DAY-35: Movin' On To Donegal
Day – 35: Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Starting Location: Cong, County Mayo, Ireland
Ending Location: Donegal, Ireland
We fully intended to milk every minute out of our stay at Ashford Castle. Chris had taken an early morning walk stopping off at Cullen's Tea House for cookies; we all liked cookies, they had become a staple of this trip so we were glad to have a resupply.
We straggled down to breakfast around nine and after breakfast Sheila and I walked around the grounds of the castle.
Our room was the corner room with the tall window.
They like to name rooms here such as the Reagan Suite ...
and the soon to be ...
It's everything the pictures show, beautiful landscaping, waterways, fountains, statuary, etc.
As we were checking out the ladies met Paddy, the 40+ year veteran bellman at Ashford Castle. Seems that one of Paddy's duties is to pose for videos and pictures with women guests of the hotel.
By 11:30 we were on the road to our next destination but hadn't gone far, less than a mile or so, when Chris asked Mike to "stop the bus"! She had noticed Lydon signs. We stopped for a few pictures at the Lydon's Pub and Lydon's Lodge. If only we had known we could have probably received family rates at the lodge saving a few Euros over our costs at Ashford Castle.
Just one letter difference ...
We made a brief stop at the resting spots of W. B. Yeats, I think he was a writer but I couldn't name a thing that he penned.
We continued our journey and around 5 PM arrived at our hotel the Lough Eske Castle. The front of the hotel is definitely castle like but behind the scenes are additions that look like standard hotel buildings with an old look thrown in to stay with the theme.
Our original plan was to go into Donegal for the evening but saner heads prevailed and we decided to have drinks and dinner in the hotel.
The night ended early but we all probably needed the break.
We fully intended to milk every minute out of our stay at Ashford Castle. Chris had taken an early morning walk stopping off at Cullen's Tea House for cookies; we all liked cookies, they had become a staple of this trip so we were glad to have a resupply.
By 11:30 we were on the road to our next destination but hadn't gone far, less than a mile or so, when Chris asked Mike to "stop the bus"! She had noticed Lydon signs. We stopped for a few pictures at the Lydon's Pub and Lydon's Lodge. If only we had known we could have probably received family rates at the lodge saving a few Euros over our costs at Ashford Castle.
Our scheduled stop for the afternoon was in Westport where we were scheduled for a "walking city tour".
None of us knew what to expect. It was raining a bit but nothing of significance, certainly not enough to keep us from our tour.
At 2 PM we met our tour guide, Brian. He was a very energetic young man, perhaps an acting student; he was probably as surprised by us as we were by him. Turns out the tour was somewhat of a "ghost tours" type event. Brian tried his hardest to get the SMART Seven engaged in the tour but try as he might it would be a difficult task.
The bobbing bottle kept our attention for a few minutes.
After about an hour, Brian realized that he was losing us and that our real interest was in finding Matt Malloy's pub. He brought us to the pub and with thanks all around we were free.
Matt Malloy's Pub is owned by one of the Chieftains, the Irish Folk group popular around the world for their Celtic music. We were in need of drink so sat down and enjoyed cold ones.
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| The Chieftains with a Stone |
We continued our journey and around 5 PM arrived at our hotel the Lough Eske Castle. The front of the hotel is definitely castle like but behind the scenes are additions that look like standard hotel buildings with an old look thrown in to stay with the theme.
The night ended early but we all probably needed the break.
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