April 15 - BOTHY and the Coloradoans rescue some silly girls from L.A.

April 15 - BOTHY and the Coloradoans rescue some silly girls from L.A.

On Monday we had a voucher for a free harbor cruise on the Killary Fjord, so we were looking forward to that. We slept until 9 or so, had a yummy breakfast at the hotel (They had porridge! I was so excited) and then drove off to check out the Connemara National Park visitors center and go to the cruise. The visitors center was small but nice, and we decided to come back and hike later in the day if we had time. I had woken up with a sore throat and wasn't feeling 100%, so we decided not to hike then and there. We arrived at the pier in plenty of time for our 12:30 departure, and got on the boat. The cruise was given to us by the travel agency that we used to book our hotels, and it was really nice of them to give it to us. When we got our tickets we found that the price would have been 22 euro's per person, so we were pretty excited that it was free! The cruise went down the Killary Fjord (Ireland's only fjord, btw) to the mouth of the ocean. It was really beautiful and the weather was good, only a little cloudy and no rain. We saw lots of fish, sheep of course, and possibly an otter. We had hoped to see some dolphins, but they must have all been swimming in a different area. We really enjoyed the cruise, but would we have paid 45 euros for it? Probably not. Maybe if it had been a really sunny day.

After this we went to Kylemore Abbey. The lovely building was originally a castle, but has been home to the only order of Benedictine Nuns in Ireland since the early 1900's. It was amazingly beautiful!!! In addition to the castle there is an exquisite small neo-gothic church, as well as a beautiful walled garden. We went into the house first. It was a little disappointing because you can only go into about five or six rooms of the house. Making up for this is the fact that the rooms that you are able to go in are absolutely beautiful! They also do a really great job of telling you the history of the castle.  I definitely recommend reading about it online if you are interested. After exploring the rooms we walked about a half mile through the forest to the lovely little church. Seriously, it was breathtaking! The wife of the builder of the house contracted dysentery in Egypt in the late 1800's, and died. Upon returning to Ireland he built this church as a memorial to her. It was so peaceful inside, and really simple. I'll try to post some pictures on Facebook later. We then walked about 2 miles to the walled gardens. Along the way we stopped at the tea house for a snack. Everything sold is made by the nuns, and I had a really yummy scone with cream and raspberry jam with a cup of earl grey, while Brandon had a slice of cheesecake. At this point we were rather hungry because we hadn't had lunch, and it was 4:00. After finishing this we went into the huge walled gardens. Covering a really large section of land, the garden had many different sections as well as about 4 greenhouses. The cottage that the head gardener lived in has been wonderfully restored, so we strolled around there. Then we saw a sign for something called a "Bothy." Not knowing what this was, Brandon went to check it out while I read a sign. I saw that he had gone into a building, and I just KNEW that he was going to try to scare me! I carefully walked into the little building, looking around corners. When I saw him in an inner room,  he yelled out "BOTHY" and I jumped even though I knew he was there!!! Oh man. Classic!

When we left the bothy (which was apparently a little cottage for the under gardener) we saw a sheep happily grazing away on some bushes within the garden. We saw a worker nearby, so assumed that the sheep was a welcome part of the garden. We then walked out of a little gate into the woods and walked a little way. When we turned back towards the garden, we saw another sheep run in through the gate. All of a sudden about three workers started yelling at the sheep, trying to shoo them out! The sheep ran past us, baa-ing loudly. We're not sure why it was ok for the first sheep to be in there and not the second, but seeing sheep run is so funny that we didn't care!

We walked the couple miles back to our car in a light rainstorm, and the woods looked so pretty with the rain falling! The abbey is built right into the mountains, and there is a lake with peaks behind it as the front yard. Once we got in the car we headed back towards Clifden and a road called the "Sky Road." In addition to hearing that this road was absolutely beautiful, I had read about a ruined castle off of it, Clifden Castle. Brandon kindly indulged me, and off we went on a castle hunt. We saw the castle from a higher road, and drove a little way down a pretty rocky and rutted farm lane.  We realized pretty quickly that our teeny car had no business on a road like this, so we parked at the top and walked down the mile or so to the castle. When we were almost there, we came upon an obviously distressed lady and a little car that really had even less business than our teeny car being on that road. We asked the lady if she was ok, and she said that she and her four friends had driven down to see the castle, and were now stuck.  Now, dear friends, let me set the scene for you. We're in Ireland, in country. It's raining. This is an unpaved, rocky, rutted, muddy road with huge potholes and big scary rocks. There are pastures on either side (one of which had a lovely horse that I bonded with) and there is absolutely no room other than the one lane that is between fences on either side. No room to turn around, no shoulders, no pavement, no nothing! The lady told us that they were from L.A. and asked where we were from. When we said Colorado you could literally see the relief on her face!!! She told us that they had been stuck for about 20 minutes, and didn't know what to do. I mentioned my reluctance to drive as it wasn't my rental car, but they all kept saying "we have full insurance" and asking us for help. I hopped into their little stick shift car (it was pouring rain by now) and Brandon prepared to guide me. All of the girls got out but one, and she stayed in the passenger seat. With Brandon guiding me, I backed up the teeny farm lane and turned around in a pasture that we just happened to find an unlocked gate into. The horses that were next door were clearly not impressed with our follies. The car only got a little stuck in the mud once, but with everyone pushing and me gunning it we got out no problem. After Brandon's expert guiding, the car was now facing up the little farm lane, but there was a really small gap that it had to squeeze through, with barbed wire on either side. I asked the driver to get back in at this point, as if something got messed up I didn't want it to be my fault! We got them back on the road around the gate no problem, and the girls were all euphoric! One of them even called us their guardian angels.  They also kept saying how smart we were to have left our car on the main road and walked down. After big hugs and profuse thanks, all five of them piled back into the little car, and tried to get started up the hill. They had a few false starts where they just rolled backwards, but finally the driver realized that you really had to gun it, and we saw them pull up the hill.

We then continued on our original mission and started to walk on towards the castle. At this point, who did we come upon? The farmer whose property we were on, of course. He asked us who's permission we had to be there, and we played a little dumb and said we hadn't realized it was private property. Once he realized that we were on foot and only wanted to look at the castle, he was really nice and told us to go ahead. He asked us what the deal was with the car, and we told him that the girls had foolishly driven down and gotten stuck. He asked us where they were from and when we told him California, he actually rolled his eyes!!! It was hilarious. He asked where we were from and when he heard us say Colorado, he said "ah, so you're used to mountains!' Even Irish farmers think California girls are silly (sorry dear friends from Cali, you KNOW we love you!)! What a laugh. We then spoke with him for a few more minutes, and he told us to enjoy the castle views and mind the cow that was down the lane by the castle.

