Ireland: Kissing the Blarney Stone

Today we were allowed to sleep in. I didn’t get up until 8AM to take my shower and then we went down to breakfast. I managed to grab some cereal and bread before making myself a ham sandwich for lunch.

The group eating breakfast at the sole picnic table.

Tony, the bus driver who took us to Cork, picked us up and drove us to Blarney Castle. The castle was in a pretty park with a lot of gift shops. I got to kiss the blarney stone, twice actually, and nobody was able to get a good picture, so I had to buy one from the gift shop. They really rush you through at the top of the castle and you have to climb a lot of steps to get up there, so when it's your turn, someone better be ready to snap a picture.



View from Blarney castle

Kissing the Blarney Stone

The lovely Tony

There was an ice cream shop next door so I tried the triple chocolate, which was actually really creamy. It had chunks of white chocolate on top and dark chocolate pieces throughout. It was delicious – not very cheap though.

Our ice cream selections

After Blarney, we went to the Cork City Gaol, which is an old Irish jail that has been converted into a museum. We listened to a walking tour through the headsets they gave us and it was actually really interesting. I took a lot of pictures and signed their guestbook.



Inside the jail -- the audio portion of the tour is very important

Outside the gaol

Finally, Tony took us to Barryscourt Castle. The castle was okay, but you can tell they changed a lot when they remodeled. She even said the castle was mostly destroyed by the prior owner. The steps in it were very steep, but we managed. On the grounds of the castle was an apple orchard where we were allowed to pick apples following out tour. They actually tasted pretty good, just the right amount of sweetness. They aren’t as good as the pink lady apples that I found at the grocery store though.

Window seat inside the castle

Picking apples

I asked Tony where we would buy an exit sign as we were leaving and he promised to take us by a supply store. When we went, they were out of them though. He said he would look on his way home for us.

He dropped us off at the hostel and we ate dinner, which was vegetable and chicken soup with noodles, bread, and celery. It was okay. If there weren’t noodles though, I probably would have starved.

At dinner, Kirstyn started talking to an eleven-year-old boy from Spain. He didn’t know very much English, about the same amount I know of Spanish, so the conversation was difficult. It was cute trying to converse with him though. Language barriers are so fun to work around.

Our little Spanish friend