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Hello Everyone!
We basically had about 6 days to take on the countries of North Ireland and Ireland and we wanted to make sure we did them justice with such little time. We started off with one day in Belfast, one day in Dublin, one day in Killarney, one day in Cork, and then our last two nights back in Dublin before we took off for France. We had a great time and met many wonderful travelers and enjoyed some of the most beautiful green scenery we have seen…also drank plenty of Guinness to get our hearts pumping with some Irish blood.
Belfast, the capital of North Ireland, is well known for it’s violent past due to political and religious divisions that sends Protestant and Catholic to separate neighborhoods, separate stores, separate pubs, etc. etc. I remember watching the news as a kid and seeing headlines talking of riots and bombs within the town so we didn’t know exactly what to expect, but we did know the violence had since drifted and has become quite the tourist friendly place…which it was!
Our first night we wanted to find a little bar or coffee house where we could get
some wireless internet to plan some more of our trip. We ended up in a pool hall and started to do some planning. About an hour later these 3 guys were playing pool in front of us and were glancing our way every once in a while. Eventually one of then sat down next to me and asked us “What’re ya doin?” (Throw in the Irish accent if you want). We explained we were traveling and planning our next week or so and they told us to turn of the laptop and join them in a game of pool.
They bought us a round of Guinness and we eventually learned that the 3 guys were Ryan (grain salesman that does a lot of business in the mid US states), Ross (works for BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation), and Johnny (Brother of Ross who works in IT), and learned a lot about local area of Belfast. They told us about a road called Sandy Row where there are paintings/murals in the alleyways about the civil fighting that has been going on. We were going to be sure to check that out in the morning. After getting acquainted, we played a
Sandy Row of Belfast
Reminders of the turmoil from not so long ago.pool game called Killer where everyone put in one pound (don’t convert to Euros until Ireland) and you are given 3 lives and you can hit in any ball you want to but if you miss you loose a life. Well, I was the first out and Heather made it for a couple more rounds, but we lost. Ryan won, but at the end handed us the money and said to enjoy our travels and never bring a laptop into a pub again…you are only supposed to drink or play pool 😊
The next day we were going to head to Dublin in the afternoon and after getting ready we had about 1.5 hour to get some sight seeing in. So we ran through the streets of Belfast and were able to see the paintings along Sandy Row and take some pictures (although they said be discreet while doing this), City Hall in Donegall square, as well as the huge boat making cranes, Samson and Goliath, which are located where the Titanic was constructed. After running around to see it all we caught a bus to Dublin and took a much needed nap.
We arrived in Dublin in
pouring rain, but getting used to it by now. Luckily our hostel was right next to the bus depot. We were also very excited about being in Ireland because we could start using our Eurail train passes. We were only able to book one night at the hostels in Dublin and soon learned that there were 3 concerts in town so many people were flocking there. So we decided we would walk around Dublin that night and then in the morning jump a train west to the small town of Killarney to get a feel for the countryside then check out the town of Cork and visit Blarney Castle to kiss the famous stone.
Our walk in Dublin was nice, but in the end it is just a big city with high prices, but they do have the Guinness brewery…more on that later. We left in mid morning and arrived in Killarney around 3pm. After checking in to our hostel we grabbed our umbrellas and decided to walk about the Killarney National Park. There was a restored castle in the park and it was about a 6km round trip and decided to go for it. Ross Castle, as it
was called, was a beautiful sight, but we wanted more so we continued to walk in the park and view the lake and other sights. After about 4 or 5 hours we returned back to town and determined that we ended up walking about 11km or around 5 miles. The hostel had a sign up for local tours and at a great price so the next day we decided to take a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry.
The Ring of Kerry is probably the Southwest’s best known peninsula that offers picturesque villages, lush green mountains covered in sheep, as well as an amazing coast line with views of the Atlantic Ocean. The highlight of our tour was stopping off at Brandon’s Sheep farm, no seriously, it was cool. This guy, Brandon, has this hour long demonstration where you first learn about different types of sheep and then he shows you how he has his dogs trained to herd the sheep. The two dogs he had were both trained to do the same commands, but each had its own special type of whistle or call that it would respond to. So he would whistle one way and one
dog would take off, then he would whistle another way and the other dog would take off. It really was quite amazing. After taking in the rest of the Ring we headed to the train station for a night in the town of Cork.
While on our tour the Irish rugby team Munster was playing some French team for the Euro-cup and Munster won so when we arrived in Cork the pubs were filled with locals celebrating all while clad in the red and white colors of the team. Heather and I were looking for a low key night so we got some Chinese take out then headed to the hostel for some sleep. The next morning we woke up to some rain, again, but it was our only day in Cork and we had to see the famous Blarney Castle. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Blarney Stone (watch more Rick Steves or read my attempt at an explanation) it is a stone that is on the top of the castle and you kiss it while leaning over backwards while staring down about 100 feet at the ground. Maybe the picture to the right will
make it clearer. Despite the widespread rumor that locals relieve themselves on the stone, it is said that by kissing the stone you will be granted with the gift of persuasion (or as some say - the gift of gab). Luckily it was raining so the stone was nice and clean for us.
After making our way back to Cork we headed to the train station and jumped a train back to Dublin. We had two nights in Dublin before heading to Paris, but we had no definite plans. One of our travel books provides self guided walks through some towns and there was one for Dublin we were going to check out. The one we did for London was good so we were excited to give this one a try. Well the walk was crap, the brewery they mentioned was closed down, so at the end of the day we decided to pay the 9 Euros and tour the Guinness factor, which was well worth it. At the end of the tour you get a Guinness at their bar that is on the top floor of the building and offers a 360 degree panoramic view of the town.
We ran into these two Brazilians at the brewery that we met in Scotland, so we all headed to Temple bar for a few drinks and called it a night because tomorrow we are heading to Paris!
Currently we are on a high speed train headed for Madrid, Spain so look forward to our next blog where we tell you about our run in with the Paris Metro police (not happy about that), our search for the Hunchback of Notre Dame, meeting the two nicest people in the country of France (Hi Svetlana and Yann!), as well as our biking adventure through the Loire Valley. Thank you all for your comments and we miss you all!
Love Ben and Heather
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Mary (Mom) Wright
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Looks like fun!
Goregous scenery - would really like to visit Ireland some day, but vicariously through the two of you will have to do for now. Travel on!