We then strolled around the castle for a few minutes, you couldn't go in because it was in such bad shape, but it was lovely nonetheless. Facing out onto the bay it had some seriously beautiful views. After this we walked back up the lane towards our car, still laughing. It was raining pretty heavily now, and I was having a blast splashing around puddles in my wellies. What an adventure!

When we got back to town we were pretty hungry, so headed off in search of dinner. We went to a really great fish house called Mitchell's. Brandon had another really good carrot soup to start with, and I had some seriously delicious seafood chowder. Then he had a fish pie (think shepherd's pie but with fish) and it was so good! The fish was flaky and the sauce was creamy and the mashed potatoes were perfect to soak it all up, and I had some chicken stuffed with blue cheese and garlic served on tagliatelle. It was amazing! It had this wonderful buttery garlic sauce, and the garlic and blue cheese went great together. Brandon had some ice cream for dessert, and we spent some time talking with the owner.

After this we lumbered back to our hotel, full and happy after our exciting day. So, we didn't end up hiking in Connemara, but we did our good deed for the day and had a good laugh. I can pretty much guarantee that those girls will never drive down another road like that!

When we got back to the hotel we spent some time in the library room where they had wifi. Sadly, this is right when the marathon bombings happened and we started to see the news notifications popping up. I have the CNN app on my iPad, so I always get notices when new headlines are available. We spent a long time reading things as they came up, and were just in shock at what we were seeing. When we went back up to our room we watched the news for a long time. There is a lot of coverage here in Ireland about this, and there is a very somber mood today because of it. At dinner tonight I spoke with the barman and a few other customers for a while while Brandon was getting something from the room, and they all expressed their shock at what had happened and extended their sympathies towards the people affected.

As lovely as the Irish countryside is, nothing can compare to how kind and wonderful the people here are. In addition to being hospitable and friendly, they are so caring and kind. They truly understand the tragedy that hate attacks bring, and the news is filled with people expressing their sympathies and sending love and prayers to those affected. Brandon and I join them, and hope that you and all of your loved ones are safe tonight.

We love you!

Linds and Brandon

April 14 - The Cliffs of Mow-er, Celtic Steve, and OMG Sticky Toffee Pudding!!!!

April 14 - The Cliffs of Mow-er, Celtic Steve, and OMG Sticky Toffee Pudding!!!!

This morning Brandon and I were super excited to be going to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. We knew that the Cliffs would be a pretty major tourist spot, and thought that we had prepared ourselves appropriately while en route. After winding our way up the beautiful coastal road, passing verdant green sheep dotted fields and pretty beaches, we were shocked by the sight of at least 15 coaches parked in front of the entrance. It was going to be crowded! We parked and grabbed our backpacks. The sight of the cliffs when you get to the top of the hill is so beautiful. It's amazing because you can easily see about two miles away where there is a beach that meets up almost with the road, so you think that cliffs that are hundreds of feet above the ocean couldn't possible be close. Wrong! You crest the hill and there they are - dropping away into the ocean with a staggeringly beautiful view.

There were a LOT of people around the visitors center and the tower right at the top of the hill, so we immediately headed out along one of the cliff walks. It is amazing how the edge just shears off! There were also lots of signs saying reassuring things like "unstable edge" and other safe sounding statements, which definitely helps you to feel safe. We started walking on the trial that edges along the cliffs, the Burren Way. This trail is actually a walking path that extends for approximately 30 miles through the Burren landscape. We would love to walk the whole trail someday! Once we got about a half mile away from the main entrance, we quickly became the only people. Oh my, was it beautiful! It was (I'm sure this sounds obvious) extremely windy! Brandon and I both had the feeling that standing near the edge immediately became much scarier because of the huge gusts of wind that kept coming up. Yikes! We walked about two miles down the cliffs, and then the weather really started to get bad. It had already been cloudy, but the clouds sank even lower and it started to rain quite heavily and get even windier. We decided to turn back, even though we had wanted to go to the tower on the southwest point of land, Hag's Head. Upon turning back, we had an amazing view of the line of the cliffs, stretching out seemingly into oblivion. We spent a long time wandering back, stopping to take lots of photos and watch the birds soaring on the wind. We had hoped to see some puffins, but we did not. After getting back to the main area, we decided to go up O'Brien's Tower. Turns out that it cost 2 euro each to do this - we went ahead and did it because we thought the views would be great, but it was a major rip off. The views were no better (potentially actually worse) than the ones that we had on the trail.

At this point we decided to walk north on the Burren Way for a little while, and went about a mile north on it. On this stretch we saw some seriously scary edges, with rocks protruding out over nothing, and some stupid tourists walking out on them. I'm telling you - one gust of wind!!! We saw so many people that obviously did not think at all about what they would be visiting. I.e., women trying to walk the path in high heels and men wearing t-shirts. We were walking on a rather slippery muddy path, and it was pretty cold! Silly people. We loved the walk, however. The views from the cliff tops are just amazing. We took so many photos, and now looking at them I'm thinking "why didn't we take more?!" Also, the cliffs are spelled Moher, and pronounced almost like mower, as in lawn mower. "Mo-wer..." So we started saying the cliffs of the lawn mower, and then things got even more ridiculous when we saw a gift shop titled "The Gifts of Moher." Enough said. :)

After this it was time to check out the Burren, which translates as "the stony place." The Burren is a massive, desolate plateau that extends for most of the northwest of the county. It stretches nearly to the sea in the northern part, and then slopes down to gentle rolling fields in the south eastern part. It seriously looked like the moon! Huge pieces of dimply grey rock just covering absolutely everything in sight. The draw to this barren (pun intended?) landscape is the huge amount of Stone and Iron Age monuments. The Stone Age remnants are mostly tombs, including a massive one called Poulnabrone Dolmen. This portal tomb is from 4500-2900 BC, and contains the remains of between 16 and 22 adults and 6 children. It was quite impressive, especially when viewed against the desolate back ground of the rocks dotting the landscape. The people who lived here certainly had quite a tough day to day existence. This was in the hunter/gatherer period, before farming was a part of the life style of the people. The Iron Age monuments were mostly stone ring forts, similar to the one we saw on our Ring of Kerry drive. Now, in typically Brandon and Lindsey irreverence, we had been having a conversation about what neolithic names would have been like. After I said that they were most likely unpronounceable to us, Brandon said "Nah, it was probably something like Steve." Thus, Celtic Steve and his friends Celtic Bob and Celtic Tim were born. We decided that the Poulnabrone Dolmen was probably the tomb of Celtic Steve. I'm sure that all of the rather serious archaeologists would have been horrified!

