Blarney Hotels
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Blarney and Cahir Castle
Entry 21 of 93 | show all | print this entry |
Burncourt, County Tipperary
Alex:
Today we drove down to Blarney, just outside of Cork, to take a look at the castle and its famous stone. There was plenty to explore, and we wished we had allowed ourselves a full day for the excursion. We also wished we had taken a torch with us. The first place we peered into was the dungeon - a long, dark passage which obviously continued much further than the daylight reached. All the other castles we have visited have passages and stairwells and dungeons that either have crumbled away to nothing or are barred to the public - finally there was an intriguing long passage that we could get into and which led somewhere, and it was pitch dark.
We continued on, and joined the 45 minute queue to climb the tower to the famed Blarney Stone - we had no intention of kissing it, as our imaginations swam with visions of the stone dripping with the saliva of a thousand tourists, not to mention other unspeakable body fluids of the locals (according to the stories). But we had to look at the thing. When we finally reached the top, Ricki had to take a photo of something or other, and in passing the lens cap to me, it somehow slipped between both sets of fingers, and through the small area of metal grate on the floor, and disappeared somewhere way, way, way below. We watched speechlessly. After a moment Ricki casually said, "We'll have to find that later." and carried on with her photography.
We did find it, after the long climb down the incredibly steep and narrow spiral staircase. We found it by leaning over the stone wall in front of the gift shop and peering into the far corner of a walled off pebbled area below, which formed the roof of another level of the castle. I reckoned I could climb over the wall and clamber down there to retrieve it. Ricki gained permission from castle authorities for the venture, so over I went and down I climbed. Climbing back up, with the precious lens cap safely stowed in my jeans pocket, proved more of a challenge, but the thought of waiting around for a rescue crew with a ladder lent me a little more strength than I knew I had, and with grazed hands, aching shoulders and dirty jeans I soon stood on the right side of the wall again. We took our suitably-clothed-again camera for a walk through the beautiful castle grounds, with its Fairy Glen, Wishing Bridge, Druid's Circle and Badger's Cave (where Ricki attached herself to a tourist with a torch and followed him into the dark depths of the cave, repeatedly banging her head on the rocky ceiling as she went), before regretfully heading off in search of lunch, and our next destination.
With stomachs full of the best yummiest sausage rolls in existence, we spent the last hour or so of the afternoon looking into every nook and cranny of Cahir Castle, the best-preserved medieval castle in Ireland. It was interesting, but somehow the modern restorations had leeched it of much of its character.
By 5pm we had found our way to this hostel, deep inside a beautiful forest. A couple of youngish Dutch guys were sitting on the doorstep waiting for the warden to arrive, so we introduced ourselves and shared our Vegemite biscuits with them while we, too, waited. Their names are Erik and Guido, and they have been fun, friendly company while we ate our dinner and then relaxed in front of an open fire (beautiful!) in the common room. Ricki and Erik played cards for a little while, while I wrote postcards and journal entries, and it looks like being a relatively late night (11pm).
Last day in Ireland tomorrow. In search of Bally K!
There once were two women from Oz
Who visited Limerick becoz
It was on the way
To where they would stay
To get there they followed their schnoz.
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