The Ring of Kerry

Pictures from the Ring of Kerry

After breakfast,  we begin the drive around the Ring of Kerry - one of the most scenic drives in Ireland.  It's really hard to put all that we saw into words but I'll give it a try!  First we drove through the Killarney Golf Course (where the Irish Open will be held in July).  The skies were overcast, but like each day in this lovely country, the weather changes, for better or worse, very few minutes!  So, although it was cool and damp when we started out, we had bursts of sunshine and warmer temperatures throughout the day. Of course, by warmer, I mean in the 60s rather than the 50s...but with sun, it felt perfect.  We stopped on the golf course to view Lough Leane and have some photo ops....lovely vistas, so much so that I feel like I'm taking a picture around every bend and they begin to all look alike.

We  stopped for coffee before heading into the main part of the drive,  As the name suggests, it's a circular route along the coast and through the mountains of the National Park that will return us to Killarney late this afternoon.  Along the way, our driver, Martin regaled us with historic details and funny or serious stories along the way.  Haven't yet figured out how he can drive a large bus filled with 40 guests on winding, sometimes narrow roads though Macgillycuddy's Reeks, keep on a sane schedule, and regale us with history and song along the way.  But he does it with good humor and charm.  It's a very 'well-behaved' group. We truly haven't heard whining or complaints at all!

Among the highlights of the day was a stop in Kells where farmer Brendan Ferris showed off his border collie sheepdogs as they responded to Brendan's signals to move the sheep wherever he told them to go.  It was great fun to watch the demonstrations and find out about how the dogs were trained and how long they work before retirement (8 years).  After a bit of shopping and Irish Coffees for Aaron and Art (I fear we have created an alcohol loving almost 18 year old), we headed to Valencia Island over the bridge to visit the Skellig Experience Center.  After lunch, we saw a film about the early Christian monks that settled on a small rocky island, 8 miles off the coast of the island, to build a monastery.  It is a fascinating story and the artifacts from the island, now a bird sanctuary, were amazing.  Took a lot of pictures but the island and its neighboring smaller one, Little Skellig were only faintly visible on the horizon.

We then completed the drive through several small towns to Sneem, a comfort stop, but such a cute town that we wished we could spend more time there.  The central town green contained several monuments that were gifts to the town from world leaders...one from Chaim Herzog who vacationed there and gave a silver tree for the green plus a plaque in 3 languages, Irish, Hebrew and English.  Very unusual to see.  We stopped at Moll's gap - high point in the mountains with more scenic overviews, high winds and cold!  We were glad to get back on our warm bus - even though most of us know that we'll be complaining about the heat as soon as we get home.  We viewed the 3 lakes of Killarney as we drove through the Killarney National Park where the road was narrow, winding and scary and then headed back to our hotel for a quick rest before dinner.  After dinner where we all decided that the food was plentiful, varied and OK but not great, Art and I went for a walk and the boys headed back to their room.  They enjoyed the day but electronics were calling :)  Packed to leave for Bonratty tomorrow where we will spend the night before heading back to Dublin on Friday.