Our trip to Waterford, Killarney, Dublin
and the Dingle Peninsula, Ireland
October 1-12, 2009
Blarney Castle and the Stone Cottage
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Blarney Castle
Saturday, October 3
The route from Waterford (A) to the cottage in Graigue (E)
via Middleton (B), Blarney (C) and Killarney and Dingle (D):
At 11am we were on the road to Blarney Castle. From there, we would drive on to Dingle and then Graigue. We had decided not to stop at
Jameson’s Old Midleton Distillery .
The route we took did not follow the map above because KC and Herb wanted to take a scenic route down to the coast, so we drove to Tramore and followed the coastline to Dungannon before picking up the motorway, and they were right, it was gorgeous along the coast! Again, we made a few wrong turns and saw some gorgeous vistas as a result – I think the entire country is one big photo op – but it was hard to get good pictures through the car window so the only ones I have are from the place where we pulled over and got out of the car.
Cliffs and clouds along the copper coast
Doctor’s cars are clearly marked
Blarney Castle was gorgeous at this time of year and it was also a bit warmer than last year so I made do with my windbreaker rather than schlepping my heavy Barbour. Elke decided not to climb to the top of the castle so I stayed at the bottom with her while Herb and KC checked out the Blarney Stone. I kept looking up at it, waiting for Herb to plant a kiss, but he decided against it. I don’t blame him, I didn’t do it myself last year because of germ issues which, this year, should be an even greater concern given the prevalence of H1N1.
Blarney Castle
Behind us is the entry to the dungeon (and you can see how big the castle is):
Herb (with KC behind him) retreating from the entry to the dungeon
On the ramparts of the castle with the village in the background
The Rock Close was also stunning this year:
HUGE (6-foot high)
Gunnera in the Rock Close:
The Witch’s Kitchen – my favorite tree in the entire world:
A gorgeous waterfall, one of several:
Herb and KC with the waterfall in the background:
KC standing behind the waterfall seen in the previous shots:
The view of the castle, taken on our way out:
Still another view:
The Three Stooges (every time one of us stopped short to look at something that caught our
eye, the others would pile on, like a routine from the three stooges. It was driving KC nuts!):
If you’d like to compare these photos to the ones we took in April
Press here for our 2008 visit to Blarney Castle.
We had a quick bite to eat at Muskerry Arms, where they ushered us upstairs rather than let us eat in the much-more-gemuetlich bar area. The waitress was efficient, if a bit terse, and the food was good so I didn’t complain too loudly. Well, actually, I did, but with no good reason. KC and I had cod fish and chips, Herb had stew, and Elke had roast pork.
Muskerry Arms on the Green in Blarney
The upstairs room
We left Blarney and drove through Killarney nonstop to Garvey’s Market in Dingle. Killarney is truly beautiful and we’re all looking forward to spending the day there. We lost our way again and wound up on a small but very interesting street in Killarney which Elke said she wanted to return to.
KC was concerned that we’d be getting to the cottage after dark and would have trouble finding it so he was hurrying us along but that didn’t stop him for lending a hand in the parking lot when two women asked him to help them jump a car.
Showing two women how to attach jumper cables in Garvey’s parking lot:
While the three of us went into Garvey’s, KC ducked into Spar (another grocery) to pay our toll for using the M50 . The gas station we stopped at on our way in told KC that Sheehy’s Spar was the PayZone Outlet in Dingle.
Inside Garvey’s we bought the minimum – water, coffee, cream, sugar, milk, eggs, bread, butter, bacon and toilet paper… -- and planned for a simple dinner of bread, cheese and wine. Herb didn’t think that would be sufficient so he picked up a pizza as well. I was please to see that there were a few organic products – milk and butter, for instance – which we bought because I want to encourage that practice.
Garvey’s Market advertizes that they support Irish products and, I suspect, that most of the things grown locally are organic whether they’re labeled as such or not although I could not find any data on the subject. Isn’t
rBGH banned in the EU? Although we didn’t buy them, I was amazed to see a frozen package of “Mushy Peas”!
When we drove through Ballyferriter it was almost dark and there were cars lining both sides of the street. We figured people were attending a Saturday night service so they could sleep in the next day.
Graigue Cottage
our home base for the next 7 days
Close-up of Dingle Peninsula:
When we got to the cottage, just after dark, all the lights were on and there was a bowl of freshly baked scones on the counter, 4 eggs, some butter, and a quart of milk in the fridge – Philomena’s hospitality was constantly surprising me! The eggs, we found out later, were from her own chickens.
In all other respects it was exactly as I remembered it.
. Although it had been over a year since our last visit, it was still as clean and neat as it was 18 months ago! The only difference I could see was that the stairs were now carpeted, a welcome change as the upstairs residents can go up and down without impacting whoever is in the downstairs bedroom.
Because it was now dark, we have no shots of the cottage as it looked when we arrived, nor were we able to see the awesome view, so I am reposting some pictures from last year. This cottage is, without a doubt, the best one in the area not only for the physical amenities it offers, but for the efforts that the owners, Phil and Alec Ó Conchúir (O’Connor), make to insure that your vacation is truly special.
The exterior (taken at 5:30 p.m. LAST YEAR) was all stone, a requirement for us:
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Press here for link to the cottage website (a new window will open).
The foyer (these stairs are now carpeted):
On the right was the living room (the furniture was very comfortable):
The dining room with seating for 8:
The fireplace, visible from both the living and dining rooms:
Another view of the living-dining with view of the fireplace and entry to kitchen:
The kitchen was huge:
The master bedroom, upstairs:
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As we did last year, KC and I took the large bedroom upstairs. Herb and Elke took the one on the ground floor.
I heated a scone in the microwave and inhaled it while we prepared dinner. We had a quick dinner and everyone (but me) tried the pizza which was quite different than what we get here in the US – it had sweet notes to it which Elke thought might be sugar in the tomato sauce.
Right after we’d finished dinner, Phil stopped by! She had been at the service in Ballyferriter, a SPECIAL IRISH MUSIC service, and had stopped by earlier to tell me about it (remember what I said about Phil and Alec going out of their way to make your vacation special) but because we got in so late, we weren’t there and I missed it! Rats!
She reminded us that the Dingle Food and Wine Festival was still on and that we could catch the tail end of it the next day, which we decided to do. She said she thought the ferries WERE still running as the summer had been very wet and they needed the income. Apparently, it had been SO wet that some house’s yards had turned into bogs. Given the weather we’d had so far, the deluge appeared to be over.
Another tidbit Phil shared with us was that the two sons who had been managing Kruger’s last year had moved on. They now had their own restaurant in the center of town, An Canteen, and that we should stop by as the food was all ‘home made” and really good. I was looking forward to it.
When Phil left, we played another round of cribbage, which Herb and I won again, bringing the score to HB=2 EK=0 with 1 skunk. KC did the dishes. I had told him before we left that since I did them every single day when we were at home, I was not willing to do dishes on vacation and he would be responsible for doing my share. Amazingly, he did!
Herb and Elke went to bed around 11pm but I stayed up to write in my journal and KC read his book. We went to bed at 12:30 and slept soundly for over 8 hours!
The following morning:
Herb and Elke were up before we were the next morning (and every morning after that as well) and Elke told us that although she had known about the view from last year’s blog, when she entered the living area that morning the vista took her breath away. This is what she saw:
The SPECTACULAR view from the living dining area:
Location of the cottage with respect to the shore:
There are a few more shots of the cottage on the next page.
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Note to self: bring the following next time: boat shoes, knife sharpener, speakers for MP3 player, adaptor plug.
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Last Revised: October 20, 2009
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