Ireland #2 Adare and the Church View House B&B

Leaving the airport, this is what we saw.

Nice welcome!

It was a fairly short drive to Ennis,

where we started seeing some of our favorite sights.

The pubs were a welcome sight.

I took this picture because it's called Patrick's and 

that is one of my nephew's names.

It wasn't all that impressive as many of the pubs are more colorful

with flowers decorating the outside.

But it was a pub, none the less 

and we do love the pubs.

I'm not a drinker, but the pubs are wonderful places to 

eat.  More about that in later posts.

There is a lovely little river through Ennis and as you can see

it was a beautiful calm day.

Here's a typical road in an Irish town.

Notice the color on some of the buildings,

you'll see a lot of color in upcoming posts.

The building are often painted bright colors.

Just lovely!

And of course the typical mail box, or

post box.

Another lovely water shot. 

 Notice the flowers in the hanging pots

on the bridge, very common in Ireland to see 

flowers on bridges, buildings, homes, pubs, gardens,

just about anywhere they can be, you will see them.

Walking through the city we saw some interesting artwork.

And more beautiful flowers.

And of course there are the Guinness signs.

I started taking pictures of the Guinness signs right away.

My nephew, Joel, is a Guinness lover and they reminded me of him.

You'll see more along my journey.

We spent a couple hours walking around the city,

having a bite to eat and window shopping.

Then it was time to go back and pick up our other traveling companions.

Back to the airport!

Once we picked up Roxie and Ed, 

we were off to Adare and our first B&B of the trip.

The Church View House B&B

is located a matter of a block from the center of town.

The location is perfect.

Church View House is run by a very sweet woman

named Bridie.

  

Our room was on the smaller side and the bathroom was

very small.  I have to laugh, the shower was just big enough to 

turn around in and there was a wall that jutted out and prevented 

anyone from sitting totally forward on the toilet.

Wasn't the most convenient, but it was en-suite and that

 is the important thing.

The breakfast was lovely and the rooms were clean and comfortable

if a little small.

With this B&B the key word was location!

A couple of us stayed to take a bit of a nap.

As I said in my last post, I'm a night owl, but there is a limit.

By this time it was about 2 - 3p.m. local

For me it was 9 - 10 a.m. I'd been up over 24 hours traveling and I was 

done in.  A nap was in order

This is when I had a little scare.

I have sleep apnea and sleep with a CPAP

(Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)

 which assures that I breath while I sleep.

I laid down to sleep and about 5 minutes later, my CPAP 

stopped working.  I was about in hysterics. If I didn't have my CPAP,

we were in big trouble!

To make a long story shorter, after some crying and fiddling around with adapters

and cords and plugs, I got it working and it was fine for the rest of the trip.

I got my much needed nap.

The others were out checking out the town and having their first Irish beer.

Dave came back and woke me and we all met to go for our first dinner in Ireland.

Had a very enjoyable dinner at Pat Collins Bar.

In this picture Dave is talking to the owner.

His grandfather was the original owner of the bar, 

over the years it was expanded and remodeled

and handed down from father to son to grandson.

We would have liked to be there for some music, 

but the music played, as the sign said

"9 till late"

we were all a bit tired so decided to forgo it for the evening.

We did a bit of walking around town after dinner.

Next post, I'll show you a little bit of Adare.

Thanks for stopping by to "hear" a bit about Ireland.