Yesterday (Sunday) was our day of rest. Our crew (Little, hubby and myself along with my brother and his delightful partner) met up with our buddies from Seattle, the Gray family. We slept in, figured out the castle, went grocery shopping in Aviemore, developed our Dungeon and Dragon characters (Shhhh!), planned for Thanksgiving and listened to the Seahawks beat the Eagles on the radio. I won’t consider it a day wasted as we needed to recharge and the sheep and castle provided plenty of company and culture. Also, Jason introduced us to Irn Bru, Scotland’s second most popular beverage.

 

Our goal today was a simple one: Loch Ness and Nellie. One of Little’s favorite movies is “The Waterhorse.” We planned on heading to Inverness first to have lunch with all of friends staying at the castle and then over to the Loch. Inverness is the biggest city nearby; about 30 miles away and has a wonderful foodie culture and lots of choices for our pescetarian-vegan-eat everything crew.

Inverness is a northern town in every way. It’s been a place of epic battles between local clans and invaders from Norway; capitol of the Pictish people, the place of Jacobite revolts and where Mary Queen of Scots was once denied access to the castle. It’s a cold, hard, proud and beautiful town, with the river Ness running through it. We checked out the Victorian Market but because of the time of year, many things were closed. Not the bagpipe store or the ghillie shirt shop (no, really.)

We sat down to lunch at a delightful Turkish place where the owner tried his best Jersey accent on us and told us that there were only three blocks to Inverness really, and nothing much to do there but shop. Since shopping isn’t really our thing, we decided to walk around and explore the churches. We found a church of Scotland, a Roman Catholic church and two “Free North” churches.

  

After a few hours walking around, we jumped back into the car, toes freezing ready to drive to Loch Ness and check out Urquart Castle. The drive was pretty and you could tell you were near because of the volume of Nellie stores – Nellie stuffies! Nellie learning center! Nellie postcards! Nellie Café!

While the castle was closed (this is the big challenge with November touring), it was wonderful to see as the sun was coming down. We watched for a while but the cold proved to be too much so we jumped back into the car to drive back to our home, Muckrach Castle. Tomorrow we are planning on a full day driving the Isle of Skye.

 

Lazy morning in Edinburgh! We woke up knowing today would mostly be a travel day again; this time to the Scottish Highlands. There was one thing on the agenda today and it was a simple one: find the Vermeer for mom!

Since I was a teenager and saw my first Vermeer painting in France (The Lacemaker), I have been captivated by his work. It looks so completely different in public than in a book. It’s also honest and dark and captivating. The work in the National Scottish Gallery is an important one – Christ in the Church of Mary and Martha is the first painting he did that survived. It shows a very different painter than his older surviving pieces – there are only 34 Vermeers in the world and as of today, I have seen 22!

Little loved the art. The gallery spanned the Italian renaissance work to the impressionists, which was his favorite. We talked about squinting our eyes and how the impressionists’ paintings would change, we looked at Greek mythology stories in oil. He held my hand and asked questions and even asked to take selfies in front of a few pictures. It was a lovely morning.

 

Killarney Plans:

• Gap of Dunloe
• Ring of Kerry
• Moll’s Gap
• Ross Castle tour

Killarney Actual:

• Muckross House
• Muckross Abbey
• Torc Waterfall
• Ross Castle closed; but pictures taken in the rain with only ducks as fellow visitors
• Shopping

  

  Window shopping in Killarney

 

Drinking Chocolate

Your plans can change just like *that* and luckily, my little family is always prepared for things to go differently than planned. After a sweet night in Killarney window shopping and watching the city put up Christmas decorations, and a visit to St. Mary’s Cathedral where we caught the end of mass and lit prayer candle, thick local butter on Irish brown bread – THIS is why Ireland and I have a thing. I mean, breakfast cheese? Who does that? And yesterday, one of the selections on the breakfast menu was “assorted cheese selections” and “potato waffles.” Yes please, Ireland – you were meant for me.