Next, we hiked up a stony lane to the top of a hill. I tried to pet a sheep - it ran away. Just another chapter in the Trying to Pet a Sheep section of our trip.  At this point, we were getting really hungry, so we stopped in the small town of Groth and got another yummy picnic from our new favorite grocery store, Super Valu. This was our third picnic from this great grocery, and every day has consisted of some delish demi baguettes, a local cheese, some of kind spread (tapenade, pesto, hummus), and fruit. Brandon did get some fried chicken the first day, which I thought was hilarious! It was actually pretty good....

Now we were on the road to Clifden, in Connemara county, where we would be spending the next two nights. We drove north through Galway, and then cut west towards the sea. As we neared Clifden, we started to see the huge peaks protruding up into the clouds. These are known as "the Bens," and they are the largest peaks in Ireland. Once we got to Clifden and found our hotel, it was about 6:00. We spent a while relaxing and then walked to the Main Street in search of a light dinner. We found a great pub and had some small bites. Brandon had a carrot and ginger soup and I had a fishcake with chili mango sauce and a small salad. We decided that we hadn't had dessert in a few days, and ordered some sticky toffee pudding. Neither one of us had any idea what to expect from this - after we devoured it, Brandon said that he expected pudding a la American pudding cups, and I expected something like bread pudding. WRONG, both of us! Now I shall devote a paragraph to how amazing it was.

Sticky toffee pudding is some kind of a small cake, heated and served with piping hot butterscotch toffee sauce on it. Accompanying this amazingness was a scoop of locally made vanilla ice cream. IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!! The cake was really moist and hot, and the sauce was perfect. Rich, but not so much that it wasn't able to be eaten. Needless to say, it was gone almost immediately. OMG.... sticky toffee pudding!!!

When we settled up with the barman, Brandon asked him about the difficulty of some of the hikes we'd been discussing. The biggest of these being the Croagh (croak) Patrick, the hike to the top of the mountain where St. Patrick spent Lent in 441 and happened to throw all the snakes in Ireland off the top of the mountain. Snake free Ireland! We had initially read that it was a decently tough climb, but not too bad and only taking about 3 hours round trip. Then we saw another site where someone said that they had only gone halfway and it had taken them 5 hours. We figured that that had been an extreme situation, but thought it wise to ask a local.  The barman was hilarious - he said "well, the time I was sober it was amazing and took about 2 1/2 hours round trip, and the time I was drunk it was terrible and took a really long time." So funny!!! We laughed and then talked about it with him for a while longer. Our opinion after this enlightening conversation was that the hike wouldn't be bad and we would go ahead and do it on Tuesday, as we had planned. We then strolled back to our hotel and got tucked in for the evening. Somehow we ended up watching the end of the Masters - first time I've ever actually watched golf on tv!

Next on the agenda - Adventures in Connemara!

April 12 - Down to the dungeon, quick - get the sheep!, and Sshhhh shhhh shhhh!

April 12 - Down to the dungeon, quick - get the sheep!, and Sshhhh shhhh shhhh!

Friday we drove the Ring of Kerry. which I thought sounded like a volcanic ring (Ring of Fire, anyone?). This beautiful 175k drive circles the whole of the Iveragh peninsula, and everyone had told us how beautiful it was and that its not to be missed. Nothing could have prepared us for the wild beauty of this place! First of all, the weather was absolutely stunning. Blue sky, shining sun, birds singing, etc. We breakfasted at the hotel and then headed out on the drive. Once again we had grand plans of getting up really early and heading out, but we ended up leaving at around 10. The entire drive was beautiful, but I'll pick out some particularly high points below.

Cahersiveen - we took the turnoff at this pretty little town because we saw on our map that there were stone forts and a beach out on the tip of the land. What we didn't expect to find was a marvelous ruined castle - Ballycabbery Castle.  this was here another castle that was blown  up by Cromwell's forces. This castle was blown up from the inside out. We saw it from the road, and pulled in to find only one other car there. We had to duck under some barbed wire to get in, which countless other people had clearly done as well, as the wire was bent up. The castle had incredible views of the mountains, the ocean, the bay, the Skellig islands, the fields, the everything! It was a wonderful edifice, with only a few walls remaining, but plenty to climb around on and explore. We climbed up to the upper level, and then down to the lower as well. The lower level was pretty far down a scary staircase, and we referred to it as the dungeon! It totally felt like descending down to the dungeon level. All that was missing were rats, slimy walls, and a sinister jailer.  The steps from the stair case down to the floor were gone, so we had to do a pretty significant drop of about 10 feet down. Once in the room, we could easily see that this was the main living area, rather than a dungeon. We took lots of photos here, and then went to the beach!
The beach was sandy and the water was the most beautiful blue. It was easy to picture coming to this lovely little beach on a warm summer day, spending time lazing on the beach and swimming in the waves and enjoying a picnic. Oh bliss! We must come back. We found some pretty little shells and saw some very sandy and very happy dogs going for walks.

After this we headed back inland and went across to Valentia island. We had our first real view of the Skellig Islands at this point, which if we had been better advance planners, we would have taken a boat to. Alas, you have to book at least on day in advance and they only operate May through the end of September. One on Valentia Island, we drove the loop around it  (its a very short loop). This included a trip to the top of the highest peak, Geokaun Mountain, which had some absolutely breathtaking views! We also saw the Fogher Cliffs from here. The views of the mainland and the Skellig Islands were amazing from here. We saw that castle that we had explored earlier,  as well as the beach we walked on. While at the top of the mountain, Brandon tried to pet a sheep. At first it was going well, Brandon was walking toward the sheep and the sheep looked pretty oblivious, happily eating some grass. Suddenly the sheep must have caught his scent, because it started running away! Brandon half heartedly chased after if for a few minutes, and then gave up. We WILL pet sheep on this trip! I really want to pet a lamb - there are so many of them and they are so cute! Anyway, that was our sheep adventure for the day.

