Killarney and Cork, Ireland
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2008
1
6
31
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Killarney,
Ireland
Thursday, March 13, 2008
After crashing in Dublin for only one night we took a train to Killarney. It took about 4 hours to get across the southern part of the island. During a layover in Mallow we walked down to a roundabout nearby and had an excellent lunch at a pub/restaurant that had an inn above it. The interior was decorated like something out of an old Irish novel and the people were watching horseracing on the TV (a 40' plasma that looked grossly out of place at the quaint little pub. After lunch we caught our connection to Killarney. The town is quite small, maybe 10,000 people. There are two main roads that intersect at the center of town and you can get anywhere by walking in about 15 minutes. However, for it's size the town is not without character, The pubs outnumber the designer stores and the nightlife is just busy enough to warm us up for St. Paddy's day. We checked into our hostel and found it to be very comfortable. A Large kitchen area with many amenities, soft beds with big fluffy comforters, and semi-private bathrooms
Blarney Castle
. When we saw the size of the kitchen we went down to the store to get dinner supplies. We try to cook our own food whenever possible but at times that's nearly impossible depending on the hostel's kitchen. While cooking and eating dinner we made friends with a half dozen Australians staying at the place. They were not together or even from the same city, but they were all from Australia so I'll group them together for the moment...After dinner someone said the P word (pints) and we all hustled down to Sheen's pub where it was rumored that the best Irish music was played nightly. When we walked in there was a 3 piece traditional Irish group singing (Traditional Irish music is singing with accordion, guitar, and single sided hand-drum accompaniment). I had my first Irish Guinness and fell in love. These guys know how to brew beer! I can't remember what Guinness tastes like at home, but I know it doesn't taste like that because if it did, I'd already be drinking it. We chatted with the Australians and killed some pints. Our room mate Lisa challenged me to a drinking contest, after seeing me down my first beer she withdrew... We found out one of the other guys was a Doctor. Not a medical studend, but at 25 year old Doctor! Apparently in Australia it only takes 6 years of College to get your license, not 12. After learning this Karla didn't sit quite so close to me for the rest of the night. I don't blame her, I can't compete against a 25 year old Austrailan doctor with a full head of hair. At 11pm a rockin Irish band came on stage and played an array of covers, both Irish and American. Wiskey drinking songs and Rock 'n Roll may not seem like they go together but these guys did a great job. Before we knew it, it was 1am, there were many empty glasses at our table, and the road home seemed a lot more sinuous that it was on the way there.
Day 15 - Ring of Kerry
We signed up to go on the "Ring of Kerry" bus trip which is a bus tour around the middle peninsula on the western side of the island
Blarney stone
. The whole bus trip is about 100 miles and took us 6 hours with stops for pictures and lunch. The Tour was perfect for people who enjoy scenery and after seeing the southwest of the Island I have to say that I would most definately go back. The first place we stopped was called "Bog Village". This was a real-life recreation of how people would live back when bog farmers and shephards were about all you could find in western Ireland. I must have to say it was a pretty damp existance. We saw some examples of peat farming houses and saw a couple of Irish Wolf Hounds. They were teriffic dogs, HUGE!, but really friendly. The next part of the tour was along the north side of the peninsula overlooking Dingle Bay. The weather was perfect for me. Overcast, partly rainy, cold but not freezing, and a light wind at times. It reminded me of Oregon in the early spring time. Not surprisingly, most of the vegitation and plant life looked similar to what you might expect in western Oregon, except for the dense forest. In fact, I didn't see any large deciduous trees at all to speak of. Our next stop was for lunch at a quaint restraunt overlooking the bay. We had soup and sandwiches while warming our bones and looking at the little gift shop. The tour continued through Ladies View, around a number of lakes, and along some pastures where we were road blocked by some sheep herds. Mostly scenic views but we did stop in one town called Sneem. Quite quaint, this town didn't hold much tourist value but we noticed that the stop did correspond exactly with the horse racing championship that was going on that particular day
Bog Village
