The last full day in Ireland. It wasn’t that interesting, we just sat a lot in the bus, and shopped some in Galway. We drove through Connemara, where they have lots of little stonen walls, dry walls,  instead of fences.

Well, that was the ‘official’ last day in Ireland for us. The following day, we went to Shannon’s airport and went home. Overall, the trip had its ups and downs, but it did give a very good view of the country. However, next time I’d like to go there by myself, instead of with a guided tour!

We went to the Burren. It’s an area that only consists of lots of rocks, and that’s why it got nicknamed “the moon.” It’s directly near the Atlantic Ocean, and the weather was lovely so the water looks gorgeous. We went to the ‘Burren Exposure Centre’, which showed only videos with info. It’s pretty cool to see how it used to be, and how it became this way and such. 

We had lunch somewhere, in some pub of a famous musician no one seemed to know. Well, then we went to the Cliffs of Moher, really high and steep cliffs. Even though no one was allowed behind the fences, people had died there anyway because they went behind them and fell of the cliffs. For the J-rock fans, you can see the cliffs in this PV: Hyde -Shallow Sleep.

We left our hotel in Kenmare the next day, and the last three nights we would sleep in Lisdoonvarna. On our way to Lisdoonvarna, we went to Crag Cave first, which was VERY old, but only discovered not so long again, and had funny stalactites and such. It was dark, chilly and wet, and the guide told us silly stories about a group of stalactites vaguely resembling a “kitchen”…

Then we went to Bunratty Castle and the folk park. After seeing so many castles, it wasn’t very interesting, and I still liked Glenveagh castle the best. The Folk park was just a bit bigger then the Kerry Bog, but pretty much the same thing.

We went to our hotel in Lisdoonvarna then, which was rather silly as well as it had been made to look like a “castle” with white towers. Somehow, my room in this hotel gave me the creeps, too.

Woke up, had breakfast, and left the hotel. We drove the rest of the Ring of Kerry, which had a lot of nice views. We went to the ‘Kerry Bog’, a little place with buildings of Ireland in the past, with little cottages and such. I’ve been to similar parks in the Netherlands and in Lithuania, and I fail to see the difference between them…

After the Kerry Bog, we went to this one farm, Brandon’s place. This man held lots of sheep, which just wandered around the mountains. When they had to come down, dogs would get them down. We got a “show” to see how how the dogs did their job, and it was pretty great to see them racing up and down the mountains.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped in this town called Sneem. The photo is taken from a bridge, it looked pretty cool. That evening we went to this show in Killarney. It was called ‘Dance on the Moon’, a theatre/dance/music show with sort of traditional Irish music and dancing. It was pretty great.

We went to Garinish Island, which used to be a lot of rocks, but some guy put soil and such on it, and created gardens. We went there with a boat, and we saw some seals on the way :)

After that, we drove along a part of the ‘Ring of Kerry’ and went to Muckross House. The queen spent one night or so at Muckross house, but the preparation took six years, and afterwards the family was bankrupt.

We went there by horse and carriages. Our driver was a huge fan of the Hurling team of his county, Kerry, so when we took a small break, he took this little TV, and all the other drivers and him gathered around it, to see the game, which was really funny to see. We got a guided tour through Muckross House, but it wasn’t very interesting, especially because we had seen many castles already.

This time, we stayed at a hotel in Kenmare. The town had a stone circle, and we went there the first night. It was very old, it was used about 2000 b.c. or so, by druids, to do their rituals. The stone in the center is actually a tombstone, but there were also some rituals done at it. Ireland is a very spiritual country, and this circle simply radiated something that gave me the creeps…

When we left the hotel in the morning, some people stayed in, because they were ill.  We were all having a cold, because of the bus’ airconditioning. 

We went to Kinsale first, and we stopped close to the bay, where we could see dolphins (!) swimming. I tried to take a picture of the dolphins, but this annoying little boat was chasing after them so they hid under the surface. We walked to the town of Kinsale, which was around three kilometers. The town turned out to be a disappointment as there was hardly anything to do on a Sunday.

Afterwards, we had some time to spend in Cork for shopping.

Well, as usual we woke up, had our traditional Irish breakfast, and left the hotel. We went to a town called Youghall first, where some parts of the movie Moby Dick were shot. Right.

 We went on, to Middleton, to the Whiskey distillery… Which didn’t manage to impress me either. After lunch (I got really sick of the soup and sandwiches they served pretty much everywhere) we went on, to Cobh (Cove?), where we stayed quite a while.

First we went to this museum about the Irish immigrants, which was pretty interesting. Afterwards we went to explore Cobh, which wasn’t interesting. We climbed this steep road to the cathedral, where we had a nice view of the town. I really loved the way they had painted their houses, it looks so nice and colorful :)

This day was quickly dubbed the “castle day” because we saw many of them. First we went to a castle in Cashel. It’s called the ‘rock of Cashel’. There was a church, a round tower and so on. Then we went to a castle in Cahir. It was still in a very good condition, and they recorded some movies there, like Excalibur (never seen it), and they used some sounds for the movie Braveheart. Yeah, sounds! We drove over the vee for a while, where lots of rhododendrons were growing.

For the last castle, we only took a photo of this, because there were still people living there and it wasn’t open for visitors. Did you know there are about 4000 castles in Ireland? In the late afternoon, we went back to Dungarvan.

Well, the next day we went to our hotel in Dungarvan, seeing various stuff on our way. The guide had a ‘surprise’ for us, something extra, which was a visit to the national stud. My mom and I were like ‘oh no,’ but it turned out not to be so bad. They had some important race horses there which were REALLY expensive, such as the famous racehorse Indian Ridge. Funny thing was, the horse had hay fever so he had paper in his stable instead of hay!

They also had those little Falabella horsies, which are smaller than a pony but still categorized as a horse. I wanted to put one in my suitcase (since it would fit!) and take home, but they wouldn’t let me :( The stud also had a Japanese garden, which was really beautiful.

Well, we went on, stopped in Kilkenny, to shop for a while, but it wasn’t a very interesting town. Around five we arrived at our hotel in Dungarvan.

Woke up, had breakfast, and then we drove through the Wicklow Mountains. It was okay. Then we went to Powers court, which is a house with a garden. We only went to the gardens. It was pretty, especially the Japanese gardens. The walled gardens looked very disorganized though. 

Well, then we went to Dublin, to shop :) I got some CDs and sheet music. I liked the city, would like to go back there some time. 

In the evening we were back in our hotel in the middle of nowhere. We went to the hotel’s ‘pub’ that evening, which wasn’t really a pub but a few hotel rooms with a bar. So I went to my room and watched TV.