We then drove down to Knightstown, where we grabbed a bite of lunch in the Royal Pier pub. We shared a smoked salmon sandwich with cream cheese, capers, and lettuce as well as a tomato basil soup. Delish and refreshing! We then headed back across the bridge to the mainland, and picked up the smaller loop of the Ring of Skellig. This runs around the most westerly promontory of the Iveragh peninsula, passing through the wildly beautiful St Finan's Bay. While driving this jaw droppingly beautiful route, we came upon a wonderful surprise - the Skellig Chocolate Factory! We went in for a taste and ended up leaving with loads of chocolate! It was all so yummy. We bought a mixed bag of truffles, a bag of chocolate covered marshmallows, and a bar of sea salt chocolate. Oh my goodness! What a treat. We finished this smaller Ring, which included some rather hair raising steep roads and narrow lanes. It was wonderful, especially with the clear blue sky. We came back into Killarney via the park, and passed the Ladies View once again. We stopped at Torc Waterfall and did the short hike to view it - very reminiscent of the waterfalls in Oregon and Washington. Heading back into Killarney we decided to stop at the Ross Castle. It was closed when we got there, but we had a really nice walk around the grounds and along one of the paths into the forest. The castle was built in the late 15th century by one of the O'Donoghue Ross chieftains, who ruled the Killarney region then. The castle is on the shores of Lough Leane, the Lower Lake of the three in Killarney.

After this we went back to our hotel and cleaned up for the evening. Since it was Friday night, we decided to walk into town to try and find some local music as well as dinner.  We went to a pub called The Laurels, which had really good pub food. Brandon had fish and chips, and I had the potato cakes. They were AMAZING! Potato cakes with a creamy mushroom bacon gravy. It may not sound like much, but they were simple and delicious and something completely different from anything we've had! I loved every bite. After this we went to the Killarney Grand, which was advertising live music at 9:00 and 11:00. We listened to the acoustic set at 9, which was a bodhran, accordion, and sometimes guitar. They were really good, and the place was absolutely packed, mostly with tourists (lots of Americans with cameras round their necks). We ended up grabbing a table with some really nice people from Ontario, Canada and talking with them for a while. At 11:00 the big band came on. It was a proper Irish rock band - the usual drums and guitars, but also an amazing fiddler and banjo player! They were really really good, and it wasn't too long before we were all on the dance floor, dancing and singing along. By this point it was mostly locals - we saw some mighty interesting dancing! We stayed out really late, dancing to this band and having fun with the nice Canadians. After taking a taxi back to our hotel, we practically collapsed into bed as it was nearly 3 am! Whew.

The next day we were driving to Ennistymon, a small town near the Cliffs of Moher.  We decided to drive the Dingle Peninsula, and unfortunately it wasn't that great. Now, I'm sure it can be lovely, but we had a few things working against us. The weather was awful - it was pouring rain and cloudy and extremely windy, and we were exhausted from staying up so late the night before! We saw some nice views and some interesting history, but we decided to head to our hotel in Ennistymon pretty quickly. Unfortunately our decision and tiredness led to us missing the Lough Gur, a prehistoric site that we had really been looking forward to visiting. It has lots of megalithic ruins as well as a large standing stone. Of course we didn't realize that we had forgotten it until we reached our hotel around 7:00 pm and it was much too late to go back. Darn!!! We've put it on the list for next time.
Ennistymon was a really cute small town, situated on a river with some pretty small falls. The hotel was fairly large, but they did a good job of not letting it feel that way. We ate in the hotel restaurant since we were so tired! The food was actually really good, and we had the benefit of sitting with about 3/4 of the town, who were all there to watch a big rugby match! It was so fun to experience the game with them - lots of great things learned. For example, whenever something really big was about to happen, they would all get DEAD silent. Then, they would all start "shushing." You know - "Shhh, shhhhh, shhhh!!!!!" It's such a great experience to watch sports in other countries.

After this it was bed time! Next on the docket - Cliffs of Moher and the Burren!

Loads of love,

Linds

April 13 - I definitely fell off the "I'm going to blog every day!" band wagon....

April 13 - I definitely fell off the "I'm going to blog every day!" band wagon....

Well, here it is Saturday evening, and we're in the cute little town of Ennistymon. I'm so bad, and haven't blogged about the last three days! I have some serious catching up to do.

When I last wrote, we were deciding how to spend our day leaving Cork and heading to Killarney. We were debating whether or not to go to the tourist trap that the Blarney Castle is, and we decided to give it a miss. Turns out we are so glad we did - we've talked with several other travelers who have gone there, and they all said that we did the right thing.. So, we slept in on our last morning in Cork, and left the hotel at 10:00. We had decided to go drive the Mizen Head peninsula, which has some great lighthouses and also has the most southwestern point in Ireland on it.

On our way, we stopped at the super adorable small fishing town of Kinsale - what a beautiful place! It would have been lovely to spend a few days there. Next time! One of Kinsale's boasting points is the Charles Fort, which lies on the opposite side of the harbor, across from the town. Construction on the Charles Fort was begun in 1678, and it stands on the original site of the Ringcurran Castle, which was destroyed by (big surprise here) Cromwell's forces in 1656. That Cromwell - he wasn't content with destroying the last filaments of the English monarchy, so he had to destroy an ancient Anglo-Norman castle as well! Spoiled brat. The fort was fascinating to visit. The Governor's House within is still in good condition, but most of the other buildings are now roofless and home only to birds and plants. The buildings were largely destroyed during the Irish Civil War. It was eerily beautiful to visit, as it was quite easy to picture the soldiers who conducted their lives within the walls of the fort. The fort was impregnable by sea, but quite vulnerable to attack by land. Sir William Robinson, royal engineer, advised the crown to modify the land fortifications - his advice was ignored and his point was proven when the Duke of Marlborough and his forces quite easily defeated the Jacobite forces within in 1690. He, of course, attacked by land. (Just in case you're interested, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was a total badass and is really interesting to read about.) We made a complete circuit of the impressive battlements, that have amazing views of the sea, and it was fairly easy to see how they would have easily been able to defeat any attack from the sea. The fort also houses a really great museum in the Governor's House, and we would have spent longer in it had the skies not been threatening rain! We finished viewing the fort right when the rain began, and ran back to our little car.

Driving through Kinsale, we headed toward the Mizen Head itself.  While on the road, we saw a sign for a monolithic area, and quickly exited to it. It  turned out to be a circle of standing stones! It was absolutely beautiful. Neither large nor particularly impressive, it was wonderful nonetheless. It was raining (shocker, I know) and the fields around the ring were so green, and it was easy to mentally transport ourselves back thousands of years. This stone circle is Bronze Age and is identified as being associated with the winter solstice.  We spent a really nice 20 minutes walking around taking photos, and then continued on our way. Upon reaching Mizen Head, we got gas in the little town of Goleen and headed out to the tip of the peninsula itself. We stopped in the picturesque little fishing town of Crookhaven for a bite to eat. Situated in a small inlet with a teeny harbor, this little town is sheltered from the worst of the storms blowing in from the sea. We stopped in a little pub and had some sandwiches, which were simple and delicious. We wandered the town for a few minutes, and then drove towards the Mizen Head itself. So we thought..... we spent about 20 minutes taking hairpin turns on teeny tiny farm lanes trying to find the right road! Turns out there are two signs for the Mizen Head, and one of them is wrong. Once we figured that out, we went back to the correct turn and reached our destination in about 5 minutes. Goodness! If only one could ask sheep for directions.....


