The third day in Ireland, we got up and went to Blarney castle. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Blarney stone, that is so famous. You’re supposed to be able to kiss it and it will bring you good luck. Well, it’s not at all what I expected. The Blarney stone is a stone at the top of the castle that looks like other stones in the castle. Not that special to look at.
Blarney castle was a castle ruins that was designed for protection not luxury. Hattie was a bit nervous about the height of it as we waited in line all the way up about four stories of uneven spiral stair case. It was interesting to see the bedrooms and very primitive bathrooms on the way up.
The grounds at Blarney castle are very pretty and quite large. The grounds are well maintained with a lot of beautiful trees and flowers throughout. It was very pretty in May as the flowers were in bloom.
Also on the grounds of Blarney castle is a mansion that we weren’t allowed in. It was private. Must be some place to live! It was almost more like a castle than the actual castle. It turns out that most of the castles started as towers for protection, but if some of the families had money, they turned them into places of luxury over the years.
After the castle, we went to the ring of Kerry. We drove all over Ireland and much of the time we were on backroads. All of the roads were paved in Ireland, but some of them were barely wide enough for one car. Very few of the roads were straight. Often top speed was around 45 mph. (60 – 80 kilometers per hour) There was either hedges or stone walls along both sides of most of the roads.
The Ring of Kerry is a road that runs near the coastline around the southwest part of Ireland. It is quite scenic in places and worth doing. However, it was not as amazing as I was expecting. It takes about 3-4 hours to drive the whole thing.
We stayed at a bed and breakfast on the Ring of Kerry. The next morning we finished the Ring of Kerry and drove to Killarney to visit Ross Castle. It’s located in a park in Killarney. It’s a castle built on the shore of a very pretty lake.
The castle has a visitors center, but is mostly a ruin and not refurbished. It is in a very nice park area and you can take boat rides on the lake or carriage rides around the park. We took neither as Marty would have had problems getting into either one.
That afternoon, we drove to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are well worth seeing but is very developed and there is a fee to see them. You park in a large parking lot and then walk to the cliffs or they have a golf cart for handicapped people. We took Marty’s handicapped tag as we learned that Ireland would honor it.
There was a small stone tower at the cliffs that was built over a hundred years ago to encourage tourism and charge a fee to climb it. It was an interesting view and piece of history about the cliffs’
Fun fact: there are sea cliffs in Ireland in the north that are almost three times as high as the famous Cliffs of Moher. They are called Sliabh Liag. They aren’t as sheer, but are the tallest sea cliffs in Europe. We learned about them when we were close to them, but didn’t get time to visit them.
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