May 7 - Athlone

Left the Westin Dublin around 11:30 am this morning. Hertz is not quite at "city Centre" - it's about a 15 minute taxi ride outside of city centre. When we got there, we found that the line was very long, but luckily, Kevin had signed up for the Hertz Gold Club, so we buzzed to the front of the line! As Kevin was getting the car rental secured, I noticed our friends from DC from the musical pub crawl last night. They were heading from Dublin to Kilkenny today - a popular route, as one of the other people in the long Hertz line told me. So I was happy that we were heading to Athlone (county west meath) instead.

Kevin's nerves were a little on edge with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car and driving on the left side of the road. He did a great job, except for one point when I thought he was going to take out the rear view mirror on my side of the car. It's definitely an experience to try something different when you've been doing it a certain way for the best part of 3 decades!! With the guidance of Jillian (our GPS), we headed out of town. But not without a stop for a quick lunch - which consisted of a sandwich from a gas station quickie mart and some water. (As you know, we are trying to save money on food.)

After a quick bite, we headed on the perimeter road towards Dublin Airport and turned off towards Galway. After driving about fourty minutes, we were detoured off the main highway - found out that it's under construction. Funny though, it appeared on the map from Frommers!

We tried to drive to Clonmacnoise on our way to Athlone. As we turned off the main road toward the site, we learned that THAT road is closed and under construction as well. We ended up on a gravel road, and even had to slow for a dog that wanted to greet us and wondered where we were going as we drove away and didn't stop to pet him.

Finally arriving in Athlone, we couldn't seem to find the Sheraton. Being a relatively new hotel (it just opened in April), I guess it wasn't on the GPS system. We drove all around town and finally stumbled on to it. It's a pretty nice hotel, but it's still under construction - Some of the sleeping rooms are not ready and the Club Lounge was still being completed when we poked our heads in there.

After we checked in and dropped our stuff in our room, we walked around a little bit. Saw Athlone Castle and the oldest pub in Ireland - Sean's Pub. Actually, I had read somewhere that it is the third oldest pub in Ireland, but according to the Guinness Book of Records, it is the oldest. Who am I to argue with Guinness?

We went back to the hotel to drop Kevin's camera off and to find some suggestions for dinner. The front desk staff recommended Le Chateau. The building was a church at one time that is now a restaurant. When we got there, we noticed that they had an early bird special for 20 euros for a three course meal. Who could pass up such a deal?!!

After dinner, we decided to go into Sean's Pub for a pint (or two or three...). We arrived there around 7:00pm and wondered when the music would start. Not fifteen minutes after we got there and order our first pints, but four guys who were sitting towards the rear of the bar made their way to the front table and took out their instruments.

One musician played a flute and tin whistle (though not at the same time), the others played drum, guitar and mandolin. Between smoke breaks, Guinness breaks and conversation breaks, they played for at least three hours.

Around 10:00pm, the pub started getting really crowded, and yes, this was Wednesday night! We wondered what pubs would be like on the weekends! I was starting to get somewhat claustrophobic, so we decided to leave. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow with the drive to Galway. And we're staying at the Ballynahinch Castle. That should be an adventure.