The Mizen Head was stunningly beautiful - a little spit of land protruding out into the Celtic Sea, surrounded by pounding waves with accompanying serious winds. The cliffs jutted into the waves, the waves crashed on the rocks that have been honed to knife edges, and the birds soared on those winds, seemingly floating in mid air.  We walked down a path that has a view of the sea arch, which is exactly what it sounds like. It was a lovely little arch, and the blue water beneath it added to the beauty. We stood on the little jetty with the waves crashing around us, being battered by the wind, and felt like we were in our own little piece of heaven. After hiking back up to the top, we took the super scary bridge out to the signal station itself. Ok, the bridge wasn't super scary, but it was really high up! I definitely have my mild fear of heights to contend with, and at the halfway point across the bridge I had to book it to the other side while Brandon (the brave one) stood in the middle and took photos.  Yikes, my toes were tingling like crazy! The signal station had some really interesting information on the history of the signal station and the Fastnet Rock lighthouse that lies 8 miles out into the sea. This is the area where the Lusitania was sunk, and they had really interesting information about the history of shipwrecks in the area as well as the building of the Fastnet Lighthouse. We stood out on the point of the island for a while and took more photos and enjoyed the immense views.... if only we had seen some ships steaming by! This is also a great place for whale and dolphin watching, but we didn't see any.

After finishing up, we got back into our teeny car and drove to Killarney. The road to the town goes through the National Park, and we actually went over a mountain pass to get there! Not that high, of course, but very beautiful and reminiscent of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. It had tunnels!! I was driving, so of course I honked the horn and held my breath - true Colorado style! We descended into the park, passing the Ladies View (so named because when Queen Victoria visited the area, her ladies in waiting declared it to be their favorite view),  the Upper and Muckross (middle) Lakes, and the small town of Muckross. Everything was staggeringly beautiful. The mountain peaks had clouds sitting on them, like little puffy hats, and the colors were slightly muted by the grey skies. It looked just like driving into a postcard! We, with a little difficulty, found our way to our hotel. We only made about 5 wrong turns, which we thought was pretty good, considering that we didn't have any directions! For the first time, our hotel was not in the town center area, it was a 20 minute walk away. Due to this, our tiredness, and the fact that it was 8:30, we decided to have dinner at the hotel pub and just relax. We found some cozy chairs by a fire, and settled in with our books. We both had fish and chips, and it was delicious! Just what we needed after our long and fun day.  This hotel did not have wifi in the rooms, so we were pretty off the grid while there. It was available only in the bar, restaurant, and reception area.

On Thursday morning we woke bright and early (or not, since it was 9:00....) and headed off to the national park. We tried to find the visitors center,  and ended up doing a nice preview of the park while trying to find it. Turns out it was in town - whoops! Most things here are very well signed, but we've found that when something isn't well signed, it's really hard to find! We went into the office and asked the nice lady working there about hiking trails. First she only told us about paved paths that were shorter than 5 km. When we mentioned that we were interested in climbing actual mountains, she changed what she was telling us a little bit, but you could tell that she was still dubious about our hiking ability. Do we look that amateur? I'm just kidding, I'm sure that they get tons of inexperience tourists in there who have no idea what they would be getting themselves into. At this point she somewhat grudgingly told us about some loop trails by the Torc Waterfall. When I asked her about Torc Mountain, she pulled out a book and gave me a really hard to read printed sheet of paper with directions. She warned us that this 5 mile round trip hike was extremely strenuous, and that if it began to rain we should really turn back. She also warned us that this mountain summitted at 525 meters (or 1,722 feet) and we should be very careful. We thanked her and then went to a newsagent shop down the street to buy an Ordinance Survey map of the national park that we had head was really good. By now it was 11:00, so we were anxious to get on the trail.

After this we headed off to the fearsome mountain! Now, Brandon and I are by no means extreme alpine mountaineers, but we are pretty adept at conquering 14ers. We were told that this strenuous hike would take 4 or more hours - we did it in 2 1/2, and this was with about 20 minutes spent on the summit and with multiple photo stops both ways. The hike was wonderful! We started out on an old road in deep forest. Everything was covered in the most lush green moss! We kept saying how we felt like we were in The Lord of the Rings, or something like that. We ambled along that road for about a half mile, and then reached the end of the forest. The stark contrasts once we exited the forest were amazing! We went from the deep, vivid green of the mossy trees and rocks to the tundra like terrain of the heath. We were immediately in an area with short grasses, scrubby bushes and trees, and dark red moss on rocks only. It was beautiful in its own way. We started our ascent pretty soon after that, and were impressed by the condition of the trail. We started on a rocky path, very similar to Colorado hiking trails, but with more water and mud! The most interesting part of this hike was the next piece of trail maintenance. In the areas where it was marshy, or had lots of grasses, there were railroad tie looking pieces of wood with chicken wire stapled over it built on the trail. These were amazing to hike on! The metal took away any slipperiness, and they were ergonomically great to walk on. The entire trail was comprised of either these or the rocky paths. The only other park of the trail consisted of lots of mini waterfalls! We had great weather on our way up, and stopped often to take photos of the Upper Lake as well as the surrounding peaks. Upon summitting, we entered a cloud! The view on top was seriously incredible. Brandon crested the summit before I did, and he told me "get ready to be amazed!" I crossed the ridge and felt like I had been punched in the stomach! The entire national park was spread out before us, the Muckross and Lower lakes glimmering beneath, and the town spread out behind them. It was amazing! We spent a long time exploring the length of the summit. We went out onto some smaller points that had amazing views of the neighboring peaks. It started to get cold really quickly at this point, and we were watching the weather move in. We put on our rain coats and headed back down. For the first part of the descent, it rained quite heavily. It wasn't too cold, however. Once we reached the midway down point, the rain ceased and the sun came back out! Not too much blue sky, though. We made our way back to our car, overwhelmed with the beauty that we had just seen. It's like a drug!

