Wednesday, 29 June 2022

June 27 : Second Day in Kilkenny

 We are staying in the Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel.  It is an older hotel, and the room could use with a modernization, but all in all it is fine place to rest.  They have traditional Irish music in the pub every night. I must admit the elevator must be powered by hamsters because it is so slow.

Kilkenny was a Norman town.  In medieval times, they built a cathedral and wooden fort.  The Norman merchants lived along the river that connected the cathedral and the fort, known as the Kilkenny Mile.  The Irish lived in the swampy areas of the town and Irish Town still exists today.

Over the centuries, the fort was rebuilt into a magnificent stone castle.  It is now the major tourist attraction in Kilkenny.  The castle has several rooms open to the public, such as the dinning room, bedrooms and the sitting room.  They have multiple portraits of the family throughout the castle, but very few works of art.  There is a very relaxing garden for walking around,




The cathedral has wonderful stain glass windows.  When we were there, there was a school class, and they were running all over the cathedral looking for clues in some game the teacher had designed.  It looked like they were having fun.


In the afternoon we went to the Medieval Times museum.  It was a great experience, where we had a guided tour that described the history of the town.

Later, we had our farewell dinner.  It was a great group of people to travel with.  At dinner our guide told us that we were leaving the hotel for the airport at 5:00am.

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