May 12 - To Limerick
There once were some tourists with need
Of an internet café with some speed
The car, they parked fine
Not paying a dime
But to a clerk did they have to plead
Confused? Well, read on.
Unlike most Irish, we easily made it from Derry to Limerick. Many Irish people have shared with us that they don't travel very far without taking breaks and that two or three hours is the absolute most they can travel in a day. Not us, the crazy Albertans.
In need of an internet, we stopped in the town of Sligo. As we've already noticed, internet cafes aren't as easily found as in many other places we've travelled. Finally, we gave up, parked the car and decided to walk to find one. Luckily, there was one about a five minute walk from where we parked the car. Actually, it wasn't even five minutes for me to walk back to the car because as we were heading up the block I noticed an officer placing a paper under the wipers.
OH NO! A parking ticket? I tried asking him about it and he just grunted that there were signs all along the street. Not much sympathy for the stupid tourist. I was upset. How silly were we for not thinking to check the area. We looked at the signs to see that it was "Disc parking. One hour." We headed to City Hall to pay it, not wanting Hertz to charge us and then charge us a service charge over and above the ticket charge.
Margaret insisted that we plead our case to the clerk. Well, we did. Or should I say "she" did. As it turns out, it didn't take much pleading. As soon as the clerk heard that we were tourists and that it was a rental car, she quickly took out a cancellation of ticket form and assured us that it would not be charged to the rental company. With photocopies of both the cancellation form and the ticket, we returned to the car happy not to be 40 Euros poorer.
Even with a couple of stops along the way, we arrived in Limerick by about 5:00; about 5 hours of driving. We stopped at Bunratty Castle and the nearby shops. We enjoyed spending some time looking through the Irish woollens and souvenirs and picked up a couple of things.
Once again, we were looking for a place to sleep. Without a good map of Limerick, we ended up flailing a bit, but by 7pm, we had secured our rooms for the night at a B&B on the outskirts of Limerick, not too far from the castle.
When Gerald was here a couple of years ago, he'd been taken to the little pub/restaurant next to Bunratty Castle called Durty Nelly's. It was only when we drove past the exit for the castle that he remembered about the restaurant. Having thoroughly enjoyed his meal last time, he really wanted to return.
Our mouths were watering just reading the menu. This was not the pub grub we'd been seeing and eating lately. What a great meal. We were surprised to see that it was so late when we left and were glad that our beds weren't that far away.
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