Europe 2012- Days 63-64: Ireland- Kissing the Blarney Stone

Our Room at Fernroyd's Bed and Breakfast where we stayed the second night.

In the morning we met Avril's husband Tony as he welcomed us into breakfast and took our morning order. I decided on french toast again, and Nate had what is known as the full Irish breakfast. Nate's plate consisted of 1 egg, 2 pieces of toast, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 links of sausage, a small piece of black pudding and a small piece of white pudding. Black and white pudding are not pudding like you might be thinking but a type of sausage. Black pudding or blood sausage is made by boiling blood (usually pork blood) with a filler like cornmeal, oatmeal, potato or barley until it has thickened and then putting in into sausage form. White pudding is similar to black pudding but doesn't contain blood, and pre 1900 they used sheep's brain as a binding agent, a practice which I hope is no longer used.

This is similar to what Nate had for breakfast: beans, 1 egg, sausage, bacon, black and white pudding.

Nate and I shared our breakfasts, and he made me try the black and white pudding. Since I knew what it was before I ate it, it was hard to get it down, but I managed. Nate thought it was all quite good.

Avril had told us that the Cork University campus that was across the street had a display of stones that had the first known ancient writings in Ireland. When decided to go there first thing after breakfast. We realized as we were walking around that she didn't tell us which building to find them. We found a sign for the information desk and decided to ask. They happened to be in the hallway of that building. At first they just looked like a bunch of rocks, and then we realized that their original written language was a series of lines horizontal and vertical.

Cork University

I just loved this door.

The lines on the left is their writing

See the slash marks on the stones

Walking around the campus

There are so many different kinds of leaves. I liked the clover shaped ones, very fitting for Ireland.

This bird was sitting on a fence only about 2 feet from me.

On our way to find the English market, Nate decided to walk past a cool looking church we had spotted the night before. The church was very pretty on the outside but we didn't go inside since we were in a hurry and you had to pay to get in.

This was a cool looking grave stone in front of the church

An artist taking advantage of the beautiful scenery.

St. Fin Barre's Cathedral built between 1865-1879

We had a hard time finding the English market, we kept going in circles before we finally asked someone. I think part of the problem is that we think of markets in Europe as tents out in a square, but this market was more similar to the Pikes Place Market in Seattle with a permanent building with booths inside. They sold all kinds of things inside from meat to produce, chocolates, to spices. We didn't buy anything though and we decided that since we had several things to do and a couple hours of driving for the day we best get on our way.

just one of the many meat cases in the English Market. Next to the Black and White Pudding you could buy some "Chubbys".

These looked good

This fish reminds me of a kids book at my moms house about a pout, pout fish.

We got our car and headed to the world famous Blarney Castle. Luckily it was only a 15 minute drive away. The Blarney Castle is a medieval stronghold located in the city of Blarney and was built around 1446 by Cormac MacCarthy.

I'm amazed at how many flowers you can still find in bloom, even with all the leaves falling to the ground.

The Earl of Leicester was commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to take possession of the castle. Whenever she tried to negotiate the matter McCarthy always suggested a banquet or some other form of delay, so when the queen asked for progress reports a long missive was sent, at the end of which the castle remained untaken. The queen was said to be so irritated that she remarked that the Earl's reports were all 'Blarney'.

The North wall of the castle is the most imposing view. The wall gently slopes inwards to give it the impression that it's even larger.

  The castle was really interesting, and although there were no interior decorations it was still one of my favorite castle's I've visited. Everything was made of stone, from the walls to the ceilings and the stairs. Speaking of the stairs, they got really narrow especially near the top. Once we got to the top they have a very quick system where one guy is sitting on the edge, he has you sit backwards, and he helps you lean over. There are 2 metal bars that you grab and you lean really far down and back, kiss the stone, and then he helps you up. It's really over before you know what happened. But they'll gladly sell you a picture and certificate to prove that you did it for only 10 euros per person.

The blarney stone is the bottom part where you see the bars.

This room has a huge fire place at the end of the room which was big enough to cook a side of beef

These stairs were so narrow that I was almost touching on both sides.

I'm standing on the top wall above the kitchen. The kitchen in the castle is on the 3rd floor. I would hate to have to haul the food up there on the stairs. The kitchen was on the 3rd floor to be close to the dining room but also so if the castle was under attach you could pour boiling hot oil from the top wall.

Going down for my kiss

Nate going in for the kiss

This was known as the murder hole. If an invading army made it past the gate, the trap door and stormed into the castle they could pour hot oil, rocks or anything else that might hurt/kill.

Kissing the blarney stone is easier if your a giant. Or use the magic of illusion.

Back at the bottom of the castle, around back you'll find a garden, but this is no ordinary garden. Warning signs everywhere with skull and crossbones . . .  this garden is a poison garden. Filled with poisonous plants and giving descriptions of what they would do to you if you ate them, or sometimes even just touching or smelling them.

While walking in the garden there was another couple about 20 feet away. The guy farted quite loudly and cheerfully said "Now that's poison for you!", his wife gave him a slightly disgusted look, but Nathan and I had a hard time not bursting out laughing.