. We ended our tour completely exhausted. However we still had time to go out for pints after cooking dinner. Lisa, our room mate and and a couple from the bus tour went to a pub with a fireplace. We drank some Guinness and talked about South Africa, Austrailia, America and Canada. A bunch of countries represented with four people. The night ended early because we had an early departure the next day. We enjoyed Killarney and its atmosphere. Pubs and local restaurants should make it enjoyable to everyone even if it's a little out of the way: 3-stars for Killarney.Day 16 - The Blarney Stone
We woke up and checked out of our hostel. It was one of the better ones that we've stayed at so far. We donned our backpacks and walked into town where I bought an Irish rugby shirt and Karla found an Aran sweater store and bought a lovely hand-stitched overcoat. She just HAD to have one,; It was the one thing she wanted to buy during this whole trip. It was quite expensive but when you think that it takes one person about six weeks to complete one of these, it didn't seem that bad. After that, we hopped the train heading East and went to Cork. It's on the southern coast, and about half way between Killarney and Dublin. Cork is a nice city, home of Murphey's stout and called the "Cultural capitol of Ireland." I thought that it resembled Dublin a lot, but the people were just a little less hurried
In the pub
. Aside from culture and beer, Cork has one thing that draws in most of the tourists to the area: The Blarney Stone. Located about 5 miles outside of Cork is the town of Blarney. Friendly, but small, it has only one main attraction that everyone is coming to see. Blarney Castle was build in the 7th century as a house for the local Lord and his family. It's three floors, now in ruins held a living area, kitchen, dining hall, dungeon, doghouses, a dungeon, even a chapel and a place for the live-in priest. At the time it was surrounded by nothing but open fields and fox hunting grounds but now has about 25 acres of lawns and trails. It is said that a witch who lived in the forest revealed the magic of the blarney stone to the family. But exactly how they found out which stone it was remains a mystery to me. I have no doubt that this stone is authentic and not just a tourist trap because it's really inconvenient to get to. At the top of the castle, on the outside of one of the turrets, underneath the rock span is the blarney stone. You have to lay on your back and lean backwards, dangling your head and shoulders over the ledge to reach back and kiss it (see the pictures). It is said "...that whoever kisses, Oh! He never misses to grow eloquent". There are iron handles and safety bars beneath it now, but I can see how back in the day it was a very dangerous thing to attempt. You definitely had to trust the guy holding your legs! After kissing the stone and exploring the grounds for a while we went back to Cork and shopped a bit
Irish Coffee
. I bought a new external hard drive to replace mine that died somewhere between Portugal and Barcelona☹. And we enjoyed a pint of Murphy's at a local pub across from the train station while we waited. (What a great idea, a pub across from the train station. I wouldn't mind missing a train if they all had this feature...)Very late into the evening we rolled into Dublin, completely exhausted, found the hostel and went to check in but...what's this? NO RESERVATIONS!! The lady at the front desk told me that our reservations had been cancelled because the hostel was completely booked by a tour group and that emails had been sent out to notify us of this. It didn't matter that we had had our booking for OVER A YEAR. Or, that we had confirmation in November of 07 saying that our booking was still good. Or that we e-mailed the night before to confirm that we were on our way. I could tell that the lady at the front desk felt horrible but she said there was nothing she could do. She found us another hostel with availability, but it was double the price of what we had arranged, and the hostel was not offering to pick up the difference. (I guess I'm too American to understand this happening, but if I have two confirmations in my hand, and the hostel only says that they sent out emails, but can't prove it, then I'm legally in the right.) I started to get gigantic and turn green and go into "HULK SMASH" mode, but right as I was about to threaten to sleep on the floor or have her call the cops, she said that she had two beds in separate rooms that became available. Apparently one couple in the tour group cancelled because they didn't want to be in separate rooms. So we could have them if we wanted them. Relieved, we took the rooms but were forced to go to sleep because common room closed at 11:30 but our troubles with this hostel were only beginning....
Comments
Great Blog About Ireland
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