TOURISTY TRAVELS

time is FLYING.  i want to bottle it up, saving it forever, only releasing it little by little so i can be sure to seize each moment before it passes me by.

week 2 in ireland has officially come to a close.  how has it been 2 weeks already?  time flies when you're having fun, and fun i have been having.

pretty views from the look out at king john's castle

last monday, the day after my birthday, we hosted our visiting study abroad group to a tour around limerick city.  it was a treat to get to tag along as this was my first time seeing many of these parts of town, too.  talk about the perfect gig, huh?  

we started at st. john's castle where we got to tour the museum, climb through the castle itself, pretend we are princesses... (oh wait, was that just me?) and do some shopping before stopping for lunch at the locke bar, a local favorite.  after lunch we spent some time at st. mary's cathedral in limerick city, right across from the locke bar.  it's a lovely cathedral of the church of ireland and is the oldest in-use building in the city, dating back to its foundation in 1168.  following the cathedral, we crossed the river to tour the hunt museum, a landmark in limerick that houses the collection of +2,000  pieces of art and antiques that were collected by john and gertrude hunt in the 20th century.

st. mary's cathedral

 little prayer trees in the cathedral

on tuesday morning we were off to the cliffs of moher!  this morning trip was paired with an afternoon at bunratty castle and folk park.  a fun-filled day if i do say so myself.

on our way to the cliffs we swung by lahinch, a sweet little beach town where the major surfing in ireland takes place.

the cliffs are ireland's most popular tourist attraction, and rightfully so, as they stretch across a significant part of the western irish coast, serve as view points for a handful of other sites in ireland such as the aran islands, the mountains in galway and loop head to the south, and were even featured in pop-culture favorites like harry potter and the half blood prince and the princess bride.

seeing as the cliffs are in ireland and on the coast, visibility is pretty low more often than not.  that said, we couldn't have gotten a nicer day - warm, sunshine-y (now this is stuck in my head help me), nary a cloud in the sky... and visibility was crystal clear.  we could see the aran islands from shore and each of the cliffs stretching out.

after our morning at the cliffs, we went to bunratty castle and folk park.  first, we made a pit stop at mcgann's for lunch in doolin as well as swung through to see the burren.

the tomb at the burren

bunratty castle is a medieval fortress near shannon town that has been preserved and is decorated with household items and decor from the 15th and 16th century to represent the time period in which it was in use.  there is a folk park surrounding the castle full of little cottages and shops set up to represent historic irish village life as well as bunratty house and garden, a refurbished victorian home from the early 19th century.  it is such an adorably quaint experience.

bunratty castle

bunratty tea room

the one thing i knew i had to do at bunratty was visit the tea room and have a piece of apple pie, so immediately following my tour of the castle, i headed straight for the tea room and did just that.

tea and apple pie for one, please!

the sweetest end to the sweetest few days.