Anyways back to Ireland. After renting the car we headed south, our destination being Cork for the big Jazz festival. It's funny that our intial plan was to do all of Ireland, including the north, in 4 days. Let me just say, no matter how small Ireland looks, the roads make is difficult to travel efficiently. They are being improved but they definitly slow you down and Ireland is really not that small :)
The most exciting part of our first day on the road was our stop at Cashel Castle. This is where St. Pattrick babtized the King of Munster. I personally found this very interesting especially after having read "The Princes of ireland", a book i would highly recommend. Below our some pictures from this castle.
Arriving in Cork, with anticipation of partaking in the Jazz festival, we were highly dissapointed. After driving around for an hour we finally found a place to park and we were starved. We ended up spending too much money on some food that was just not that great and couldn't really find where the festival was. We decided to call it an early night, you would be surprised how much driving takes out of you. You would all be jealous, we had the most beautiful place to sleep. Right on the edge of the water with a view out the window that was to die for. In fact this wonderful place was our Ford Focus. Yup that is right, sleeping in the car! Here are some pictures from our hotel room :)
Our next destination entailed a journey through the Ring of Kerry. It was during this 4 hour drive that i was able to take in the essence of Ireland. The few pictures I have of this beautiful scenery do not even begin to capture the incredible colors, moslty green, that radiate from the ground, slowly pulling you into a trance. I spent most of that day in a world of my own. One moment freaking out becasue i was in Ireland, and the next in a dream that i did not want to wake up from. Here is a slideshow from the Ring of Kerry!
The next part of our voyage consisted of the Cliffs of Moher. "They are located in the parish of Liscannor at the south-western edge of The Burren area near Doolin." They are spectcular! There is a slideshow of them below. These cliffs are also interesting because the O'Brian watchtower is locate there. (There is a photo of it below)
"The O'Brien's Tower is a round stone tower at the approximate midpoint of the cliffs. It was built by Sir Cornellius O'Brien, a descendant of Ireland's High King Brian Boru, in 1835, as an observation tower for the hundreds of tourists that frequented the cliffs even at that date. From atop that watchtower, one can view the Aran Islands and Galway Bay, the Maum Turk Mountains and the Twelve Pins to the north in Connemara, and Loop Head to the south."
There is another tower that was built during the time of Napolean but i dont have any pictures of it.
One of our last nights was spent in Galway. This was a really cool place, probably one of my favorite cities in Ireland. We went to a bar, where i enjoyed my first Irish Coffee and listened to traditional Irish music. It was a blast and we met some really cool people. In fact, we ended up going to eat with one of the guys in the band.
The conculision of our trip was spent touring the Birr Castle which is actually one of the few castles left in Ireland where the family still resides. It was beautiful, they even had a mot :) Also connecting to the castle is a world renown Garden. It is huge and beautiful. It also contains the world's largest telescope.
No comments:
Post a Comment