It’s long been my dream to visit Ireland.

Since I turn the big 40 this month, we took a short trip to visit some key places in Ireland!

We flew into Kerry from Frankfurt Hahn on RyanAir.

We rented a car. That was an interesting experience for my husband, driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

We stayed at Ashford Castle.

Day 1:

We visited Kylemore Abbey.

The drive through the hills was lovely!

We had a lovely tea at Ashford Castle in the afternoon.

Day 2:

In the morning, we went on a Hawk Walk at Ashford Castle.

We walked around Galway City in the afternoon.

Day 3:

We drove over to County Meath to see Trim Castle, Newgrange, The Hill of Tara, and the City of Kells.

It was a loooong drive but all of those places were close together once we got there.

We got back to the castle pretty late that night.

Our trip was too short.

We lost two days just traveling there and home – and I had hoped we’d have more opportunity to take side trips on the way to/from the castle/airport on those days.

There were several places we longed to see, but we just ran out of time.

The speed limits on the crowded little 2-lane country roads and the rainy weather made the going very slow.

I’d love to go back to Ireland to see The Cliffs of Moher and The Burren and to visit Dublin to see The Book of Kells.