National Stud Farm, Rock of Cashel and Cork

Top of the morning to all

                                    Today we will talk about the National Stud Farm, The Rock of Cashel and the city of Cork.
We started our third day in Dublin with another great Irish breakfast at the Davenport Hotel in Merrion Square which was a wonderful hotel. All our hotels were at least 4 stars and the best was yet to come. Our favorite taxi driver David met us at the hotel at 9 am to take us back to the airport to get our car rental. He drove us back a different way so we could see parts of the city we missed. One area was "An Tur Solais" or "The Spire of Light" in English, located on O'Connell St in Dublin. For 158 years the 134 foot Monument of Admiral Nelson stood there until the IRA blew it up in 1966. The Spire of Light is the worlds tallest sculpture at over 393 feet high and over 9 feet wide.
When we got to the airport we said our goodbyes to David and went to Hertz to pick up our rental. When the fellow at the rental desk saw the number of bags we had he suggested an SUV instead of an economy car. Just a note, I had only one suitcase need I say more.We ended up with a KIA Sportage SUV which at first I was not too thrilled about because most roads in Ireland are narrow. I drove many years earlier on the roads in Scotland so I knew what to expect. Will say though we found the main highways wide and there was alot of roads being improved there. My biggest fear was forgetting at some point that I needed to stay on the left side of the road and to go to the left when traveling around the round abouts which were more common then traffic lights at an intersection. That first day I did make a few mistakes driving and one did include going to the right on a round about. By the end of the day I had my driving under control.
Our first stop was to get something to eat at Kildare Village Outlets near the town of Kildare which is southwest of Dublin. We ate at an Italian restaurant called L'Officina whose menu consisted mostly lite fare. We found the food quite good  and as I said before we never had a bad meal the whole trip. After lunch we went to the National Stud Farm as this was one of the places Caren wanted to go to. Horse racing is big in Ireland and so is the breeding of horses. The National Stud Farm is one of the largest and few that allow the public to roam the farm. One of the many reasons we picked May was that was a good time to see foals that recently had been born. We had a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon there. I have a suggestion that you get there early enough in the day so you can also go into the town of Kildare to see one of the many round towers in Ireland. What is different about this tower is you can climb the steps up to the top. Sadly we never got to do this. After we left the farm we continued south until we came upon the The Rock of Cashel. I believe Ireland has about 345 Castles in all shapes, sizes and in varying conditions. This is one well worth seeing. I should mention that before embarking for your trip to Ireland you should spend a bit of time walking when ever you can. You want to build up your stamina to walk and climb hills and stairs.
From the Rock of Cashel we headed for our stay at The River Lee Hotel in Cork. We parked our vehicle for the night at the hotel and took a taxi to another great restaurant for dinner. We chose a taxi since they knew the best places to eat and how to get there. The restaurants in the hotels we stayed had restaurants but we wanted to venture out for lunch and dinner since we ate our breakfasts in the hotel.
Hope you enjoy the photos below.

 The skeleton of the horse is Arkle one of the greatest Steeplchase horse ever. He ran 12 of his races as the top horse in weight and won nine of them. He won one race where he ran through the hurdle fence and still won the race by thirty lengths. Sadly he developed arthritis at the early age of 13 and was put down.

 This is The Black Abbey located on the National Stud Farm. You will find many Abbeys through out Ireland.

This is Greys Abbey which was located in back of the Italian restaurant L'Officina in Kildare Village Outlets.

This is the Rock of Cashel

A view of Hore Abbey from the Rock of Cashel

Greenes Restaurant in Cork, if you like French cuisine this is a great place to eat. You don't see it but there is a stone waterfall in the front of the restaurant that we could see from our table.

View of Cork from the glass elevator in our hotel The River Lee in Cork.

Thats all for today, tomorrow we back track to Waterford where they make Waterford Crystal and we will work our way to Killarney.

Cheers,
Charlie Cotter