Ballyseede Castle

October 1, 2012

We landed at Ballyseede Castle.  Wow!  This place is really nice.  It’s a castle and we are in Paddy Gallagher’s room. The second g is silent.

We went to Charles Fort this morning.  This fort on the coast in Kinsale is still in fairly good shape considering it was built in the 1500s.  We walked all around.  It was kind of eerie.  I thought of the thousands of years people had worked and lived there, lived and died there.  It was ghostly, but again, amazing thinking that this is the place that the Irish lost the war against the British in 1601. 

After walking all around the fort we had a cup of hot chocolate and a latte.  As I’ve said the people are so nice here.  The lady who waited on us came over and set down a plate with a perfectly warmed scone.  It wasn’t one of those scones that you buy for X # of too many dollars at the local (every corner) coffee shop in the US.  (You know the ones I mean.  If you threw one at someone and hit them upside the head, it would knock them out.)  This scone was flaky, warm, with small currants in it.  The homemade raspberry jelly and fresh whipped cream didn’t hurt!  We call that lunch. 

   

Onto the Blarney Castle.  Annie O’Brian had quite a bit of trouble getting us there.  After the 4^th pass by of the “turn hard right here” we decided to just follow the street signs. 

Blarney Castle is quite big!  The gardens around them are very pretty, even the poison garden.  We stood in line to climb up to the Blarney Stone.  Going up the stairs slowly wasn’t so bad.  BC and I decided not to kiss the Blarney Stone as we felt that we were eloquent enough and besides, we haven’t had out flu shots yet this year.  We took pictures and climbed down.  BC insisted on sliding down several of the slippery spiral steps, but luckily didn’t take any of us down with him or hurt himself.  After that, I said, in a stern voice, “Stop taking pictures till we get out of here!” 

Up

 

Down

Texture

Family note:  I think this is where my brother eats out.

We set up Annie O’Brian to take us to the Ballyseede Castle.  It was about a 1 ½ hour drive through very rural roads.  At one point the Guard (Police) stopped us.  “How ya doing today?  Fine.  Where are you from?  California. Ah you must be crying over losing the Ryder Cup.”  We’re sitting in the middle of a town chatting with the Guard!  Like I said the Irish are so friendly.  “Well, you’re off to Tralee, have a good time!”  And off we went.  Here are some pictures of the roads we took.  Beautiful.

Notes about stuff:

Our car is made of tin.  You slam the door and the whole thing shakes.  The radio is crap.  And for goodness sakes, the steering wheel in on the wrong side! 

Funny road signs:  “Traffic Calming Ahead 400 M.”  Maybe that would be good for I 80, huh?

Don’t you want to live in Ringaskiddy?

Did I mention the roads are very tiny?  We literally scrape by when passing a car.  But everyone does it. 

We are having a blast!!  Bc and gc