Irish Touring Day 6 Killarney

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This was a great day!

Probably our favourite. Unfortunately it was probably also the day that set off Christine's Asthma and Herve and Lauren's hay fever because the flowers were all blooming in the National Park and Muckross Gardens. (But we didn't know this until later although we should have guessed from Lauren's hay fever. She is the healthiest one amongst us since she has been put on the gluten and egg free diet, in future, if she gets snuffly from pollen exposure, I will ring the warning bells for Christine's asthma medication to start it's magic. Knowing this before would have saved us an emergency ward adventure..even Intensive care) when we returned and Christine experienced her first asthma attack in 5 years.)

Killarney is a great town with all the mod cons and good pub. One word of warning though: avoid any pubs that talk about extending a "warm Irish welcome" and have American flags flying beside Irish ones. Americans mean big money to this part of Ireland and they are catered for in many of the larger tourist towns. You can see burgers and other US dishes on the menu: Don't get them! They are not very good. (Yeah, I fell for it)

In the morning we walked around Ross Castle and along a forest park in the Killarney National Park which was breathtakingly beautiful. The green was lime and the constant moisture means every conceivable surface is covered in either moss or vine. Magical, we kept expecting to see Leprechauns, or at least a couple of fairies.

We hired bikes form a hilarious Irish man near the Tesco carpark ( Every time someone new came in he would say "shit" because he had very few bikes left...you can imagine the reaction of the Americans. Only the Canadians were able to appreciate him and if you did (appreciae him) you got rewarded with the best bikes) and rode out to the National Park. This was spectacular and I loved seeing how many different greens were visable. Poor Lauren had a difficult bike, and hayfever but she soldiered on.
Home to Killarney YHA and a goods night's rest

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Photos

Ross Castle
14th Century residence of the O'Donoghues who lorded over the place at this time. It was the last place in Munster to succumb to Oliver Cromwell and was apparently given up promptly when the English held a siege from the water.