In This Crazy Life...

We left Doolin after a wonderful breakfast prepared by Kate's husband Charles. I had porridge with Bailey's and Kev had a toasted bagel with smoked Salmon. They have some of the best smoked Salmon I have ever tasted over there. The weather map for today. We did a pretty good job of missing the rain. The Burren is a National Park which contains examples of all the major habitats within the Burren: Limestone Pavement, Calcareous Grassland, Hazel scrub, Ash/Hazel Woodland, Turloughs, Lakes, Petrifying Springs, Cliffs and Fen. We followed a narrow road to hit some of the highlights in the Burren. There were tons of walking trails, but we only had a day and the weather wasn't the best.(You can see the dark clouds in this picture.) Our first stop was the church ruins in Carran. I'm sure  you used to enter through this iron gate, however it is locked so you must step over the wall right next to it. Once we left the churc

Monday morning we ate Breakfast at the castle and headed towards The Cliffs of Moher. We were staying the night in Doolin. It was a two and a half hour drive. The cliffs were amazing! It was windy and chilly that high up and near the water. The cliff's highest point is 700 feet and they strethc for five miles. O’Brien’s Tower stands near the highest point and has served as a viewing point for visitors for hundreds of years. O'Brien's Tower    The Cliffs of Moher were originally the site of a gigantic river delta and were formed about 320 million years ago. The Napoleonic signal tower at Hags Head was built built in 1803, this is close to the site of a long gone 1st century BC ruined fort “Mothar” from which the Cliffs get their name.  The walking trail stretch along the edge of the cliffs. We started at the visitor center and walked north past O' Briens's Tower first. There were parts of the trail that were very steep and close to the edge

   Tralle was a good stopping point from Dingle to Doolin. When looking for places to stay I came across the Ballyseede Castle Hotel. It was a little pricey, but since we had such great deals on all of the other B&Bs, I splurged. It's one of the best known Castle Hotels in Ireland, has a history dating back to the 1590’s and sits on 30 acres of native woodlands. The castle has 23 en-suite bedrooms and 3 beautiful private rooms complimented by enchanting formal gardens. To read about the history of the castle click here. We stayed in the Coghill room.   We had a nice view of the gardens. Here are other pictures from inside the castle. We had to have our picture made with the knights.   We Googled and found a restaurant in town that was supposed to be delicious. It was nestled on the shore overlooking the bay. We arrived about 5:30 and watched the sunset. The food was fabulous, however the service was not. The wait staff

After our stop in Cashel we proceeded to Killarney. We were about 45 minutes out when we came upon the first wreck we had seen in over a week. They were detouring trafiic down a little side road. The guy just told us to follow everyone. We did and ended up on one of the narrowest roads ever. The brush on teh side of teh road was scratching the car.     Once we reach Killarney we went straight to the B&B to check-in.We stayed at the Algret House and our hostess Greta was absolutely wonderful! Killarney was  more modern than the other towns we visited. It was about late afternoon by the time we settled in and we decide to take a short walk to Ross Castle. This is the map Greta gave us. We took the walking trail marked by green footprints in the top right. The whole area is a National Park. We saw lots of deer eating dinner along the road. They were huge and very different from the deer in Arkansas. The is Ross Castle. It sits on the edge of Killarney's lower l