By now it was around 2:00, and we were starving! We started driving back to town to find food, and on the way saw a pub in the little town of Muckross, which is right across the road from the Muckross estate. We decided to go there, and we were so glad! We walked into the pub and it was blissfully warm - I hadn't realized it, but my fingers were pretty frozen. Our food hit the spot and warmed us up wonderfully. Brandon had the "pie of the day," which was chicken and mushroom. Think Shepherd's Pie, but with different filling. It was delicious - perfectly spiced with lots of rosemary, and the mashed potatoes with it were so creamy. I had the lamb stew, with locally grown barley, carrots, and onions. It was so good. The lamb was so tender, and the barley added a really nice texture.  After this restorative meal, we headed across the street to the Muckross Estate. The mansion there is a beautiful 19th century built Neo-Elizabethan building, that we didn't go in because it was guided tour only, the weather was beautiful, and we wanted to be outside! Instead, we hiked around the Muckross Lake,  a lovely 10 k loop trail. We started off by the house, and then made our way through a beautiful forest. The midway point was at Dinis Cottage, an old hunting lodge that now serves coffee, tea, and other refreshments, and the Meeting of the Waters. The waters of the middle and upper lakes meet at this spot, and there is a beautiful old stone bridge built right over the water.  We then looped back towards the house, and saw the most beautiful rainbow! We were actually able to see the origin of the rainbow, out in the lake in front of us. It was so wonderful! By now it was sunny with blue skies, and we really enjoyed the rest of the walk back to the house. We passed through the estate gardens on our way, and saw lots of beautiful trees and flowers. Once back at the house we got back in our teeny car and headed back to the hotel. What a great day!

After hot showers and clean clothes, we drove into town to find some dinner. We were starving! We ended up going to an Indian restaurant right on the Main Street, Bombay Palace. Brandon ordered the butter tikka chicken, and I ordered the vindaloo naan. Everything was wonderful! The waiter tried to give Brandon the vindaloo, and then looked surprised that a girl had ordered such a hot dish. Brandon's butter chicken was very different than any we've had before. It had a coconut milky sweetness, and the chicken was so tender. It was delicious! The vindaloo was probably the best I've ever had. Brandon doesn't usually like vindaloo, and he loved this one. We polished it all off, along with naan and rice. So good! At this point we made our way back to our hotel in major food comas. We did go back to the hotel pub for a little bit to use the wireless, and then it was off to bed.

Stay tuned for our exciting Friday activities!

Xoxo

Linds

April 9 - Seriously, who eats that, But What if there's a troll in the cave, and This Room is Freezing!

April 9 - Seriously, who eats that, But What if there's a troll in the cave, and This Room is Freezing!

This morning we woke up excited to explore the countryside around Cork. We breakfasted in our hotel, and I had Irish porridge for the first time. It was so good! We had toast and eggs and porridge, all washed down with lots of coffee and tea. It was really yummy! After finishing we walked down into the old part of Cork to the English market. The market has been there since 1788, and is actually the oldest market of its kind. The present group of buildings were erected the in the mid 19th century. We got there relatively soon after it opened, so not all the stalls were open. We had a great time wandering around selecting things for our lunch.  After much deliberation, we settled on fresh grapes and raspberries, a huge sandwich with sun dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil, and a huge bottle of San Pellegrino. The piece de resistance to our little meal was some truffles from a lovely little chocolate shop. We got two sea salt caramel and two Irish cream. Yum!!! Some of the things we saw in the market were definitely things we would not be eating - one of the butchers had lots of organ meats (pig livers, hearts, and kidneys) and they all looked absolutely awful!

With our prizes in hand we headed off to the parking garage, and after navigating the fairly well signed streets we were off to Ballycotton. What a fabulous name, right? Ballycotton is an adorable little town out on a spit of land, and it boasts a wonderful cliff walk as well as a lovely lighthouse. Oh my, was it beautiful there! We headed out on the cliff walk with grey skies and some serious wind. We were pretty chilly at first, but warmed up pretty quickly. The 5 mile trail (one way) hugs the coast line, ambling its way along with rugged rocky beaches below and some beautiful green fields above. The contrast of the colors was stunning, and we took loads of photos. One of our first detours was a climb down to one of the beaches. Covered in smooth pebbles, the beach had lots of tide pools and huge rocks protruding up out of the beach. It was pretty breezy down there, and we had a great time walking on the rocks and exploring. We found a little cave hidden in the rocks below the cliff, and Brandon said that we should go in it. For some reason, my immediate response was "but what if there's a troll in it?" because, as we all know, trolls are a normal part of Irish life?! Yeah, this made no sense. We tried to go in, but it ended almost immediately so our troll hunting trip was rather short lived.

We headed back up to the cliffs, and continued our way down the path. We found another little trail that went down towards the beach, but we didn't take it all the way. We did go down part of it, and the grass on it was amazing! It was so springy, it was just like a trampoline. I was bouncing up and down on it! Serious fun. I totally want a yard with trampoline grass someday (hint hint, Brandon). The next stop was a rocky outcropping that stuck out further into the ocean (called a headland) that we climbed out on. Wow, the wind was incredible up there!!! The views were amazing as well. After that we headed toward the town at the end of the path, called Ballyandreen Bay. There was an option to take a shorter route home on some of the roads, but we decided to take the cliff path on the way back. We were so happy that we did, as it was absolutely beautiful. The weather had cleared some, and we had some lovely views of the lighthouses. We both posted lots of pictures on Facebook of this.

After getting back to our teeny car, we were famished! The 10 miles took care of our breakfast, no problem. We dug into our grapes while driving back to the highway on the coastal road. After finishing those, it was sandwich time. The sandwich was wonderful - the baguette was perfectly crusty, the mozzarella obviously homemade, and the sun dried tomatoes and basil a perfect compliment to the rest. The raspberries were delicious as well, and then it was time for the truffles. They were amazing!!! We easily could have eaten loads more of them - good thing we didn't have any!

Our next stop was Barryscourt Castle, outside of Cork in a town called Cobh (pronounced Cove), but when we got there it was closed!! Apparently it doesn't open until May. It was 4:00 by now, so we decided just to head back to the hotel. While there, I took a nap and Brandon read, and it was really nice just to relax for a while as we haven't had any down time at all, really. The only problem is that our room was really cold and there were not any extra blankets! Brrrr....

Later that evening we ventured into Cork for dinner. Neither of us felt like a big sit down meal, so we wandered the streets for a while looking for something good. We ended up going to a place called Istanbul, a doner kebab and Turkish food place. We both had a chicken doner and they were delish!!! Incredibly messy but so good. A few thoughts on Cork - we think that Cork is a great place to stay to see things around it, but we didn't find the city all the compelling. Sadly, it looks like it is suffering from some serious economic depression, and really didn't have much going on. As a base to see things surrounding it, it was perfect. However, for evening entertainment there wasn't much - there weren't even many restaurants.

Tomorrow we are heading off to the Mizen Head peninsula, which is the most south western point in Ireland. We've been debating going to the Blarney Castle. On one hand, we feel that we should go as its an important thing to put on our "been there done that" list, but we really can't stomach the thought of competing with loads of tourists, and all the locals that we've met here tell us that you usually have to wait in a huge line. We'll see what we decide!

