Traveling to Doolin: Ashford Castle

Ashford Castle is the billed as the oldest castle in Ireland dating back to 1228. It was once owned by the Guinness family and opened as a hotel in 1939. It sits on Lough Corrib and is absolutely gorgeous.

As you can see, it is truly magnificent.

So, when we first pulled up, I drove across the bridge below. There was a  security guard who was extremely pleasant but he told us we couldn't park in the hotel lot unless we had a reservation for a room. There fore, it was necessary for us to go back out and park over by the shop. Well that was fine but I was supposed to back up along the little bridge to get turned around. Now, you can see the  super thick  stone walls, and, I am not the most confident backer upper!

I think I must have looked fairly panicked and he was like, "Ah you'll be fine! We'll get ya sorted!" I was skeptical, but I decided it was time to believe in myself, so I went for it, AND I successfully navigated backwards and across the bridge. Now, I also recall that when I tried to find a place to park by the shop, I had to maneuver a bit to back in, and the look of amusement on the guards face was priceless...Wish I had taken his picture, but apparently I didn't.

I took this picture of the gateway as we walked back over to stroll the castle grounds. Off to the left, around the wall, is the path to take for foot traffic.

What IS it with Ashford Castle and narrow stone gates?! Sheesh!

Awww - why are they chained?!

Morna also  loved the Irish wolfhounds standing guard!

Traveling to Doolin: First stop - Cong

Again, I am hoping I have recalled this correctly. The next part of our trip was driving to Doolin. We got up early and had our Irish Breakfast and hit the road.  First we stopped along the way because we saw this:

Standing next to this

And there was no information about it, but there it was, right along the roadway heading into a town. As you can see, it was another glorious day and we happily drove on to see more of the sights as we headed south to Doolin.

We had decided to go through Cong so we could see where they filmed The Quiet Man. We got there and parked in a fairly open lot, then found out that there was a funeral for a young person, and the lot started filling up fast, and if we didn't get back to move our car, we were going to be trapped for the rest of the day and possibly into the night, SO we had to leave. We only got a few pictures there, and that was actually fine. It is a fairly small, quiet town. Also, let's face it, the movie does have some objectionable scenes and lines....

We skedaddled out of there and headed to Ashford Castle.