Blogs from County Kerry, Ireland, Europe - page 9

I had decided after looking at all the travel books on Ireland that we would be able to handle about a day of cows and sheep grazing on the rolling green fields. When I started reading about the the WILD ATLANTIC WAY I knew this is what we needed! This route is the world’s newest and longest defined coastal touring route…just 2500 km - we would actually driving at the edge of Europe (or as an Irish lad said) this would be the "last stop before New York" . We seem to get our adrenaline rush from those very very narrow roads - that have boarders of bushes which are instead of shoulders on the road. In simple terms - you are driving on the wrong side of the road with no room for error . ... read more

In a country where we quickly determined there was more scenic diversity than advertised we began our journey to the southwest and southern part of this fascinating land. Our trip was already two weeks old and we’d seen and experienced so much, it was almost difficult to imagine what we could find next that would match what we had already experienced. But we found it…..and more. Dingle First….a little background. When we were in Dublin at a pub called the Brazen Head for an evening of story telling and music (to be described in our future Dublin blog), we had the good fortune of striking up a conversation with Johnny, who was the storyteller. He was extremely proud of his land and when we told him we would be in Ireland for the better part of ... read more

If we were to travel directly to our next accommodation just outside Killarney we could be there in less than an hour. That would obviously be too easy and all we would be sightseeing would be farmland. So our plan for the day is to travel to the end of the Dingle Peninsula and back again and then onto our hotel, The 19thGreen. It would have been great to have been able to pull the curtains back this morning and seen the sun shining brightly but................. The reasonable day of weather we had yesterday has deserted us and there was rain hitting the bedroom window. We had given a breakfast time of 9am so we could enjoy a lie in and by delaying our departure as long as we could perhaps the rain would clear away. ... read more

After a night of lost sleep due to ‘boy racers’ all night (thought they were only in NZ!) we left Killarney at 8.50 and headed in an anti clockwise direction around the Ring of Kerry. The maps all advised to go in this direction but surely many people had ignored that advice. The road is not wide, it is twisty, uneven and certainly not fast. It seemed a bit strange that so much money had been poured into the motorways and main tourist routes, like the Ring of Kerry, had only a very good road in odd places. Most of the surface is patched and uneven though some of that may be due to bog or rocks under the surface. Our first stop down along the Dingle Bay inlet coast was at a Bog Museum which ... read more

Day 3 We started our day with a killer breakfast at the Ballyseed castle and then off we went to explore the Ring of Kerry. Our first stop was to have an irish coffee at the Red Fox Inn and we walked through a replica of an old bog village. There were two irish wolfhounds there but they wouldn't get up. As we were driving thru Cahersiveen, we saw a small grocery called James Curran so we snapped a photo. This was also the town of Daniel O'Connell (the Liberator). Back in the van, we stopped at a lame museum, a bit disappointing. But we recovered by going to some castle ruins and got to explore them. We rode along the coast and got to enjoy more spectacular views, stopping at the Skellig cliffs, which rival ... read more