Blarney Castle and County Kerry (part 1)

We said goodbye to Kinsale and headed north through Cork to Blarney. Although Blareny Castle is considered touristy and maybe a bit tacky, I really enjoyed it. The grounds were beautiful, the castle was fun to explore and kissing the Blarney stone was an experience :)

We raced ahead of some tour groups up the tiny winding stairs to the Blarney Stone. As we waiting for our turn, we got to read up on the Blarney Stone and the difference between Baloney and Blarney:

The guy in red was the one to help us get in position to kiss the stone. It was quite the assembly line. You sat, turned around, the guy helped you down, you kissed the stone, and up you went... Next!

The tour group we beat up the steps:

On the way down we stopped and looked through the different rooms of the castle.

Back when the castle was in use there was a floor beneath this fireplace, but I thought it was neat that it now looked like it was floating.

The Blarney Stone was at the top of the castle. The bit of blue peeking through in this pictures was where you leaned back to kiss the stone.

After the castle we headed for Killarney. On the way we saw a sign for pottery so we pulled off the main road to a tiny road which ended by this little cottage. The potter came out and we got to talk to her for awhile. We eventually bought something for my parents as a thank you for watching Elyse and Anastasia.

We had lunch down the road from the pottery place in the tiny town of Ballyvourney at An Cruisein Lan Cafe (I had a awesome brie panini with onion relish), and then continued on to Killarney National Park. Again, we had wonderful weather.

We stopped by the visitor center at the Muckross House to ask some questions and figure out what we wanted to do next. Instead of taking a tour of the house (at this point we had discovered we liked looking at ruins rather than done up houses/castles) or taking riding in a Jaunting Car (horse drawn cart), we opted for a boat ride around Muckross lake.

We got to the lake and the driver was just hanging out as if he were waiting for us. As he showed us around the lake we got to talk to him about the area and how he spends his day. He told us how lucky we were to be out on the lake in the sunshine :)

Limestone

The Meeting of the Waters where Upper Lake, Muckross Lake and Lough Leane (the biggest lake of the 3) came together.

We then went through this "secret" river into Lough Leane...

...back under this bridge and into Muckross Lake once again.

Our guide- born in Boston to Irish parents and then grew up in Ireland.

The boat house

I think the tour of the Lake was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was so nice out and the water was calm, plus we were the only 2 on the tour.

Down the road from Muckross House was Torc Waterfall. We parked and walked through a moss covered forest for about 5 minutes to the falls:

After a few stops and some photo ops, we were in Kenmare.

Ashfield B&B in Kenmare was very nice. It felt like we were a guest in someone's house that could cook great breakfasts. I wish it was in town so we could have walked to dinner, but is was only a 3 minute drive into town and Mary was a very helpful hostess. 

Kenmare's main strip:

We ate dinner at The Coachman while Micheal O'Brien and Sean O'Connor played. O'Brien really got into his music.  The music was entertaining, but the food wasn't the best.

When Micheal O'Brien was done, so were we and we headed back to the B&B for some sleep.

Side note: When I was looking up O'Brien for a link I found a lot of footage. He played for some big crowds. I didn't realized we had a front row seat to one of the best accordion players in Ireland.