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.

The Whispering Pines B&B, our home for 3 nights, was recommended by Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet, and Rick Steves, and now we know why. The host Mary and her family are all incredibly welcoming, and it’s more like staying at a relative’s house than in a hotel. Mary runs the place with her daughter Kathleen, and the grandkids are helping out and/or running around during the summer. The breakfasts are all freshly home made and delicious. I had french toast with fruit 3 days in a row, while Ryan tried them all, the full Irish breakfast, french toast, and then scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on the last morning. Mary and Kathleen chatted with us during breakfast. They have a first cousin who’s daughter lives in Austin and wanted to know if we knew her (we did not). They suggested some activities in the area and found us a local GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) football match to attend. Kathleen also recommended a local self service laundry, very necessary since sock supply was running very low.

Walking back to the B&B with our clean laundry, we stopped at a cafe for coffee. I realized that I’ve only been drinking coffee if I can get it with soy milk, which is such a joke considering all the cheese, cream, butter, and eggs I’ve been eating on this trip! Guess it’s just a habit.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving around the Dingle Peninsula. Doesn’t the word ‘Dingle’ just sound funny?  We stopped at Inch Strand, a beach that, while much colder in temperature, reminded us a bit of Port A, where everyone drives out and parks on the beach. There were also some crazy people actually out surfing in the water.

We then drove out to Dingle, towards the end of the penninsula, and caught a bit of the local Dingle Regatta races taking place. The drive between Inch Strand and Dingle was incredibly scenic, exactly what I pictured Ireland to be with green rolling hills.

Shared lunch platter in Dingle consisting of fish & chips, seafood chowder, and smoked salmon. Delicious!

The cows photo-bombed my scenic landscape photo

Our time in Dingle was cut short in order to get back to Kenmare for the football match. The drive took a bit longer than expected when traffic was stopped to allow the local cows to cross the street.

We watched a local senior level game between the Kenmare Shamrocks and Kerins O’Rahillys. Gaelic football is a bit of a mix between soccer and rugby. We spent most of the first half trying to figure out the rules, and then a local helped us out the second half filling in the blanks and describing out the scoring worked. The home team won! The field was in the most amazing location, with mountains in the background.

Words to live by, found on the streets of Kenmare

This is our B&B room. Can you find the bathroom? It is through the wardrobe doors!

Another day with a lot of driving! This blog is getting repetitive in that respect. According to GoogleMaps, the drives are not that long. However, it does not appear that GoogleMaps takes into account the windy narrow roads, where one cannot actually drive the posted speed limit, or tractors, sheep, or cows in the road slowing forward progress. More from Ryan on driving later, he plans to write a whole blog post about it.

Nothing beats the convenience of having a car though. First stop, a last minute decision since the route took us right past it, was Dunguaire Castle. It turned out to be another Tower House, interesting in that it had been updated a few times since originally being built in the 1500s. The tower hosts traditional banquets, but I read they were very touristy and envision something like Medieval Times.

We then passed a sign for a chocolate factory up the road, and of course Ryan and I had to stop! It turned out to be a cute place that buys their cocoa beans from around the world including Madagascar, Cuba, Venezuela etc and makes all their chocolates in house. We sampled the Madagascar dark chocolate, which was surprisingly complex, with a description one would expect of a wine.

The Cliffs of Moher was the highlight stop of the day. Similar to Dun Aengus, this is an amazing natural location on the edge of the Atlantic with cliffs dropping straight off into the ocean. The weather was slightly better than the previous day, but still very windy. It is definitely a bit freaky standing on the edge of a cliff with those strong gusts! We did a little off-roading along the trails to get some good views of the cliffs. Unfortunately, we did not see any puffins, the clown birds of Ireland that live in the area. The visitor center at the cliffs was built into the landscape and reminded us a bit of the passage tombs.

Visitor center built into the hill

We finished up at the cliffs just as it was starting to rain, and began the long drive to Kenmare. During a stop at a pub in a small town for lunch, we had the opportunity to watch the Irish O’Donovan brothers earn the silver medal finish in the 2 man lightweight sculls (rowing). This was the first medal for Ireland at the Rio Olympics and the first medal ever in rowing for Ireland. The locals in the bar were ecstatic and it was a lot of fun watching the event with them. We heard about the event over and over on the radio for the rest of the day.

A warm welcome from Mary greeted us at our B&B in Kenmare. We dropped our stuff and walked into town to grab a light dinner, becoming entranced by the 20 km Olympic speed walking event on TV.

The weather has really been wonderful for us so far, until today. We drove in rainy, windy weather an hour to take a ferry in rainy, windy weather another hour to arrive on the Aran Island of Inishmore, in rainy, windy weather. Ryan saw dolphins swimming along side of the ferry, but I was too busy sleeping trying to avoid the motion sickness. The original plan was to rent bikes and bike around the small island to the various sites. That was quickly nixed (I am only a fair weather cyclist) for a small 15 person bus tour given by a local named Rory. It turned out to be pretty good. He drove us around to all the sites, stopping along the way to point out of things of interest and answering all our questions about life on the island. During the long stop at Dun Aengus, Rory picked up his maybe 10 year old son and his friend, who joined us on the second half. I asked what his son did during the summer, and it sounded exactly like kids in the US; soccer camp for two weeks, swimming camp for two weeks, music camp for two weeks, etc.

