Nora's England/Ireland Travels 2002
Sligo, June 10, 2002
Blue skies in Dublin this morning, the first we've seen in a week. Packed up our American tourist bags and checked out to meet Matt for the drive west. Gorgeous drive, smooth and easy, with Matt listening to American country music and giving us pointers on local sites and doings in Sligo. Clouds rolled in here and there, and we drove through a couple showers.
Never really driven through the midlands before, with its lovely loughs and long green fields. We drove along and over the River Shannon, and came to the hills of the west with their wonderful stone fences. Little bungalows, and some modern homes, dooryard gardens with the intense blue lobelia I grow as edgings or pot accents as big as shrubs.
In half the time it takes me to drive to New York we've crossed the country, and entered Sligo. We see the great hill that holds the cairn of Queen Medb. This is one of my goals while we're here, to climb the long, rugged hill and stand there, with Madb, and looking out on the whole of the county, and across to the Donegal cliffs. If the weather holds at all, this is on the slate for tomorrow.
We turn off the road, and drive back a narrow lane, back and back through woods and fields, wild rhodos big as trees, and there is the great stone castle Markree. Impressive and potent, it stands against the troubled sky.
We have to go through a stone arch and up a steep flight of steps to the lobby with its tiny check in desk and big stone fireplace. Two clerks haul our brutally heavy luggage up endless stairs and a maze of corridors. We're just dumping now as we need Matt to take us to the airport here to collect our rental car. The room is tiny, not precisely what we're expecting, but we opt to deal with that later.
Off again on the strange ride to Sligo airport which is very casually sign-posted so that even the amazing Matt is confused. He rings the Hertz desk there on the way, which is a good thing as the single clerk--Kathleen--was just leaving. He's given her mobile number and catches her before she leave the car park. Alerted we're on own way, she goes back to wait for us. We drive though little villages, and back through off-shoot neighborhoods, round and about and there's the tiny Sligo airport and Kathleen who's looking out for us.
We bid Matt goodbye, and deal with the car business.
BW takes over and deals with the backwards drive very well. We're a little confused, a little hesitant, and it's started to rain again, but we make it back.
Questions at the desk tell us there's another sort of room available. This is a two-level deal, but not as jazzy as that may sound. The public rooms and the gardens, the general atmosphere of this place are marvelous. The rooms, pretty shabby. We take the two level because we need the room and I want the second area in case I do any work. We have a nice view out the front windows of trees and green and a curve of a river. We also have a pitifully saggy double bed, a TV that gets one channel and a very narrow, steep staircase. The poor bellman hauled our stuff, with our help to this other area.
We spent some time unpacking, organizing--not easy with a tiny armoire and little dresser, then went down for some much needed food. Missed lunch, but hit tea, and it was wonderful. Lovely scones.
Pouring rain so we don't go out to explore. Laze around, discover we can't get Internet access from here. Will have to send this from an Internet cafe in Sligo tomorrow.
Organize some more, take a little nap, then head down to the beautiful pub. They have gorgeous public rooms here, wonderful wood, stained glass windows, simmering fireplaces, big windows.
We enjoy a terrific dinner in the dining room with its medallion plaster ceilings and long windows looking out on the gardens. Linger over wine, then take tea and coffee in one of the drawing rooms. It's still chilly and spitting a bit of rain so a walk isn't appealing despite the fact that it's still light out at nearly ten.
We'll call it a night, and hope for good weather tomorrow.
Update from the little Internet cafe in Sligo on a very rainy Monday. We'll probably have to skip a day here and there of sending posts as it's pretty troublesome to get in here. We'll be back in touch when we can.
Nora and Bruce
ADWOFF > Nora's Travelogues > England/Ireland 2002 > Sligo, June 10, 2002
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