Cahir, Co. Tipperary

This weekend's getaway was to the quaint little town of Cahir in County Tipperary with Laura, Carly, and Jess. We had seen a living social deal and decided to take the quick bus ride down for one night. We took the earliest bus and were on our way through Ireland's country side. Bus rides in Ireland are fairly tolerable (unless of course you have to go to the bathroom as the buses aren't equipped with bathrooms) because they are spent split between dozing off and admiring the gorgeous green scenery out the window. The bus dropped us off in Cahir and we took the two minute walk to our hotel. The Cahir House Hotel. It was gorgeous. Marble entry hall and little sitting rooms with roaring fireplaces (unfortunately I didn't get pictures of these because there were always people around and I felt creepy). The best part was the bed though. No bunk beds this weekend. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, our rooms weren't quite ready but they held our bags for us so we could start our adventure!

  Left: the outside, Right: our room, Below: our bathroom

After we checked in, we decided to explore town a bit. We stumbled upon a little farmers market, complete with cheese and butcher stands and even a fiddler! Then we meandered to a park that surrounded Cahir Castle. It was beautiful and so peaceful.

We continued our walk to the castle which was pretty awesome. We got to explore on our own and ventured into dark dungeons and onto the top of towers. It was pretty neat.

 

 Views of Cahir from the top of one of the towers.

 Left: view upstream to one of the churches. Right: the Castle and the SUN!

After our castle adventure we recharged by getting something for lunch at a cute little cafe and then we went back to the hotel to get our rooms. We hung out for a bit before setting out to walk around the town. We all really wanted to find authentic Irish souvenirs so we were hoping to find some cute little shops. Unfortunately, Cahir is a very very small town consisting of two main roads and only a handful of shops. We found one great store with souvenirs but that was about it. So since we had seen all of the center of Cahir we decided to branch out a bit. We ended up going on a long walk and found another castle-turned-b&b, a huge estate (guarded by vicious-looking dogs), and a church along the river. It was a very peaceful walk and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! The sun was actually out for the entire day and there were blue skies and flowers blooming. It was gorgeous. After our walk, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. The hotel had a restaurant in it and our meal was included thanks to our Living Social deal. I had salmon and it was phenomenal! We splurged and ordered dessert- brownies a la mode which was a very good choice.

We had big plans to come back down to the bar where there was supposed to be live music but we ended up cuddled up in our room watching "Take Me Out" (a great UK game/reality show) and the movie "Mummy." It was a great quiet night in. We woke up to go get breakfast which was also included in our Living Social deal (aka best deal ever). I didn't go for the traditional Irish breakfast of eggs, sausage, rashers (aka bacon), hash, blood pudding, beans, etc- I got the mini version of just eggs, sausage, and hash (blood pudding scares me) but it was still absolutely delicious. After that we decided we had seen all there was to see in Cahir and boarded the bus back to Dublin. All in all it was a great two-day break from Dublin and school. Even though there wasn't too much action in Cahir, it was a relaxing trip with good friends. Now its back to my last week of school before my two-week spring break! Can't wait!!

Slainte!