Our ferry

The island is about 15 km tall by 4 km wide and has 14 separate villages. Residents must take the ferries (or the plane) over, so are limited getting to and from the island. The schools are taught in Irish, and some kids from the mainland come to school on the island primarily for that reason. They take a ferry over at the beginning of the week and then stay with families and head home for the weekends. The island also has its own nursing home, but has a shortage of nurses.

Thatched roof houses that used to be popular on the island

Dun Aengus is the main site on Inishmore. It is a prehistoric circle fort sitting on a cliff, dating back to 1100 BC. The fort was updated and added on to multiple times, they think around 500 BC and then multiple times afterwards. There is still a lot of unknowns surrounding the exact timeframe of the construction of the fort.

The walk up to Dun Aengus at the top of the hill

Some perspective of how the fort is situated at the edge of the cliffs

The seal colony is one of the other big attractions on the island. One large seal was lounging on a rock, while another one kept poking his head out of the water to say hi.

After our tour, we had some time to spare and stopped for a light snack and drinks. Ryan’s first Smithwicks of the trip!

Luckily, the ferry ride back was not quite as rough as the one over. We were beat from the day and decided to do a light snack/dinner in the hotel and go to sleep.

P.S.  Well, we made it over half way through the trip, to August 15th, the date of this posting . . . But it wouldn’t be a trip abroad if Ryan didn’t get sick.  Hopefully, it is just a mild cold and passes quickly!  The local pharmacy gave him some stuff to take, and he brought some amazing nasal spray he bought in Norway last year when he got sick.  Keeping fingers crossed.

Another driving day, though a short one, from Clifden to Galway with a few stops in between. First stop was the Roundstone Music Shop, housed within an old Franciscan Monastery and home to one of Ireland’s famous Bodhran makers, Malachy Kearns. Bodhrans are traditional drums, all made by hand in the shop. Malachy runs the shop, and we had the opportunity to talk with him and have him sign our Bodhran. He said that unfortunately, with all the cheap goods from China, they don’t really make enough on the drums any longer to have a sustainable business, but that it is still his passion. He loves to travel and has met a lot of very friendly Americans and would like to retire to the U.S., preferably Laguna Beach if he could afford it. How funny!

We then stopped at Aughnanure Castle, an old Tower House ruins. As we have since learned, Tower Houses were rather common in the 1500s. They were multi-story towers surrounded by one or two walls and then typically some sort of moat or other water (lake, river, stream). The first floor was used to store grain and other food. The upper floors were then used for eating, sleeping, and hosting guests at banquets. Wealthy families that owned animals would bring the animals inside the stone walls at night so they wouldn’t be stolen. The Aughnanure castle had a murder hole, basically a double door, with a grate in the ceiling above the area between the two doors where enemies could be trapped and shot from above. It also had a garderobe, a chute on the side of the castle, used as a toilet. Disgustingly, the people of the time thought that excrement could be used as a disinfectant and would sometimes hang their clothing in the chute to cleanse it of bacteria. Gross!

McDonagh’s fish and chips counter, recommended in both the NY Times 36 Hours in Galway and Lonely Planet was a must for dinner, though Ryan and I opted for the restaurant side with slightly healthier fare, starting with grilled Gigas Galway oysters and a fried fish skewer followed by grilled salmon with mash and veg, as it is called here. Based on the food available and how we have been eating, ie. full Irish breakfasts, lots of pastries and scones, food with cream and cheese, we wondered if Ireland had an obesity problem like the U.S. A quick Google search turned up an article stating that according to the WHO, Ireland was on track to become the most obese country in Europe by 2030. No indication of why, food vs lifestyle, etc, and no comparison to the U.S., which probably still has higher percentages of obesity than Ireland.

Afterward our not quite so bad for us meal, we walked down the main pedestrian thoroughfare of pubs and restaurants, crowded with people and lots of street performers. The crowds were slightly reminiscent of our stay in Beijing, though not quite as crowded and not nearly as chaotic.

Street performers; Music and dancing, a mix of Irish and what sounded like Latin music

Tiny houses on the walk back to the hotel. Can people stand up straight on the second story?

Cool feature discovered on the Golf. The emblem flips up and the back-up camera pops out

Correction posted 8/16/2016: The correct term is ‘garderobe’, not ‘gardenrobe’.

It wouldn’t be a vacation if we didn’t do at least a few hikes. First one up was Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park. It was a relatively short 3.5km hike up to the peak of Diamond Hill, providing great views of Kylemore Abbey, Twelve Bens peaks, and the Atlantic Ocean. Throughout the hike, we encountered many younger kids and older adults, all European, doing what we considered not an incredibly easy hike. Thus, we have come to the conclusion that Americans in general are out of shape compared to Europeans. In a reversal of roles, Ryan hiked faster than Nicole, who is a bit out of shape and maybe carrying a little extra weight :-).

That’s where we are headed – Diamond Hill

Views from the top.

