More Ireland of long ago

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We didn’t really like Cork much. I’ve heard good things about it, but to us it was just another city.
Just north of it was Blarney castle.


The grounds are nice, but the castle is not in the greatest of repair.


There were some big holes in some of the walls.


We did climb to the top. But, neither of us hung upside down 5 stories up to kiss the stone. Especially as we had been told what the locals do there at night.
Sadly, my wife does not like heights. And, we tried the back stairs down to avoid the rock kissing line. But, those stairs were very steep (more like a well with bumps really) and had big openings in the wall to the outside while 30 feet or more up.

Then, we set off through the mountains in the south west.


There are times it wound in very narrow roads around the tops of the mountains.
At one point while going around a curve halfway up a mountain, my wife asked “who built these roads”.
Coming around the corner was a construction crew working on the road.
“These people,” I told her.

There are lots of very nice views up there.


And, there are lots of interesting things to see.


And, we had lots of fun stopping to see them. No, really.


It was a lot of empty space.


It wasn’t all empty either.


There are also places it goes down to the sea.
I really, really liked the color of the water where the gulf stream hits Ireland.


Then, we ended up in Glengariff.
It’s a nice town right on the water.


The B&B there was nice, but clearly had not wanted to be open in October. But, they were, so we stayed there anyhow. It is a nice town with a lot of places to walk through parks along the water.