We woke up to heavy rain which
stayed with us well into the afternoon.
Our walk from the bus to
Blarney Castle was quite wet. The Blarney
Stone is built into Blarney Castle (about 12 km from Cork,
Ireland). Apparently kissing the stone endows one with the gift of the gab. Neither one of us need any help in
this area so we opted not to climb the 100+ stairs in the spiral staircase and instead
viewed the operation from below.
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| Blarney Castle |
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| The Blarney Stone is way up there! |
The 15th century
castle is a popular tourist site in Ireland, attracting visitors from all over
the world to kiss the stone and tour the castle and its gardens. Luckily the
rain may have kept some of the crowds at bay. By the time we had walked a bit
around the Castle and the gardens the first of our group got down from kissing the
stone to find there was a lineup to the 60 minute wait post. Bob, our tour
director had us up and at it early to beat the crowds from the two cruise ships
that are in nearby and it was well worth the early start. We visited the poison
garden (yep – you read that right – poisonous plants from around the world) and
the owner’s mansion.
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| Owner's "house" |
Near the castle there is one of
the largest woolen mill shops where we did a bit of shopping and stayed out of
the rain.
It was then by bus in the driving rain to Waterford, a seaport in southeast Ireland, the country’s oldest city. It was founded by Vikings in 914 A.D. and parts of its ancient walled core remain. Within Reginald’s Tower, a 1003 fortification, the Waterford Museum of Treasures displays local archaeological finds.
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| Reginald's Tower |
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| The Solheim Cup |
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