Connemara is home to the Connemara pony, the only breed originating in Ireland. They are all over the area and were taking a nap as we passed them on our hike.

Most of the landscape on Diamond Hill and along the coast has been rocky with low colorful vegetation, reminding us a bit of the Alpine tundra areas of Rocky Mountain National Park

Post hike, we stopped at the Avoca handweavers gift shop and then walked across the road to savour some more Killary mussels, fresh from a trailer next to the fjord.
  

Ryan then navigated the very narrow and windy Sky Road, a scenic single-lane, 2-way road along the coast. At the lookout point, a guy launched his very fancy drone high into the sky. It was crazy windy up there, and he didn’t look too sure was sure it was coming back at one point. However, a few mins later, it did manage to fly back to him. He must have gotten some really cool photos from that flight!  No pictures of the drone unfortunately.

Light day today . . . driving from Ashford Castle over to Clifden, with a few stops along the way. First, I got to visit with the Irish Wolf Hounds at Ashford Castle before breakfast. They are very large (150 lbs) and very calm, letting everyone pet them. Funny to see dogs that large roll over on their backs to have their bellies rubbed. Unfortunately, then it was time for breakfast and to check out of Ashford Castle.
    
The drive to Clifden, via Kylemore Abbey, should have taken about 1.5 hours according to Google, but as we have learned, everything takes longer. The roads are narrow (VERY narrow in some spots), with no room for passing, so if a slow car, or biker, or something else (like a sheep) winds up in the road, it could definitely delay travel.

Views of the Atlantic Ocean to the west

Views of mountains to the east

Killary Harbour – Killary is one of three glacial fjords in Ireland

Speaking of sheep, these are the first escapees I saw, up on a hill on the side of the road. Soon after, we saw a ton more along the road, and have since witnessed them easily jumping the stone fences frequently used as enclosures. Mystery of the escape solved! We have also resolved the painted sheep. The markings are used to identify 1) which sheep belong to whom and more interestingly 2) which ewes have been impregnated. During mating season, sometimes “a ram will be fitted with a bag of dye around its neck and chest. When the ram mounts the ewe a bit of dye will be deposited on the ewe’s upper back.” Fascinating.
    
We stopped at Kylemore Abbey, which was teeming with tourist buses. Kylemore Abbey is a neogothic country house currently home to Benedictine Nuns and known for its beautiful Walled Garden, mostly what I was interested in. Ryan just read out of the guide book that in 2015, Notre Dame (the university in Indiana) signed a 30 year lease for summer classes and student housing at the Abbey. However, we saw no signs of the Fighting Irish. Ryan and I opted for the longer, Woodland Walk over to the Walled Gardens and only ran into two other people on the whole route. The Walled Gardens were huge gardens with sections including herbs, a rock garden, ponds, traditional Victorian gardens, and greenhouses. It was starting to rain, so we headed for some food (big surprise) in the tea house before walking over to the Abbey itself.
     
Dinner was at Mitchell’s Seafood Restaurant in Clifden, a short 5 min walk from our B&B; Killary mussels and Irish lamb stew. Ryan said those were the best mussels he has ever eaten, and probably the freshest, as we drove by the Killary Harbor where they were being harvested.

Ashford Castle is amazing! That pretty much sums it up. A big thank you to Janie and Jessica and Distinctive Journeys for booking us there for two nights. Totally worth it!
We woke up from the very comfortable beds to enjoy a slightly rushed but wonderful breakfast buffet; Rushed because we didn’t want to be late for our Hawk Walk. What exactly is a Hawk Walk, one might ask. As I read in a travel book, it’s the thing on your bucket list that you didn’t know was on the list. Our guide told us all about Harris Hawks we would be flying, brother and sister named Beckett and Swift. The males are smaller, about 2/3 the size, of females. The hawks flew along with us as we walked through the woods, learning how to release and call them back . . . With food of course, mostly raw chicken parts, including feet and heads. This was an unexpectedly amazing experienced, that we are very glad we did.

     
I had read about biking around the Castle grounds, so that was next up on the list. We first rode in circles (not purposely) on a bunch of short forest paths, stopping to walk down into a cave, until I got a bit cranky and we figured out where to go. From there we headed out to the Cong Village, passing by the Monk’s Fishing Hut, St. Mary’s Catholic Church (need to specify Catholic, since there is actually a St. Mary’s Church of Ireland very close to it), and circling around the very small village. It started to rain rather hard by that point, so we headed back to drop off the bikes and get cleaned up for tea.  Think we have enough to eat?
     
During tea, the weather had cleared up and was sunny again. To try and burn off some of the tea sandwiches, scones, and pastries, we want out for a walk around the estate, visiting the Old School House (apparently a private residence now), and the Walled and Terrace Gardens. The Walled Garden had a variety of herbs and vegetables, in addition to flowers, which are used in the castle restaurants.

Just in case we were still hungry, dinner reservations were at 8pm at Cullen’s Cottage, on the grounds a short walk from the castle. Definitely NOT hungry! We shared a soup, salad, and main, and that was more than enough food.

Ryan’s new car

Ashford Castle is serious about fire safety. These can be found in the hallways every two rooms.