Cottage in Clare - part I

Its been a while since I posted and I now have a bunch of catching up to do. Last month the kids were on Spring Break for 2 weeks. So we were able to take a nice little week-long vacation to county Clare. Then, the week after Spring Break, there was a "bank holiday." There is a bank holiday every month! That's basically a Monday off, so you get a three day weekend. Every month! For the May bank holiday, we took a little trip to Wexford. So, we had two trips in a row and I was itching to blog about them. I really wanted to do so while I was immersed, but I had no internet in either location. Grrr. There's always a lot to catch up on after a trip, so I am only getting there now.

I won't try to cram everything into one post because we did a lot of touring around while we were in Clare and that would be too overwhelming- for you and for me!

We chose Clare for our trip because DD wanted to celebrate her birthday with a banquet at Bunratty Castle. I also have friends in Clare and generally love visiting the Shannon region. There is also The Burren, caves, Cliffs of Moher, beaches and plenty of "touristy" things that we love to explore. I had a little trouble finding a cottage for us to rent. Though cottage rentals are abundant around Ireland and generally pretty cheap in April, it was hard to find one that allowed us to start our vacation on a Friday. The standard turn-over is Saturday. Bringing the dog was not problem, but starting on Friday was. I looked on vrbo, airbnb, a whole bunch of cottage rental sites, but ended up using sykes as they were really helpful and found me a cottage at a great price, that allowed me to start our trip on a Friday.

Clare is a county on the west coast of Ireland. We rented a cottage that was somewhat central in Clare and would allow us to tour around. It took about three hours to drive there. The cottage was a small, traditional two bedroom farm cottage, just perfect for our little family.

The cottage was in a rural area, near the village of Kilmihil, mostly surrounded by farms. The day we arrived, the weather was beautiful, so we were able to take a nice walk around our new hood.

On the second day, we decided to drive over to the beach. It was about a half hour drive to the town of Kilkee. Again, we had lovely weather and a really nice day at the seaside.

Next up, Bunratty castle!