Until tomorrow, my friends.

xoxo,
Linds

April 8 - Tintern Abbey, Zombies in the Churchyard, and Potatoes for the World!

April 8 - Tintern Abbey, Zombies in the Churchyard, and Potatoes for the World!

This morning we woke to cloudy skies in Kilkenny, and somewhat sadly packed our bags to head off to Cork for the next two nights. We really loved Kilkenny - plenty to do, lots of great food, and a lovely small town feel.

Brandon kindly indulged me by driving us about 45 minutes out of our way to visit an abbey built by - you guessed it - my medieval crush, William Marshal. He built Tintern Abbey in the early 1200's as thanks to God for surviving a near death inducing crossing from Wales. Not only William, but his wife Isabelle and several of their children (in addition to the household knights and servants) were nearly shipwrecked while crossing from Wales. This lovely abbey is William's tribute to God for their survival. Unfortunately the abbey was under some serious reconstruction while we were there, but we were still able to walk around the nave and what remains of the cloister. After the dissolution under Henry VIII, the church was given to one of Henry's men, Anthony Colclough. The descendants of Anthony lived at Tintern until the early 1960's, as they turned it into a house. It has since been largely returned to its original state, as it would have looked when built by William. It does have battlements, which were added by Anthony. We walked around the grounds,which extend to a beautiful stone bridge over an estuary. The bridge had amazing views of the abbey, and when we crossed it, we discovered a small chapel and graveyard at the top of a hill. The chapel no longer has a roof, and the gravestones are all charmingly tipping over. It was a beautiful and peaceful place - at least until Brandon started talking about how this was the perfect setting for a zombie movie, complete with descriptions of how the people would be in the ruined church when they saw zombie arms punching up through the ground and have to close the rusted gate to fend them off. Next I got to learn about how the zombies would climb over the walls, since the church did not have a roof. Last but not least I learned that the about to be zombified victims would only have rusted Katana's to defend themselves (apparently katana's were the 12th century monks weapon of choice?!). This was the final scene before they were eaten. Winning! After I survived the zombie apocalypse in my mind, we headed back down the hill towards the zombie free abbey. The area around the abbey also had a number of walking trails through beautifully wooded forest, and we wandered these for a bit before heading back to our car.

When we drove into the abbey grounds, there were a large number of sheep in a pasture off to the left. On the way back out, I told Brandon that I wanted to stop to take some pictures of them, so he stopped on the road and I got out. I thought that I would just walk up to the fence, take some pictures, and the sheep probably wouldn't even notice that I was there. Little did I know that ALL of the sheep would immediately begin running towards me when I got to the fence! Now, let's focus on the important point of that last sentence - RUNNING SHEEP!!!!! Oh my gosh, it was hilarious. Their short legs could only go so fast, so they had this kind of loping run. The lambs looked very cute running, but the adults just looked like an accident waiting to happen. Also, they were so loud! When I got out of the car I heard some baa-ing fairly loudly, and I told Brandon to roll down his window to hear them. Once the stampede began, the baa-ing got even louder! It was so funny. I posted a video on Facebook of this hilarious sheep encounter, check it out! The fence was electrified on the sheep side, and boy did they know it1 They wouldn't come closer than 4 feet away from it, but almost all of them stood in a line, watching me and baa-ing. BAAAA!!!!!!!!!! Silly sheep. Also, fact: whenever we've passed sheep on the road, I've said something silly like "SO FLUFFY!" or "little clouds!" Yeah, not that fluffy or cloud like up close. Actually really dirty and some of them quite gross looking. Of course, this doesn't apply to the lambs, who were totes adorable! Oh man, I totally tried to convince Brandon that Moxxi needs a lamb friend. I know that you will all be shocked to hear that he didn't agree, and oh so logically pointed out that lambs turn into sheep. Details!!!

After leaving my new found friends, we headed back toward Waterford and Cork. When we got to New Ross, we realized we needed gas. We learned a few things on our gas stop. 1) You pay for your gas after you pump it in Ireland. Apparently, they trust you not to run off without paying here. Weird! 2) Gas station coffee is really good in Ireland! Total opposite from the states. You can also get really good tea at them (I had Earl Grey). 3) Gas is really expensive!

Once we had our hot drinks and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps in the car with us, we headed off down the road. We then went through our first (and only so far) toll booth in Ireland. Miraculously, we actually had the 1 euro 90 that it cost to go through it, so we tossed it in the basket and went on our way. After passing through Waterford, we saw a sign that said "Ardmore Scenic Drive." I looked at the map and saw that not only was Ardmore out on a peninsula, it had a lighthouse! We turned left (into what still feels like oncoming traffic, eve though its not) and headed that way. Oh my gosh, Ardmore was so incredibly beautiful! We drove into the teeny tiny town on a road that ran parallel to a huge bay that had giant breakers rolling in. Lining the hill heading up from the town were picturesque cottages painted in all different colors. We parked our car in what looked like a good spot by the beach, and got out to walk the beach.

The very first thing that happened to Brandon when he got out of the car was a wave came over the sea wall and sprayed him. Hahahahaha!!!! Zombie karma. :)
I ran out of the car, and we headed to the path that lead to the beach. Let me tell you, it was incredibly windy on the beach! It was so beautiful. We walked about a mile out, and the salt wind blowing with the waves rolling in and the sun shining on us, it was just a piece of heaven! Total sheer bliss. We spent some time on the beach taking photos and watching the gulls soar overhead before we realized that the tide was coming in and headed back. While walking back to our car, we looked up at the sea wall right by the car. Of course the moment we looked up we saw a HUGE wave hit the sea wall, go over it, and hit our teeny car! We both started laughing hilariously, as our car was hit by the spray from wave after wave. I took a video and posted it on Facebook, if you're in need of a laugh. Poor teeny car! We got back to the car, drove through the spray of a couple waves, and headed up the hill to the lookout. We found a little gravel lane that looked like it headed out on a moor, so we parked our saltwater car and walked through the hedges. We came out in a lush green field with a ruined tower at the end of it. We walked to the tower, and were just stunned by the beauty of the cliffs on the other side! Sheer cliffs dropping hundreds of feet into the ocean, with green fields stretching as far as the eye could see the other way - amazing! We spent a long time walking the cliff path and enjoying the beauty. We walked out onto a point right over the sea, and it was so, so, so windy! Brandon took a video, and it is so loud in it! I think that we were actually slightly deafened by the time we left. At one point I actually thought that I was going to blow off the cliff. We walked back across the field to our car, and learned that the tower was built by the Napoleonic forces during the early 19th century. Practically brand new for Ireland!

