On Thursday morning we left our wonderful digs at Mount Juliet in one of Ireland’s Thomastowns (there are at least two we have been to already) and headed to Adare in the County Limerick.  Our stops during the day included Ormond Castle in Carrick-on-Suir, Cahir Castle in Cahir in the county of Tipperary, lunch at The Lazy Bean Cafe there (I love those Irish cajun chicken sandwiches!), the Rock of Cashel in Cashel, the Hore Abbey just down the hill from The Rock and then on to Adare.

All of the small towns in this part of the country have been quite lovely.  Adare, with a mere 2,000 residents, is considered by some to be Ireland’s prettiest village.  Our guidebook says “Cynics call it the prettiest “English” village since its manicured perfection is at odds with normal notions of national beauty.”  But since we love English villages, we are happy here.

I have spent part of five summers in the past decade assisting archaeologists in Belize excavate Mayan ruins so I obviously like old/ancient things.  Konnie does also but working in Belize with scorpions, spiders, snakes, no electricity in the cabana and no hot water is not where she wants to hang out looking at old stuff.  So Europe seems to be a great common ground for us.  But, given much of this trip has consisted of pictures of beautiful old stone buildings, I am cutting back on posting pictures of what looks like the same places over and over to those who weren’t there.  So from here on it will be three pictures max of any one old stone building or ruin site.

We found a great restaurant in this little village last night called White Sage (www.whitesagerestaurant.com).  If you are ever here, try it.  We will hit it again on Saturday night.

Until Sunday morning, we will be hanging out in County Limerick.