Today we fell into the Ring of Kerry, which is basically a tourist driving trail along County Kerry, which is in the southwest part of Ireland. We actually didn’t drive the entire Ring, as to do so would have taken upwards of 5-6 hours. However, we started on the ring, which took us through Killarney National Park.
Our day started by driving through Adare, which was a pretty sleepy little town on our way to the Ring. We walked around and explored the town, and stumbled on The Old Creamery Company building, which has been turned into a store which is like weird love-child of Fort Collins’ Perennial Gardner with a random toystore and a Christmas store. It made for some interesting pictures, and we walked away with a box of fudge.
Bethany modeling a hat in the Creamery Company
This store had everything, including some evil-looking nome dolls
In the middle of Adare was a really pretty Town Park, which had some lovely views of greenery, including a nice arch that made for some great pictures.
After Adare we headed up into the Ring, heading into Killarney National Park. To be honest, if you live in Colorado, this isn’t anything you haven’t seen before. The sights, while pretty, did seem pretty similar to other mountain and valley ranges that you’ve seen. Nonetheless, the pictures were nice.
We stopped and ate lunch at a viewing point called Ladies View.
We went onto the first stop in the Ring, a town called Kenmare. Again, it is a smaller typical Irish town, but did make for some nice shopping and sightseeing. At that point we had learned that the next stretch of the Ring, while only 15 kilometers long, would take about 90 minutes to drive. We figured that would be a nice opportunity to turn around and see the Torc Waterfall.
Arriving at the falls, we really thought that we had been had by our Colorado expectations, seeing a small dropping in the creek that appeared to be the falls.
However, we walked a little further up and saw the real falls, which made the short diversion worth it.
After a day full of driving we made a guilty pleasure and stopped at what’s become our favorite restaurant: Teach Ai Bhrain, which we were told translated is “House of O’Brian”. We stopped there for the first time a few nights ago, and the food was so amazing that we’ve looked for any excuse to go back. The food was fantastic, but eating out for dinner every night is taking its toll, I’m ready for the gym when we head back.
Tonight is our last night at the East Clare Golf Village. We will be staying at a hotel closer to the airport in Shannon tomorrow night, as we leave on Wednesday morning. Right now the plan for Tuesday is to explore Limerick a little more and perhaps some of the surrounding area, but mainly to prepare for the trip home. I’ll try to make a post tomorrow night if time allows, but it may be short.