After this we took a beautiful scenic drive back to the highway, and headed towards Cork. At this point the sky actually became grey, and rain definitely looked imminent. Right as we drove into Cork the rain started to fall - thanks for the welcome, Cork! We found our hotel, which is right on the river, and got checked in. After relaxing in our room for a little bit, we headed out to find dinner. By the time we  left the hotel, it had started to rain in earnest. Thank goodness for our good rain jackets! Let the record show that this was the first time it has rained on us since we've been here.

We had read that Cork is somewhat of a foodie city, so we were really excited! We ended up walking across the river into the old market quarter where we found a restaurant called the Strasbourg Goose. They advertised a three course meal for 20 euros, which is actually a screaming deal. Ireland is expensive! So we shared a wonderful fish cake with chili sauce starter, then moved on to our entrees. Brandon had a sirloin with a tomato cream mushroom sauce and a small side of mashed potatoes. I had the lamb shank with mashed potatoes. We thought this was the entirety of our food, but right after they set down our plates another waiter came out with more potatoes and some vegetables! We ended up with FOUR different kinds of potatoes! Mashed, chilled mashed, au gratin, and chips (fries). Oh my gosh, it was crazy! The food was absolutely amazing. We ate all of our meat, most of the potatoes, and all of the veggies. Last but not least we had a slice of Bailey's Cheesecake for dessert.

IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh. Thank goodness we shared it, because we seriously could have each eaten a slice, and believe me - we really did not need to after eating all of those potatoes! Wow. What a feast and it was all amazing. We then stumbled back to our hotel for the night.

Time for dreams of potato eating zombie sheep!

Lots and lots of love from us,

Linds

April 7 - Sleeping in, It's too cold for blackbirds, and Let's go to Inis....Inistogge...Inisteeg?

April 7 - Sleeping in, It's too cold for blackbirds, and Let's go to Inis....Inistogge...Inisteeg?

Well, Brandon and I stayed up pretty late on Saturday night, so we ended up sleeping really late on Sunday. I think all of our exhaustion from our insanely busy jobs plus all of the travel time and new time zones finally caught up with us - we didn't wake up until 1200 on Sunday! It was wonderful. We slowly got ourselves out of our super comfy bed and got ready for the day. It was grey in Kilkenny, so we bundled up and strolled down the High Street to a small cafe for some lunch. Brandon had a delish bagel with cream cheese and amazing smoked salmon, and I had a panini on a yummy baguette with roast chicken, garlic sun dried tomatoes, and arugula (or rocket, as it is known in the UK). It was yummy and light and just what we needed to fuel us for our afternoon field trip to Thomastown, Jerpoint Abbey, and the adorable town of Inistioge (pronounced Inis-teeg).

We went to Jerpoint Abbey first, driving through the picturesque town of Thomastown on the way. Thomastown was founded by one of the men who  belonged to the train of my favorite medieval knight, William Marshal (remember him from yesterday?). So the town dates from the late 12th century and had several beautiful churches and lovely castle ruins. We did drive by the actual castle that the founder built, long abandoned and in ruins it was covered in ivy and moss and looked so lovely. The town is built along the river, and we drove along the river for a few miles before reaching Jerpoint Abbey. Jerpoint was originally a Benedictine Abbey that was taken over by Cistercian's some 20 years later - the oldest part of it is the actual church, which is from the mid 12th century. The cloister was built by the Cistercian's in the 15th century, and is very exceptional compared to nearly all other Cistercian abbeys. Apparently these monks were pretty rebellious, because the Cistercian order forbade having any ornate carvings in their abbeys as they were viewed as "vain" and "distracting from the true Godly purpose." The lady working at the ticket office told us that all of the Cistercian enthusiasts in our lives would be inordinately jealous that we had been there, since it is such a unique example. So, all you Cistercian enthusiasts reading this, try not to be too jealous! :) We were so fortunate to be the only visitors to the abbey at that time - it was just us and the black birds, and boy are they loud! It seemed very appropriate though, to be hearing them "caw"ing away at us. It was pretty freezing while we were there, but we really enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the carvings and tombs that are still intact. Something about these churches without the roofs on them is so romantic. It is such an eerie thing, in a way. It's also incredibly beautiful.

After leaving Jerpoint we headed to Inistioge, a small town further down the River Nore from Thomastown. Oh my goodness, Inistioge was beautiful!!!! A teeny little town set around a small village green with several pubs, right on the river, with loads of green pastures and fluffy sheep and green forested hills and it was divinely beautiful! We drove through the town, up a really steep "two way" (read as one lane that had cars going both directions) street. Brandon had to floor it, so that our teeny car could make it up the hill, and right at the top a Range Rover came roaring around the corner. We quickly pulled over and let them go past! Once at the top of the hill, we drove to the Woodstock estate. This beautiful piece of land belonged to the Tighe family for centuries, and in its heyday of the late 19th century/early 20th century was renowned as one of the most beautiful manors in Southern Ireland. When the owners left Ireland during the war of Independance, the Black and Tans took over the estate. After independance in 1922, the estate was burned, just like many other "tarnished" estates that had been similarly taken over. The skeleton of the house is still standing, and the county has recently taken over and begun taking care of the amazing Victorian gardens. The gardens and parkland are now open to the public, and we spent an ethereal 2 hours wandering the grounds. It's such a shame about the house, for the views from it are absolutely stunning, out over the River Nore and looking at the green hills.  The Lord and Lady who lived there in the late 1800's had a passion for gardening, and they had populated the gardens with an amazing variety of rare trees and plants from all over the world. They installed a beautiful conservatory built by the most famous and skilled Irish iron worker of their day, and its still there (looking quite magical) today. The variety of trees and plants was amazing, and it was an absolutely beautiful place.

After leaving Woodstock we drove around the country for a while, stopping to look at different ruins and towns. Everywhere we went was so beautiful! We then returned to Kilkenny and wandered down the road to the Hibernian Bar for dinner. Brandon had a chicken burger, with a huge onion ring on it, yummy pickle relish/mayo, and provolone cheese. This came with some huge and delicious chips. I had an incredible Shepherd's Pie (my first of the trip!) that was made with minced lamb, rather than the half beef/half lamb that we often see other places. It was amazing, and after a cold rainy afternoon wandering ruins and gardens, it was exactly what I needed.

Tomorrow we're off to explore Waterford county and make our way to Cork, where we'll be for the next few days.

Be sure to check out Facebook for my photos, and I'd love to hear from you all!

Xoxoxo,

Linds