Ireland - Part II Galway, Killarney and Blarney

After an uneventful but slow bus trip across The Emerald Isle I arrived in Galway to find the hostel reception staffed by an Aussie and the place full of Germans. That was fine though, I spent the evening with Germans at an Irish pub and made friends with (from left to right, see below) Annabell and Viktoria who were just about to start their term at Galway University.

The next day I went on a tour round The Burren and The Cliffs of Moher. The Burren is a unique karst landscape, fissured with large cracks in which grow 80% of Irelands native flora. The landscape is so barren that few foreign plants intrude into this sparse landscape. I really liked this area, something about it was really beautiful and I'll have to go back some day.

The area is also home to a number of smaller neolithic tombs and the tour guide stopped at the most famous of these, Poulnabrone dolmen.The other highlight on the tour are the magestic Cliffs of Moher. They're a spectacular sight, as you can see, rising up to face the Atlantic Ocean.
The next day was mostly spent sleeping in a little and then travelling to Killarney. Killarney, the town, is situated in the beautiful Killarney National Park. With the weather doing the unheard of thing in Ireland and actually being sunny I was able to spend plenty of time outdoors.

My first day was spent on another bus trip around the Ring of Kerry - a scenic tour route circumnavigating Iveragh Peninsula. The views lived up to it's reputation, especially with the heather covering the hills in a lovely purple.The next day I spent cycling around Killarney National Park and The Lakes of Killarney. The area is simply lovely and reminded me a little of New Zealand. It also contains the authentically restored Ross Castle as you can see in the background of this next photo.
I then travelled to Cork that evening so as to wake up early and head straight out to Blarney Castle!No trip to Blarney Castle would be complete without the obligatory kissing of the Blarney Stone. Indeed I was only really there to do as such =)My original plan was then to meet Liam, whom I befriended in Copenhagen, in Kilkenny. However, a combination of events, mostly my severe overestimation of the quality of Ireland's public transport system, conspired against us. In the end I had to head straight to Dublin and bludge of the generosity of Bex and Johnny again (thanks guys!) in order to catch my return flight.

Overall, Ireland was absolutely brilliant! (to use a Irish colloquialism) It fully justifies its reputation as The Emerald Isle and all the Irish people I met were great. The tour operators had the gift of the gab, to be sure, and were great fun! I strongly recommend Ireland, but only after you've saved up a bit of money, it's expensive!

Ireland - Part 1 Dublin

I arrived in Ireland in the evening to meet up with Rebecca (Bex) Mills and her boyfriend, Johnny. Bex is my Mum's friend's daughter whom I've vaguely known since childhood but probably haven't seen for about 10 years. However, this was no barrier and we met again like old friends as I was treated to fantastic hospitality! Thanks guys =)Johnny and Bex live in central Dublin so eveything was walking distance away. On the first day I jumped on the recomended open top bus tour of Dublin. The prerecorded tour is fine, but nothing to write home about, but the live tours which are conducted by the drivers are great! So I spent the first day learning all about Dublin, Guiness and Jameson's Whiskey! I now have a certificate to prove I know how to pour the 'perfect' Guiness and am well versed in the reasons why Irish whiskey is so much better that Scotch or American whisky and it's not just because of the spelling. The tour also took me past various point of interest such as a inner city park twice the size of New York's Central Park containing The White House (home of the President of Ireland and which the Americans Copied, see photo) and O'Connell Street which is the home of the imfamous GPO (General Post Office) of the Easter Rising (see photo).The next day I checked out the Oscar Wilde memorial which includes small columns engraved with his famous one line witticisms and then wandered around through the National Museum. This place is excellent containing priceless ancient treasures, some of which date back to neolithic times, and medieval bodies preserved in the anaerobic enviroment of peat bogs. I also visited the Chester Beatty Library. I had intended to see one of Dublins famous atractions, The Book of Kells in Trinity College. But 11 Euros is a bit much for a quick glance of a 1200 year old book when the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle (which is free) contains dozens of such books some of which date back to 200AD! One of the odd things about Dublin is that there are two prodestant cathedrals in a mostly catholic nation. Probably the English are to blame.My final day in Dublin I spent on a guided tour of Newgrange, just north of Dublin. Newgrange is a neolithic (built in approximately 3200B.C. and older than Stonehenge) burial passage tomb the interior of which is illuminated by the sun once a year as it rises on midwinter solstice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange The whole place is just amazing when you consider how long ago it was built and that it's just the one of many in the area that is open to the public.I really enjoyed Dublin and there's heaps more that I could write about and even more than that I've not yet seen. Oh, and for those that are wondering, yes, the Guiness in Ireland is heaps better than the stuff we get in New Zealand!