Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Another Imaginary Day in Ireland

If only these walls could talk ... imagine the stories they could tell dating all the way back to 1228!! At one point the Castle was an estate for the Guinness family, and in the early 1950's the John Wayne movie, 'The Quiet Man' was filmed here.

Today the Ashford Castle is a resort hotel covering cover 350 acres, and a wide range of possible activities for guests. The grounds are beautiful and tranquil. Guests are lodged in 72 bedrooms, 5 state rooms, and 6 suites, which are all uniquely decorated in historic decor. Wouldn't it be fun to visit? 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Dreaming of a trip to Ireland

I recently finished an Imaginary Trip to Ireland with Laure Ferlita, and then I also had a short 3 day real visit to Ireland with my husband and middle son.

As I did my assignments for the Imaginary class, I had a sneaky suspicion that the "Cliffs of Moher" might be on my middle son's wish list for Ireland. Two years ago he sat daydreaming on our couch with a LARGE photo book of Ireland (about 12 in  by 15.5 inches) and he used green stickies to mark on a map in the book the sites he wanted to see when he could arrange a trip to Ireland. Well... half way through his study abroad year he has visited many, many countries in Europe but he still hadn't arranged with any friends to visit Ireland yet. So... when my husband and I went to visit him in Copenhagen last month .... we managed a 3 day side venture to Ireland. Unfortunately with our time constraints (only 3 days in Ireland) we weren't able to fit in a visit to the Cliffs of Moher. We'll have to leave it for a future visit. But, on this page I tried to capture a representation of my memory of my son, the big picture book of Ireland, and his green stickies as he was daydreaming at home. We had a great time in Ireland and I came home with many pictures to sketch from.