April 4th - Avoca, Glendalough and Dublin

Tuesday started out with yet another full irish breakfast (still yummy), then we went to explore the Avoca Wollen Shop. We drove through Avoca - a town made famous by the BBC show "Ballykissangel". I had seen the show before, so it was kind of cool to see where they filmed the series. Our next stop was Glendalough, a Celtic monastic site made famous by St Kevin, with supposedly the best preserved Round Tower in Ireland. We had a guided tour, then had time to walk around on our own. My friends Dorrie & Keith had visited here on their 2004 trip and highly recommended a visit. We had a nice day - lots of sun but still a little chilly. We spent a few hours here, then had to come up with the decision of where to go next. After much debate we decided to head into Dublin a few days early. We figured that way we could see all we wanted to in Dublin and not feel rushed (we originally scheduled 2 nights in Dublin, but now were going to have 4). So off we went. Driving into Dublin was not too bad, except that we couldn't find the turn off for Adelaide Road (where the Kilronan House is located). We drove around and then finally figured out how to turn on to Adelaide Road, and found the Kilronan House. I went in to see if they could let us check in 2 days early. Alex was at the desk and said they could get us in the next night, but they were fully booked for that night. He then called around to a few places to see if he could find us some where for 1 night. He was able to get us into the Number 31 guest house (Leeson Close Street, run by Noel and Deirdre Comer (with dog Homer), www.number31.ie), so off we went. Mom and Dad were given room 17 (on the bottom floor of the building), and I had room 44 (at the very top of the building - I had 5 flights of steps...whew!). We used the door that is on Fitzwilliam Place Street as our main door (down the street from Fitzwilliam Square). We set off to do a little bit of exploring - we walked towards St Stephen's Green, and then down Merrion Row. We decided to have dinner, and settled on The Rubicon restaurant on Merrion Row (good food). We walked a little bit more, then returned to our rooms.