May 9 - Aillwee Caves

Friday morning we left the Castle. We headed onto our hotel. Along the way we took a bunch of photos. We proceeded onto Aillwee Caves (Aillwee is derived from the Irish Aill Bhuí which means yellow cliff - ironically it was also to be the name of our room that night). The cave was over 1,000 yrs old and had been previously occupied by bears. There were some remains in the cave that showed bears would hibernate there for the winter. Due to hunting, Ireland no longer has any bears.

Also on the site was a small shop where they make cheese and fudge. We sampled some of the cheese and bought a few slices to eat while we waited for the birds of prey show.

On this same site, there was a place to see various bird of prey. Most were not in cages, but were in small areas separated by wooden walls. The ones in these areas were tied up by one leg onto a piece of tree limb. It was great to see these birds up close and with no barriers between you and the birds. We had arrived just in time to see a demonstration. The man would first bring out an eagle, tell us some background about the eagle and then let it fly around the area. All the birds he showed us, were trained to stay in the area, but there was nothing to keep them there other then the reward of food. He said it was possible for the birds to fly away, and it had happened in the past. However, they eventually all come back or are found. The last bird they presented was an owl. At the end of the flying demonstration, they let us pet the owl.

After the show, we proceeded onto the hotel. It was somewhat of a fancy place, yet homey at the same time. The grounds overlooked the mountains with a pasture of cows in the distance. Supposedly there was a hotel donkey and pig, but we didn't walk around enough to find them.

Since it was not quite dinner time, we hung out in our room for awhile. This was the only place we didn't have TV so we read some of the papers and magazines we picked up along the way.

Naomi found a deal, which included dinner and two breakfasts, so we decided to use our dinner option that night. Almost every course was served with foam, no not soap foam, that fancy way they foam up whatever liquid they drizzle on each course. They started the dinner with a shot of a liquid spinach drink. It was interesting, a little salty, it was supposed to cleanse your pallet. In the meantime we munched on the homemade bread that was out of this world. Up until now, we were introduced to some wonderful bread, but nothing topped the bread we had at this place. The meals we had were top notch to say the least. Everything was terrific. We even decided to have dessert, which we generally don't do, but since it was included we decided to try it. Before they served us dessert, they gave us a pre-dessert. It was a white chocolate pudding with mango pure' and coconut topping. Another wonderful experience. For dessert, Naomi had a plate of various cheeses. This concept was first introduced to us in an Italian restaurant in DC and it is one of Naomi's favorites. Ireland's dairy products are simply fantastic. The milk, cheese, and butter are fabulous....so fresh! The cheese ended up coming from that small cheese shop we had visited earlier. I had a selection of various chocolate desserts, it too was yummy.

At this hotel, when you were given a room, you didn't have a room number, you had a room name. Ours was named "????". You were also pre assigned a table in the dining room for your entire stay. We sat next to an elderly couple that was like that older couple on Caddy Shack, the ones who couldn't hit the ball very far, and when they did, it went into the water. Their entire conversation centered around the food they were eating and had a charming way of speaking too each other, a very nice couple though.

This was also our second experience where our accommodation's had boots in the mud room. These are for their guests so they can walk around the grounds when the ground is wet. However, since it sunny our entire trip, we didn't need to make use of the boots.

After dinner, we went in search of a pub that had live traditional Irish music. Well we found one that was less then 30 minutes away, but it took us about an hour to get there since we made a wrong turn, which isn't hard to do in the country areas of Ireland. The pub we found was a bit small and quite crowded. So crowded that we couldn't sit and watch the players, but they had speakers all about, so we did get to hear them. It was much more of a production though then what we were looking for as they had an entire sound system. Not the quaint experience we really wanted. We had one pint each, listened to the music and headed out, however this time it only took us about 20 minutes to get back. It's soo much faster to get where you're going when you don't get lost.