After breakfast, we checked in with the Gap of Dunloe tours as it rained pretty hard over night and early in the morning. Although the sun was shining, the tours had just ended for the year – so on to plan B. The heavy rain started again so we decided against the long ring of Kerry drive and Moll’s Gap, and instead planned on hitting Ross Castle (supposedly open, according to the internet.)

 

We decided due to a little break in the weather we would go a little farther than the castle, travel a bit along the ring and hit Muckross House in the Killarney National Park, a super interesting home that had at one point belonged to the Guinness family. The big thing we had promised little with Gap of Dunloe was the pony carts and we knew Muckross had them. I’m so, so glad we did! Due to the time of year and few tourists, we bartered down (unknowingly and unaware) the price of the “jaunties” as they call them. We asked how much for a ride and it went like this:

“50 euro for the carriage, 40 minutes. 50 euro for all three of you. Okay, 40 euro. 40 euro, 45 minutes.”

Me: Okay. To the waterfall? How do we get to the abbey?

“40 for the waterfall, 40 for the abbey. Okay, I’ll do 30 for the abbey if you do the waterfall. Okay, the season and all, 25 for the abbey if you go to the waterfall. No, 20 is what I will do.  40 and 20 for the waterfall and the abbey, one and a half hours.”

Warm wool blankets for the carriage

 

I’m not good at bartering. This was baffling and if I had been allowed to say a word during the whole thing, I would have been good at 40 and 30. So we tipped well.

What a carriage ride it was! We rode past the middle Killarney lake bundled in woolen blankets, seeing a herd of red deer in a field and wind rhododendron to the Torc Waterfall, where we jumped from the covered carriage and hiked VERY QUICKLY to avoid being soaked. The waterfall was lovely. We then traversed the property over to the abandoned Abbey. If you know me, you know I’m a little obsessed with a specific time in history and the Abbey was immediately front and center when the carriage driver explained that the “hanging tree” we drove by was not called that by its shape (my assumption) but by

what Oliver Cromwell did to the local men. And it was Cromwell himself that destroyed the Abbey. He destroyed so many that I don’t know all of their names – it was over years and years. So it was fascinating to learn about the history. The Muckross Abbey was by far the highlight of our trip for me.

The ancient trees, the Celtic crosses in the graveyard, how all of it was being swallowed by the yew and cedar trees and rhododendrons. The light came through the barren winter trees and made the empty windows look like they had stained glass. It was breathtaking and something everyone should see.

We headed to Ross Castle next and the rain really began to hit. We ran as fast as we would up to the entrance of the castle, only to discover it was closed. We decided to check out the exterior of the castle and the towers before it was just too cold and too wet and we retreated back to the warm hotel room for laundry and warmth.

 

We decided the best choice was to give up and stay around the hotel. We picked up some sweets from a sweet shop and bought Christmas presents at the Aran Woolen store. We had a wonderful, rich Italian dinner (remember, always ask for advice. This place wasn’t even listed in travel advisor or yelp!) and everyone was asleep by 8. Well, not me – I’m still up typing this but won’t be up for too much longer. Another adventure tomorrow!

We woke up to the sun shining again for us (how about this weather?) this time in Dingle (population ~1900.) The previous night, Ben had headed out around 9 PM to find authentic live music and he was successful in the tiny O’Sullivan pub, which had about 6’ ceilings and could fit around 20 people.  He had a blast! We tried three different times to hit the Dingle Music Shop to pick up some CDs for the drive, but they were always closed when we stopped by (and no posted hours.)

 

 

After breakfast (Ben went for a traditional Irish and had black pudding!) we walked around Dingle for a couple hours. The town is just adorable – pubs, bookstores, fish and chip and fish monger shops. The hostess at breakfast suggested that we hit the Slea Head drive and so we did, around 11:30 this morning.

