Friendly people, beautiful countryside, good food, lots of music - Ireland has it all. We'd call it paradise if the weather was better. As we found out, it can be very cold, windy and rainy in July.
We did a week-long driving tour through southern Ireland. Our stops were Adare, Killarney, Cork, Waterford and Dublin. Here are highlights from the first half of our trip.
Adare
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| Thatch roof houses |
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| Empty beer kegs - must have been a big party |
Bunratty Castle (near Adare)
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| Bunratty Castle - 600 years old with a new roof added in the 1950s |
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| Staircase inside the castle |
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| Top of the castle |
Ring of Kerry - the Ring is a day-long driving trip around a peninsula in southwest Ireland; the scenery is very much like the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton
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| Stone fort built in the 8th or 9th century |
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| Ballycarberry Castle |
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| Vanessa in a gap in the castle walls |
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| Us with the Atlantic Ocean in the background |
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| Fogher Cliffs on Valentia Island (west end of Ring of Kerry) |
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| Valentia Island |
That's Ireland so far. The weather was good up to this point but it gets bad on the second half of our trip.
Blake and Vanessa
