The Strand hotel where we stayed was right on the Shannon river and there were beautiful flowers all along the bridges. These were right across from the hotel.
Flowers in the river wall
The river Shannon
We boarded the bus for the short ride to King John’s castle. It is now a museum that talks a lot about the British invasion of Ireland and the resistance of the Irish people. The history of this country is quite interesting and we were unaware of how many people were killed or starved to death while there was enormous wealth right next door to them. We were able to climb up in the turrets of the castle for a great view of the Shannon and Limerick
The castle
View from the Turrets
Limerick and the river Shannon
View from the Turrets
Limerick
Limerick
We boarded the bus again for our ride to Kilarney but stopped along the way for lunch and a tour of the flying boat museum. The river Shanon was very important in the story of early trans-atlantic aviation and that’s because the early trans-atlantic journeys actually landed on water in planes called flying boats. We walked through a model of one of the planes. The seats were quite a bit larger than todays, and there was a dining room, and each passenger had a bed. Of course the flight took 20 hours.
Outside view of the Yankee Clipper – a flying boat
Control room
Once we finished at the museum, we got a demonstration on the right way to make Irish Coffee. The first one was made here at the museum site, which was also the site of the original airport where the flying boats came in and out of for all flights from Europe to North America. The story is that during bad weather one night one of the planes had to turn back and return to Foynes (the Irish town where the airport was) and when they returned they were cold and tired and the chef decided to put whiskey in their coffee to cheer them up and warm them up. That same chef eventually went to San Francisco where he took his recipe for Irish Coffee.
One of the girls in our group making irish coffee
Next we boarded the bus for a short ride into the resort town of Kilarney. We checked into the Riverside hotel and headed out with the group for a horse drawn carriage tour of the town and national park that is here.
One of the Johnny Carts and some of our tour group.
A lake in the park
A river in the park
A different view of the lake.
We had the evening to ourselves so after a short rest at the hotel we walked into town and had dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant called Robertinos. The Calamari was really good and Conrad had a nice pasta and I had a good Irish steak. After dinner we stopped at a Gelato place and then walked down to St. Mary’s Cathedral before walking back to the hotel.
St. Mary’s Cathedral