Two pieces of advice to provide – If you are travelling in the UK, always opt for the breakfast. It usually will only cost a few dollars more when you book the room. If you wait, it will always be at least ten more, per person. The UK does a BIG breakfast, unlike many European breakfasts where it is continental. The UK will always have a continental option PLUS a hot breakfast. Second piece of advice – ask for advice! The breakfast room manager brought over a map and explained where we needed to go. We had an open agenda after two days of go, go, go so away we went.

Slea Head is MAGNIFICENT. Okay, truth is – I didn’t need any arm pulling as scenes from the last Star Wars and the one coming out next year were BOTH filmed here. There weren’t any people around. The signs were all in Gaelic. It is only about 50 miles around but we took just less than two hours as we stopped so many incredible places. It was magnificent and  someplace really off the beaten path. You can see the Great Blasket Islands from the drive and many interesting ponies, sheep, goats and cows.

At our stop back at Dingle we opted for Fish and Chips (me) and some sort of Beef Pot Pie (Ben). Dingle is truly a foodie town where you can’t go wrong – the cheeses and butters and meats mostly local, the fish fresh caught and never frozen. There is a fish monger food truck, local ice cream, delightful coffee shops.

As we headed out to Killarney, Ben first chatted with the Bartender at the pub we were lunching at. He suggested a route change to Killarney to save time. Again, that advice! It was a beautiful, cliff-hugging adventure.

 

 

We’ve landed in Killarney and to my delight we were upgraded to a suite with a Jacuzzi tub – which is fantastic as we are here for two nights and my back is suffering from the driving and walking non-stop. I’ve bought some water and mandarin oranges for a treat  (“still water and easy peels” if you are Irish) and will jump in the tub now to refresh myself for our adventure in Killarney tomorrow.

Tonight we watched the sunset over Galway.

Galway was our first stop and just a few hours drive from Dublin. To close up the post from yesterday, we did find our luggage in Dublin, had a terrible time figuring out the car rental and drove white-knuckled as Ben took to the other side of the car/road. As we were about ten miles out of Galway, the thickest fog ever rolled in and you couldn’t see anything. Whatever. It’s over. We are here.

Truth is, we were exhausted. A couple hours of sleep since Saturday and we were coasting on the fumes of gas station lattes. We arrived at our hotel a little early and they graciously checked us in so we could power nap.

A couple hours later, we were headed down the craziest winding roads (over the bridge, around the University, back over the bridge, through this alley…) we thought the GPS must be broken. But the truth is I’m glad to have it. No matter the crazy path it takes us on, we arrive where we intended to go eventually.

We headed to a few churches to check out the history:

·         St. Nicholas Church (a 700-year old church that once was host to Christopher Columbus)

 

·         Galway Cathedral (The newest Roman Catholic Stone Cathedral, along the River Corrib – very architecturally interesting)

We spent the evening walking to the Latin Quarter and Quay Streets, stopping at Lynch’s Castle to take money out of an ATM (really, it’s a bank now.) The Latin Quarter was buzzing with students in and out of the bookstores, bars and shops, buskers on the sides in front of theaters and art everywhere. And the whole place was light up for Christmas. We crossed the bridge from St. Nicholas to head to Galway Cathedral and along the Corrib we could see the famed Spanish Arches. We walked by the post office, where a giant Irish Wolfhound was tied up waiting for his master. When he stood, he was taller than the little guy!

I think that if we were to do it again, I would have looked for a hotel in the Latin Quarter/Quay Street area as it was fun and vibrant and full of things to look at. The problem is there weren’t any places to park and I thought that the first day of driving in Ireland might be best rewarded with a parking lot. And if we didn’t have to drive back to the hotel, we wouldn’t have spotted the Bohermore Cemetery.

Bohermore Cemetery is a Victorian era opened in the 1800’s. It’s quintessential – stone church, green hill, Celtic crosses as far as the eye can see. It was the perfect opportunity to bust out the fancy camera and take some pictures.

  

Galway was just the first leg of our Western Ireland tour, the jumping off point for another adventure tomorrow that will hopefully find us landing in Dingle.