There are many things in this garden that I've heard of but never knew they were poisonous. Some of the plants were: common juniper tree, Rhubarb leaves, Black cohosh, and foxglove to name a few.

This was a really cool tree.

This was a cute little waterfall, but as I pointed out to Nathan it's not a natural one. I could hear the faint sound of a pump and i could see one of the water tubes that brought the water up to the top. Still cool.

Gunnera Manicata

The leaves are so BIG!

By this time it was fast approaching noon and our next destination was an hour and a half away, we got back on the road and hit up some fast food along the way. I didn't have an exact address for our next destination, so I just directed us to the city and hoped we would see signs when we got off the freeway.

Yes I did say freeway . . . finally we found a freeway, which meant wide open roads with speed limits that didn't feel scary to reach!

When we got off of the freeway we followed the signs and it wasn't long before we spotted Cashel up on the hill, but as we went though the city we lost sight of it and were soon heading out of town the other way as we must have missed a sign. I told Nate we needed to turn around as we must have driven past it. As soon as we turned around we saw it again.

The Rock of Cashel

Nearly by accident we found a parking lot for it and then we walked up the hill to the castle. We ended up getting lucky as within about 10 minutes of us arriving they weren't letting anyone else in as they would be closing within an hour or so. They told us there was going to be a short video starting in 15 minutes so we rushed around taking pictures before the video was to start.

Down below the Rock of Cashel is this Abbey.

The round tower you can see in the upper right corner is the oldest surviving part of this building, dating back to 1100.

Cashel is said to be the spot where St. Patrick converted the King of Munster to Christianity by explaining the Holy Trinity using a 3 leaf clover. In 1101 the King of Munster gave the Rock of Cashel to the Church where it became the seat of the Archbishop. Cashel was used by the church of Ireland until 1749 after which it fell into decay. 

The cross of St. Patrick

The video wasn't just on the history of Cashel though, but more on the whole of Ireland. It talked about the Black Death(Plague) that came to Ireland in 1348, caused by the bite of fleas carried on diseased rats it spread like wild fire, killing at least 1/3 of the population in Ireland as well as thousands more around Europe.

There were also several famines that struck Ireland, but the most well known one was the Great Potato Famine of 1845-1852. Most of the Irish population was already at the poverty level and potatoes were their main food source, so when the potato fields started shriveling and dying, it wasn't long before the poorest people started dying as well. An estimated 1 million people died during that time period from starvation and another 1-1.5 million people immigrated to the United States or Canada reducing the Irish population by another 20%-25%.

Not sure what this is but it reminds me of Jiffy Pop for over the campfire.

After the video we took a few more pictures before we got back on the road. We still had an hour and a half drive to get to Dublin were we were going to eat dinner. As we drove north there were some awesome rainbows. I can see why they have legends of leprechauns and so on because they have so many rainbows. I think I saw at least 6 during our 3 days of driving around, including an awesome double rainbow that we could see the whole 180 degree arch.

I couldn't get the whole arch in my camera, and the second arch above is very light and hard to see.

You can just see the second rainbow on the right side.

After the rainbows we were even blessed with a nice sunset, how awesome is that?!

Getting close to Dublin we ran into traffic, which added around a half hour to our time. Finding the parking garage was a bit of a challenge as it always seems to be, but we finally parked and set out to find a restaurant. I was a little shocked to see a boy, no more than 7-8 smoking a cigarette as we walked along the street, that's not something you usually see.

An interesting billboard I've seen around Ireland

These are two different churches we saw while walking around Dublin

Nate and I walked around for probably at least a half hour, maybe even closer to an hour before we found a restaurant. After hearing how great they were in Ireland, Nathan first was wanting to get Sheppard's Pie, but after looking at menu after menu he gave up on finding one. 

Dublin getting ready for Christmas

After dinner we found our way back to the car and headed to our hotel. We decided to fill up our gas tank on the way so we didn't have to worry about it at 4:30 in the morning when we were on our way to the airport.

In the morning when the alarm went off at 4 AM I was actually ready to get up. Not that I wasn't tired but the bed wasn't that comfortable. After checking out we headed to the airport. In one way we got lucky because the normal AVIS doesn't open until 6 AM so they have an after hours drop at the airport where you just park the car in a lot and drop the keys in a box inside, but that way we didn't have to wait for a shuttle bus to bring us back to the airport or anything.

After getting our passports checked we grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonalds before heading through security. By the time we knew what gate we needed and walked there we didn't have to wait long to board the plane.

Our flight was normal and went fine. Upon arriving back in Eindhoven we had to go through customs and get our passports stamped. There were two girls in front of us and the one couldn't find her passport. She just had a large purse like bag that didn't zip and she figured that her passport must have fallen out into the upper baggage compartments. She couldn't get back to the plane though so the customs guards had to call someone to contact the pilot to see if they could find it. As Ryanair has about a 15 minute turn around I'm sure they were already boarding the aircraft and finding it would be nearly impossible with all the new people on board. Not sure what happened with her, but glad I wasn't in that situation.

After getting back to our apartment Nathan got his work stuff and headed into work. He did have the day off, but as it was only 10 in the morning, he figured he may as well go to work anyway.

This video sums up our wonderful trip to Ireland.