Irish mist.....

We have been in Ireland for over a week, and have had almost perfect weather. At some point, it was going to start raining, and that point was today.  

We woke up to rain and clouds, over the beautiful breakfast room at our B&B. It’s good we saw the cliffs and the beautiful views yesterday, because today, they were lost in the mist....  but you can’t let a bit of weather thwart your plans here...

We had plans to get on a boat and go around the Skellig Islands:  not land on them because:

1). Landing is very limited and getting tickets is difficult.

2). The season starts tomorrow, which would have made our plans complicated 

3). There are 900 step to the top, and Joe’s knees were complaining just thinking about it

4) landing only happens about 60% of the time because of weather conditions.

5). With the other tour, we also go around the second island (Little Skellig) and its colony of 75000 gannets.

The captain of the boat said “it’s not windy, but there is a bit of a swell”...  this is what “a bit of a swell” looks like from the back of the boat....  

 It’s good that I don’t get as sea sick when the boat is open and I can watch the horizon....  still, it was hard to take good pictures because the boat was moving (Joe had not taken the super-duper camera for fear of getting it wet, so I used my water proof Olympus).   So, here are just a couple of examples of the gannets nesting, and flying all around. .It was indeed an impressive sight.

We then went to Skellig Michael (you can see it, with it's top in the clouds around the first rugged edge of "Little Skellig"), another rocky island.

There is nothing on it but birds:  It’s a nice place if you are a puffin, because there is some green very steep slopes, of the type puffins like to nest in (we saw a lot of puffins - but see previous comments regarding cameras to explain lack of decent puffins pictures- if you squint,, you can see two puffins guarding their nests on this picture).  It’s a great place for puffins and other sea birds, but it’s hard to explain how anyone thought it to be a great place for humans.
(Below is a colony of common mures, another type of auk).

And yet, at some point between the 6th and the 8th century, some humans did:  Monks built a village of sorts (shale huts) and a monestery.  It’s 900 very steep steps to the top and there is NOTHING there.  What did they eat (my guess is fish and puffins....), why did they stay?  Very little is known about them.

The remaining structures, as well as the rocky ledges, caverns and rocks can be seen in the last Star War movie (if you have not seen it, you can google it - they are quite fascinating).  The monks lefts around the 12th century, probably due to climate change (they had a mini ice age), and that’s it.  We could not see the huts at the top, because they were in the fog, which also means that the monks, while not just cold and starving, were probably cold and starving in the fog....  A really odd place.

After that, we continued on the other side of the Ring of Kerry, but mostly in the fog.  We could see just enough of the coastline to figure out that it was grand and beautiful, but not quite enough to make it worth stopping and taking pictures.  

We did however stop in the little town of Sneem for lunch to gaze at it’s pretty river, and its Main Street:  

I really love how all the little towns and villages here have these brightly painted houses and shops.  It’s makes for lovely downtowns (maybe it’s to make up for the grey on days like today).  

Also love how the road sometimes looks like a tunnel of rhododendrons (I know they are invasive here, but there are still pretty....).

As we drove toward Cork, we stopped at Blarney’s castle: good catch on Joe’s part who saw the exit sign. 

 I thought it was in Cork, and would have missed it, which would have been too bad.  Of the many castles we have seen, this is by far the nicest one.  The house itself is great to visit, and the grounds are just wonderful. 

 Of course, I kissed the stone...  although it is supposed to give you the gift of eloquence..which I’m not sure I need.....  it is silly, but fun and since we went in the afternoon, there was absolutely no line and the entire castle and grounds were very quiet (in the morning, when the cruise ships dock in Cork, it gets extremely busy, and this is the sign they have to deal with. (Not worth waiting 90 minutes BTW.....  but the castle itself is very nice).

The grounds are beautiful too, with 500 years old yew trees, little creeks, and beautiful flowers.

Our hotel in Cork, the Ambassador, is in an old abbey, up the hill from the center of town.  From it’s large window and balcony, we can see that the sun came back!

We went to the center of town for dinner and had some trendy “nouvelle Irish” food (including a potato and seaweed gratin, which was awesome.  (Seaweed is VERY trendy around here.....).  The center of Cork itself is nothing to write home about.  But it has nice pubs and restaurants.

On a side note:  Every time people ask me where I’m from and I say NY, and they look at me funny until I say I’m originally from France - they switch to French.  A lot of people here speak very good French, and enjoy doing it.  I’m not sure why that is......

Tomorrow is our last full day - off to Dublin.