Ireland Trip - Day Three

Ah Day Three. Probably my favorite day of the trip. You can tell by the huge amount of pictures we took. We got up early, and having learned from our experience of failing to find a breakfast place the day before, we opted just to go downstairs to Greene's for breakfast. We both had eggs benedict, but mine with hollandaise on the side.



My breakfast - Eggs Benedict on Brown Bread. Brown bread is sort of this traditional Irish bread - I guess like a heavy wheat bread.


Clover sprouts? We spotted these things on a lot of meals.

After breakfast we headed to Blarney Castle, which is about a ten minute drive north of Cork. The castle grounds were gorgeous and very scenic. The castle itself was really interesting. Both Max and I agreed this was our favorite attraction of the trip. You can go inside and really get a feel for what it would have been like to live in a castle. My guess is that it would have been very very chilly.






Me in front of a cave by Blarney Castle


Entrance to dungeons



Guard tower



View from castle


Window in castle - doesn't exactly let in a lot of light!






Awful tiny steep circular stairs - the only way to the top. I had an okay time getting up them, but was rather terrified going down. They installed the rope a few years ago, I can't imagine what it was like without it!



Another window in the castle


View from top of castle


Some sort of wall by the castle

Top of the castle

So, legend has it, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you'll receive the gift of gab. So over the hundreds of years that this stone has been around, people have been kissing it. Its located at the top of the Blarney castle, several feet down from the top of the wall (I'm explaining this poorly - that gift of gab would be of help here), so the only way to reach it is to lay down and lean back to get to it, the way Max is doing here. Back in the day, they'd hold you by your ankles on the other side of the wall. Scary.

Of course I was thoroughly grossed about by the germiness of the rock and had no desire to kiss it at all. Later, Pete told me that he knew of someone who worked there and said castle workers often peed on it. For Max's sake, I hope that was just an urban legend.


Max at the top of Blarney Castle


View from top of castle


Only after I made it down those terrifying steep stairs did I notice this!


Strange plant called Elephant Ears on the castle grounds


Castle grounds


Forest by the castle






Me by some Druid stones. Guess they were sacred to the Druids. (incidentally I looked all puffy that day, because I was suffering from hayfever, as it turned out)

After Blarney Castle, we drove a few hours east all the way to the Cliffs of Moher. Gorgeous, obviously.















After spending some time checking out the cliffs, we headed to Doolin, this tiny village just north of the Cliffs of Moher. Doolin was adorable - mostly farm land, peppered with B&Bs.

Castle by Doolin

We checked into the Doolin Activity Lodge, which was awesome. I thought the place was adorable, and our room was just so bright and cheery.


Driving up to the lodge


Doolin Activity Lodge


Room in lodge


View of the neighboring farm from our room.


"Town" area of Doolin.




General views of Doolin




All the pastures are seperated by these little low rock walls.





Since it was still early we decided to drive around to check out The Burren. Doolin is one of about five small towns in this large area of eastern Ireland called The Burren, which is famous for its limestone landscapes. It was amazing. The whole area is also filled with historical sites, like old castles, churches, burial grounds, etc.










Plants and flowers grow in the little cracks - I don' t have a good pic of that tho.




Old church and cemetary. Max took this pic. I stayed in the car. Being Chinese, I'm rather superstitious about playing around in cemetaries, and won't go in one unless I'm actually there to pay my respects to someone I know. Also, had a rather unfortunate accident in a cemetary back in college so I took that as a warning sign not to mess around the dead.










After driving around for several hours, we decided it was time to eat. We headed back to the town area of Doolin, and went into O'Connors, the only pub there. The place was packed. Luckily we were able to get a table.





I had mussels, which were awesome, and Max had fish and chips, which were also terrific. Since mussels aren't very filling, I also had some homemade apple crumble a la mode. :) A little later, the traditional Irish band started up, which really made the experience perfect.


A traditional Irish band playing traditional Irish music.

After the pub closed, we headed back to our lodge, which was only a five minute walk away. There weren't any street lights, so you could really see the stars, and it was just incredibly beautiful. See, it was one of the best days of our trip!