West Cork Hotel Skibbereen

... appearance. Our first stop was the Staigue Stone Fort. It was incredibly well preserved. As the name implies, it was built of stone, but with no mortar. We met people from Colorado and Maine (formerly of Medina) there. They were all trying to beat the buses, too.

After exploring around the fort, we drove to the town of Portmagee and had lunch in a bar. It’s Sunday, and a lot of places are closed, but we’ve found that there’s always a ...

Okay, we’re in Ireland, so it had to happen again. It rained last night, and the sky looked a bit gloomy this morning. Coupled with the wind, I was wondering how the day would turn out.

After breakfast, we drove west toward the end of the Beara Peninsula via the coast road. We could see across the bay to the Iveragh, or Ring of Kerry, and the weather there seemed much better. We passed some stone circles, but the rain had made the fields muddy, so we ...

... offered our choice of tables, and we took a table for two in a corner by the fireplace. As we were seated, our server informed us that spot was romantic and jokingly asked if we were up for it. I told her that we had met 45 years ago today, and I thought that qualified.

We had a wonderful dinner with a half bottle of wine, half orders of dessert, and a lot of time to talk. We drove back through town, but decided it was time to call it a night. Tomorrow will be another busy day!

... and winding up and up until we reached the car park. From there the lighthouse was over a mile away over rough terrain, so we decided that we weren’t equipped for that kind of walking. We were hungry, though, and the café had just opened. We had some wonderful vegetable soup and scones, then took our tea outside and sat at a table near the edge of a cliff. The ocean was turning various shades of blue, l and it was nice just to sit and watch it.

John decided to take a ...

It promised to be a beautiful day with a light pink sky reflected in the water. After breakfast we left Youghal and drove to Cobh, getting to the historical center just before it opened. A cruise ship had just docked at the pier, but we didn’t know what country’s flag was flying. It was a much older ship than what we usually see, and the passengers spoke a language we didn’t understand.

We went through The Queenstown Story, which ...

... 8 people, but Eileen had persuaded the lady behind the counter to lend her 4 wheel drive. This vehicle was not in the best of shape, the tail lights were hanging half off and there wasn’t much fuel in the tank. The warning light stayed on for the trip, but lasted till we returned.

The cemetery was very moving – generations of O’Sullivans buried there with several recent graves ...

... so waited, in fact ended up getting car 45 min late so that ****** me off, oh well lets get over it

so out the airport, in the car, and off we go

for about 10km, 10 min, and we are at stop one, Bunratty Castle

costs about €10, good value, its a huge site, there is a whole venue to see, lot more than just a castle, which by the way is also pretty impressive, the rest of the village is very ...

... road so we went to another B&B to ask them. The lady there said that the O'Sullivans lived at the same turn as a machine hire place. This got me really excited because I remembered seeing the sign as we passed. We turned back on the main road (this is where it gets really exciting) and for the first time since I have been here I accidentally was driving on the right hand side of the road. Yikes, a car was coming at us, luckily on ...

... that his little Irish farmhouse was cute and the S.W. coast was gorgeous. He was just such a dick. But we were out of $ pretty much and that put quite a damper on our trip because we had been planning to coast with the worktrade until we figured something else out, but instead ended up moving on without any other prospects. So we decided to get home.

... stalagmites and stalactites number in the millions. We also went Muckross House and Farms where we went back to a time when all work was carried out using traditional methods. We tasted freshly baked Irish soda bread and cuddled with baby goats. There was a Labourer's Cottage, a Carpenter's Workshop, Crossroads (where before TV kept people entertained, they used to gather to sing and dance) and the biggest pig I have ever seen ...