Now that I have gotten everything out of my system, I am feeling good enough to move hotels and the 1 hour drive to Galway. However first, we are going to make a quick visit to the Athlone Castle, which I had wanted to do yesterday. Also for those that want to know, YES, I did speak to the hotel about my gluten encounter – both the Duty Manager last night and then the Hotel Director (GM) this morning when we were checking out. As I am pretty sure that I consumed gluten at the hotel, they are going to investigate what I ate, after I provided a list of all the food that I consumed.
We arrived at the Athlone Castle, who I had emailed in advance regarding accessibility. They told me that the ramp up to the castle is pretty steep, however once in the castle, the majority of the exhibits and castle is accessible! I was impressed! Now, as for the ramp up to the castle to “dissuade enemies’ from entering” as they told me was a piece of cake! It must have been hard with all the armour that they wore or something else! It truly was a castle with 7 different rooms for us to “wind” up through where there were both displays and some things to do (mainly to keep kids interested I think but there were adult kids things too!) and then one ends up in the building in the middle of the courtyard where there was an exhibit by kids about the local flowers and fruits that are grown. Oh there was the gaol of the castle too – that was a bit disconcerting!
Now that we have left the castle and made it back to the car, we are now on our way to Galway – we took the 55 minute route and paid the tolls 🙂 Here is the route that we took to the Maldron Hotel, where we stayed, just north of the city centre and on the way to the ferry we will take tomorrow to the Aran Islands!
