A few nights in Kilkenny

This past weekend I went with a few people to Kilkenny, I spent Thursday and Friday night there, and came back to Spiddal somewhat early on Saturday. The trip was full of adventure and a few mishaps, as any should be.

To start off, me being the fool I can be, I took the wrong train by accident. Getting on the first train was simple, and much less hassle than I imagined it would ever be. We had a stop in Kildare and had to get on another train on another platform.

While the rest of my group, there were four of us altogether, went to the bathroom, I was waiting out on the platform, and a train came by and stopped. I was thinking that trains generally stay a bit longer at stops, and that this would be our train, albeit five or ten minutes early. I got on, and about 30 seconds after I sat down, the train took off.

I ended up getting off right away at the next stop, and talked to a nice gal around my age originally from Boston about what I should do. Everything ended up working out alright, I got back to Kildare and met with the rest of my group, and we got on a train to Kilkenny shortly after that. There was about an hours delay or so, but everything ended up alright in the end.

Friday we got up a little early, around 7:30, and started our day fairly early. To put things in perspective, we were up on the Northwest edge of this map, over on Dean street in our Hostel.

We ended up walking down what they like to call Medieval Mile, which is both St. Kieran's Street and High Street. We walked down to Kilkenny Castle, stopping in a few shops that were open at the time along the way, and got to their Rose Garden just as one of the caretakers, I will call him, He talked to us for a little while about the castle and about America, but I will talk about that along with other conversations and interactions I have had here in Ireland at another time.

We spent some time in the Rose Garden, and walked around the castle grounds. It was stunningly beautiful. I wish I had a much better camera, and could capture it all. I did take some pictures, but they couldn't capture what I saw accurately. It was amazing, there are not many words for it other than that.

We took a tour of the castle, which was really cool as well. It was a self guided tour, so we took our time walking around and admiring the art that was there. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside of the castle, but the thing that amazed me most was all of the tapestries they had there, and just how old they were, and how much detail they had there.

We continued our tour of Kilkenny, checking out there different old Churches and Cathedrals. I wasn't as excited about them, but they were really cool to look at and see, because they were so old and kept well on the outside, but on the inside they felt new, like churches that have been built recently, but still keeping to the old styles somehow.

We eventually hit all of the places and were just walking around when I went to clean my glasses from the very light rain, and they broke. I went to an optometrist that was nearby, and saw if he could fix the. Unfortunately, I had to take some time and head back to the Hostel on my own and fix them with a bit of superglue. Thankfully my mom is sending me new frames here soon!

We spent some time walking around and shopping, though that is pretty much my trip in Kilkenny, for we were quite tired at that point in the day. Kilkenny was a great place, full of really friendly people to talk with and a lot of sights to see. Some day I will come back there and visit those castle grounds again, it would definitely be worth it, and I will definitely recommend the town to whoever comes to Ireland.