Ring of Kerry - on to Cork
As we left Knightstown, we saw the lighthouse right outside our room.
It is interesting that this seems to be one of the westernmost parts of Europe and the site of many of the early attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) to install the trans-Atlantic cable to connect Europe with the United States. When you think of that effort, to lay down cables on the ocean floor, from a boat, you are truly impressed with how inventive our ancestors were. And to think, today, you call customer service and it's handled by someone in India, or Nepal.
The gentleman running our B&B told us to get off the beaten path and take the Ring of Skellig. It's the western most edge of County Kerry and the Ring of Kerry and takes you along the coast. As we left the lodging in Knightstown, our first stop was the Cliffs of Kerry. This is a small observation point, on private land, overlooking the wild Atlantic. I say wild because the winds today, on the cliff's edge had to be close to 50 miles per hour. We even had trouble just standing up. One point of the cliffs was closed to visitors due to the winds and the part where we were allowed had what we thought were very high winds. We ventured out to the cliff's edge and were able to get close enough to safely view the cliffs, snap a few shots of the ocean and cliffs, and then get back to safety.
The Skellig Islands are in the distance. It is the site of the filming for one of the last Star Wars movies. Someone said it is the place Luke Skywalker was living in isolation in a house like the one below.
As we continued on around the ring, we went over a mountain top. We had many one-lane roads but the drivers were very courteous and friendly. I guess since they live here they are used to visitors like us. It's hard to describe the scenery. The mountains meeting the sea. Life on the ocean has a beauty to it, but deep-down, you can see it is a hard life and these people are tough. The fishing boats are as rugged as the people. Some of the land is tilled, but not much. There seems to be a balance between making your life the hard, old way or making your life off of tourists. I'm sure even the latter is hard work. Either way you have to admire the people here.
We took a slight detour back to an area where we were the day before. It was raining the day before and we wanted to see Lady's View in the sunlight. It did not disappoint. We also tried to go to Dunloe's Gap but would have had to walk a few kilometers uphill to get the full view. We passed and headed on to Cork.
This is Lady's View. It doesn't get anymore beautiful than this.
And this.
We arrived in Cork and pulled into a parking garage and made our way to our hotel. We stayed in the Metropole Hotel which was a little disappointing. It billed itself as a premier hotel in the City and we found it both dated and lacking in amenities. That aside, we had a great time in Cork.
Our first evening we went about a block away into the Sin E. I can't seem to paste special characters so the name is not really correct. We happened upon a group of traditional musicians. Awesome. One violin, one flute, one accordion, one banjo and one guitar. There was a fifth musician who played the drums and a flute depending on the song.
Then they were followed by two guys on guitars. We've never heard two unaccompanied guitarist do a cover of a Pink Floyd song. But these guys did it and did it well. One spoke on the mike and sang a John Prine song with a slight Texas draw and I knew that they were from the US but as we spoke with them off mike, the Irish accents came through. Craic! What fun.
We had a full day in Cork and had been invited to reach out to some relatives of friends. But we realized that we were just too worn out and took the day off. We walked up to the Shandon Bells and tower at St. Anne's Church. We visited the English Market, a food market that was very similar to ones we have been to in other parts of Europe. We stopped for a bite of lunch and then made our way back to the hotel for a little nap. As it turned out, the nap was longer than we had planned resulting in an early night's sleep. As we left town in the morning, we wish we'd had more time here too.
During our walking, we came upon this brussels sprout stem. We don't find them sold like this in the states. In fact, I often wondered what they looked like while growing. Now I know.
On our way out of town the next morning, we drove down to Kinsale. Kinsale is a small village on the Atlantic just south of Cork. Kinsale is steep in history of England, Ireland and Spain. The Spanish established an outpost here and worked with Irish Rebels to fight against the English rule. They lost that battle. The English established Charles Fort. This is one of the best remaining examples of a fortress in Europe. Definitely worth seeing. Ten miles off-shore was the site of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.
We left Kinsale for Dublin that morning, excited about the days ahead but trying to stay in the present.
The word of the day for Kinsale is one-way. They have no one-way streets and we managed to always meet someone on a street that's no more than 10' wide. So every time you met someone, someone had to give. I'm sure they loved this game as much as I did.
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