir like we planned because of Bus Eireann.

We did make the last bus back to Limerick and we made it home several hours after the original plan. We made it back just in time to get the doors just about blown off our taxi and get swept away by the wind. However, it was a fun day and we had a lovely time in Cashel and that's all that matters....Right?