Ryan kissed the Blarney Stone and will now be instilled with the gift of gab and great eloquence. Let’s see how that works out for him. The Blarney Stone itself was probably the least exciting part of the Blarney Castle, a tower house outside Cork built in the 1400s. There were multiple dungeons and caves to crawl through, which of course I had to, mostly with kids visiting the site while their parents waited outside. Ryan decided to pass up the dungeons, even though they were a ton bigger than the Cu Chi tunnels he crawled through in Vietnam.

Sign at the entrance to Blarney Castle. First time we have seen this

Into the dungeon

Woven window panes, part of some exhibition going on earlier in the month

Up the windy stairs to the top. Could you imagine going down this in the middle of the night to get a glass of water?

Made it to the top!

Ryan kissing the Blarney Stone

The castle was on a beautiful estate, with multiple gardens to wander around.

Poison Garden, a la Harry Potter

Do you think this would last out in a garden in the U.S.?

Fern Garden and Waterfall

Witches Stone

Ryan liked that you could get Irish Coffee with whiskey at the snack bar

We then headed back into Cork for a late lunch and wander around the English Market. This was a must see for me, cause I’m like a kid in a candy store in food markets. This one was primarily fresh meat, fish, and cheeses for locals and local restaurants to purchase. Not as many samples as I would have hoped for.

It’s Bacon!

Ryan’s cold was starting to kick in, so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel. He napped, while I watched Ireland win their second medal of the Olympics, a silver in women’s sailing to Annalise Murphy.

Does that have the same meaning in Ireland? We assume so.

Big boat by our hotel

Apparently a ‘standard’ hotel room in Ireland; one full bed and one single bed. I offered to take the single, but Ryan gave me the full.

As the title indicates, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, high 60’s and sunny with a light breeze. The yearly Kenmare Fair is August 15th, and we walked around it before heading out. Very interesting to say the least. It takes place in the downtown area and has a rather odd variety. The stores setup displays on the streets. People come in and set up a ton of displays with odd random stuff, ie. antiques, used power tools, clothing, cheap plastic toys, and knock-off purses. And then there are the animals. One street is just full of animals to be bought and sold; horses, sheep, goats, cows, puppies, ducks, chickens, turkeys. The cows are not even tied up, just herded against a fence. It took some diligent steps to avoid all the ‘land mines’ on that street and we wondered how exactly they clean it after the fair.
  

Mini horses!

Awww

Our B&B in Kenmare

Mary, our B&B host, in front of her beautiful hydrangeas

Today was a relatively short drive up to Cork, with a few stops along the way. First was Kinsale, a beautiful harbour town, reminiscent of Sausalito, as one travel books said, and I concur. Again, the weather definitely helped.

We’ve seen multiple wind farms in Ireland

Kinsale Harbour

St. Multose Church.

We wandered around the harbour, got some lunch, and then drove out to Charles Fort. Built in the 17th century by the British as a military fort, it is tucked into the side of the harbour and is deceivingly large. From the road, it doesn’t look like much. It isn’t until we were wandering around it that we realized the full expanse.

After that, we drove around the harbour again (we basically drove around the Kinsale harbour three times in the course of a few hours) over to the Lusitania Museum. Kinsale was the closest land mass and first responders when German U-boats targeted the Lusitania cruise ship during WWI. The museum wasn’t much to speak of, not what we would consider a museum. But it was shared with the Old Head Signal Tower on almost the tip of the peninsula and offered some great views. The actual tip of the peninsula is a private golf course. You are out of luck if you hit the ball into a water trap there :-).

The drive into Cork took us on a variety of roads, from single-lane two-way traffic to almost highway like. We have seen a lot of people biking in Ireland, even in the crappy raining windy weather. They bike on the hilly, narrow, windy roads, which looks very difficult and dangerous. They bike on road that we would consider highways, again seems rather dangerous. Sometimes they wear helmets, and sometimes they don’t.

The food in Ireland has been delicious (post on soups to come at a later point), but I was going into fresh veggie withdrawal. Luckily, as we get into the bigger cities, I’ve been able to find more salad options. We happened upon Oliver Plunkett’s for dinner, where we sort of branched out from the traditional Irish fare, Ryan with roast chicken, and me with soup and salad (I said sort of). By chance, there was live traditional Irish music with a banjo and Bodhran. After the musicians finished, they taught whomever was interested how to play the Bodhran. Of course I took them up on that offer, and Ryan got dragged into it. What fun! Both of the musicians had also been to Austin touring with music groups on the past.

What started out overcast turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. First up was Killarney National Park, where we hiked (more like walked) the Muckross Lake Loop Trail, a mostly quiet and peaceful trail around, you guessed it, Muckross Lake. We practiced our speed walking technique for the second half of the hike, because someone had a full bladder and the half point bathroom was closed. The Muckross House is a Victorian mansion that can be toured, but we passed that up in favor of driving the Ring of Beara. Before heading out of the park however, took another short hike mostly up to the Torc Waterfall. Judge for yourself, but we were unimpressed. Panting up the path, we asked someone coming down (German I think) if the waterfall was up that way, he said yes, and that it was rather small. Guess we should have turned around then.

Killarney National Park

Into the woods

Muckross House

Fuchsia plants – While not native to Ireland, grow wildly all over

Torc Waterfall

The Ring of Kerry is the well known tourist scenic drive and incredibly crowded with buses and people during the summer months. Ryan and I opted to skip this for the lesser traveled, but supposedly just as scenic, Ring of Beara. We didn’t have time to drive the entire ring and opted to hit some of the sites a few locals had mentioned, driving through Ardgroom, a ‘Tidy Town’ winner wtih very colorful houses, down to Eyeries, across the peninsula to Castletownbere, up to Adrigole, and back across the peninsula over Healy Pass. Tidy Town is an initiative started back in the 1950’s and focuses now on making the towns more environmentally friendly and better places to work and live. Because of it, most towns are very clean and have very colorfully painted houses downtown.

Snack at Derreen Gardens

Near the lake at Derreen Gardens

Drive down the peninsula

Houses in downtown Ardgroom

More scenic views, I think from Castletownbere on the east side of the peninsula.

Sheep lining the hillsides, and sometimes the road, on the drive up to Healy Pass

At the top of Healy Pass.  We came up that narrow windy road.

Scenic picnic spot on the way home.

Ryan far exceeded his step count goal today, logging >26K steps. He brought his FitBit, mostly because it is also his watch, but it has been interesting to see how much we walk each day. With the exception of a slight miss yesterday (<100 steps short of his goal), he has met his goal each day, and the goal keeps increasing.

P.S.  Happy 1st Birthday Nathan!!  Can’t wait to see you in less than a week!

P.P.S. We arrived home yesterday evening and are planning to finish the blog in the next few days to keep a record of our travels.  Ryan made it through Dublin with a slight cold, which got worse on the flights home, but it’s always more comfortable to be sick at home.