Brook Lodge Killarney

... boat are weather-dependent. Added to that is the fact that a woman from Rochester fell and died there three weeks ago, there are no railings or handholds on the 656 steps, there are no restrooms either on the island or the boats, and now I would be happy with just a ride past it. The cruises around it were cancelled for today due to rough swells, so I was content to visit the center, see the exhibits, and watch the film. We’ll see beehive huts on Dingle ...

... on.


One of our stops was to see the Hag of Beara, a rock formation that is supposed to resemble an old woman, and which legend says is a petrified woman who was caught after she stole the book of a saint. I saw no resemblance to anything other than a rock, but there were floral as well as monetary tributes there, so some believe in something.


We got caught up in a roadblock of sorts. A small herd of cows had taken over the road and the land ...

... to pick us up.

We again stopped at the seal rocks, which were beginning to disappear with the incoming tide, then returned to the mainland.

We then drove to the Glengarriff National Park and Oak Forest. They have a waterfall walk, so we took it. The waterfall wasn’t huge, but it was a nice walk through the forest before we headed for Kenmare.

On the way to Kenmare we passed the Lorge Chocolatier, out in virtually the middle of nowhere. We stopped in ...

... started coming across the buses!!!

We made our first stop just outside of town and got a horse and carriage that took us along Lough Leane past Muckross house and the old Abbey and to the Toc Waterfall. On the way around we say a huge wild strawberry plant, more like a tree than a strawberry plant and a huge Rodadendrum TREE.. lol. it was a chilly day and rained a bit on our trip around the place. Jackie ...

A complex of churches in this area. The ruined cathedral is from the 12th century. Two churches are in the graveyard - one is the Teampall na Griffin from the carving of the Griffin. (Couldn't see it due to maintenance, but got a photo from the exhibition).
A short walk away was another ruined friary.

... br>Our first bathroom and brew stop was in a cute little village called Caherciveen. It was very nice and much bigger than you'd expect, since it appeared to depend on tourists stopping while driving the ring. We went into a the Anchor pub. Jim ordered a Guinness and I had a pot of tea. It was a little early for a brew for me. We drove around the village and discovered a nice spot that was a private rowing club. Beautiful flowers ...

... Irish roads are. The peninsula was amazing. On one side the patchwork farmlands stretched out to the sea, and on the other the hills tumbled down into a glistening harbour. The town of Dingle was cute, but it was the isolation of the coastal road on the way back to the gorgeous beach of Inch that really impressed us. The weather was fantastic, so we stopped for a while to sit in the tussock and enjoy the open air. The beach at Inch ...

... of the glass. One comes to appreciate the value of the beautiful pieces we treasure. We drove on to Killarney and we discovered the value of good maps. Though we have good instructions from city center to city center, we have poor instructions within cities. We go through some intersections many times as we search for the right roads to get us to our hotel. Since the restaurants in Killarney stopped serving ...

... the stairs all the way to the top of the castle, and the view was amazing. In the cottages we got to see the 'burning of the peat'. Peat is a densly packed vegatable matter found in the fields that they would burn. The next day we left Eniss and headed for Killarney. We got to drive around the Ring of Kerry, which was amazing. The Ring of Kerry is this peninsula on the west ...

Today is our first totally wet day. Last night the wind really blew and it bucketed down all night. Still very wet - hence we are all in the local library making good use of their free internet service. After we left Galway we drove to Bunratty Castle and folk park. The castle is a restored medieval stone castle with mostly furnishings and fittings true to its period so you could really imagine what it must ...