Thatched Roofs, Peat/Turf, and the Most Beautiful Garden We've Ever Seen

While traveling through Ireland with Bob at the wheel and me enjoying the countryside, I spotted several thatched roofed cottages, but he was never able to see them.  Finally we saw one close to the road, and it was a beauty!

Isn't it pretty?  we were driving past, so it's not the best picture, but I love the house!

I was able to cross something else off my bucket list.  I've read too many books where peat fires were talked about.  Throwing a log of peat on the fire, taking a walk through the peat bogs.  You know what I mean.  So while we were in Ireland I told Bob that I wanted to see that peat in person, and he made it happen.  What a guy!  They call it turf in Ireland, and this picture shows an area where the turf/peat has been cut away.  It's spongy under foot, and weighs very little.  

Bob's thinking about how much easier it would be to carry peat than heavy wood logs!

Anyway, the peat/turf is cut into logs, and piled in sort of teepees to dry.  When it's dry they stack it and it's ready to burn.

Our next stop was Kylemore Abbey and its gardens.  Kylemore Abbey was built as a home in the 1860's, was later was home to Benedictine nuns who ran a school there, and is now home to a few nuns.  In 2015 it was leased by......The University of Notre Dame....yes, The Notre Dame, for summer classes and student housing.  That's some dorm!!

The Abbey was grand, but I really loved the Victorian Walled Garden.  It's outstanding, and I could have walked around looking at all the plants, flowers, and veggies forever.  This picture shows about 1/4 of the garden.  

The garden is now about 6 acres of land, and houses formal gardens, vegetable gardens, herb gardens, fruit trees, etc.

 It once had 21 heated glass houses and employed 40 gardeners.

 Isn't the lead gardener's home pretty!

This might be the veggie garden.  The gardeners do a very good job because there were NO weeds to be seen.  Just like at Disneyworld!

Bob really enjoyed our visit to Cong Village.  Cong is where John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara's famous movie "Quiet Man" was filmed.  Yep, that's The Duke all right.  (It's just a statue, not the real guy.)

 We passed a mussel "farm",

and a very odd wooden goat guarding a flock of sheep.

Our last stop of the day was at 14th Century Ross Errily Friary.  It was huge!

 Our hosts in Galway were very friendly, and they had suggestions for our next stop, Donegal.   

Heading North to the Cliffs

While wishing us a good trip our hostess asked where we were going next.  We told her that our friend Kim told us not to miss The Cliffs of Moher, and she ageed that it was definitely worth going to see, so Bob pointed the car north, and off we went back to The Wild Atlantic Way, the Irish scenic drive.

What does this say?  I'm so glad they had the English translation on the bottom, because I could never, ever translate that and tell Bob where to turn next.

We passed Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough.  There was a huge gold sign, but we blew past that pretty quickly.  After a nice drive along the coast we came to The Cliffs of Moher, and they were very impressive, but very crowded.

 The cliffs rise 702' at their highest point and range for 5 miles over the Atlantic Ocean.

Stay back from the edge Bob!

I always laugh at the people who ignore warning signs and go for the better picture.  Bob knows better than to try that with me around!

The B&B in Clare was owned by a family who lived in the left side of the house and ran the B&B in the other half of the house.  

Our hostess was very friendly, but she made absolutely the worst eggs we had on the whole trip.  They were scrambled to within an inch of their lives.  Not burned, just VERY dry, but she was so sweet!

Clare was very close to Bunratty Castle.

The nearby pub was a fun place to have dinner and another Guinness.  Actually, by this time I decided to switch to cider.  Irish cider is great!

 Another castle.  We never realized that there were so many castles in Ireland.

 While driving through the Burren region we stopped at a ringfort archaeological project.

 This ringfort was estimated to have been built in the 10th century.

These volunteers dig the ground out, sift it for artefacts, and return it back to the way they found it.

The ringfort was too large take a picture of the entire fort, but it was large enough to house a small village of people back in those days.

Another interesting stop in The Burren Region was this Portal Tomb we came upon.

The Burren Region, a 10 square mile plateau, is quite barren, even more so than the Badlands in the U.S. 

Another castle,

and two more pints of Guinness before spending the night in Galway.  Tomorrow is a fun day, but I'll save it for another day and another post.

The Blarney Stone

After leaving Waterford we headed south to our next B&B in Cork, which happens to be very close to Blarney.

Beechwood House B&B was very nice, and the host proudly showed us the soapstone fireplace which is original to the house and is over 100 years old.

I'm sure the breakfast was prepared by the lady of the house, but the host was a very friendly guy who cheerfully served us with a smile while whistling a happy tune.

The B&B was close enough to be able to walk to Blarney, past the town's old milk cart,

 where I admired more of the beautiful Irish flowers.

This is all we saw of Blarney Castle.  I really had no interest in kissing the Blarney Stone, and I have a feeling that Bob think I'm chatty enough, so we agreed it was not high enough on our priority list.  We went to the Blarney Woolen Mill instead, and I left a good bit of our American Dollars there.  Ha!

The Pub in Blarney was fun, and the seafood stew was wonderful, paired with Guinness, of course!

We were only in Cork one night befofe heading west to Kerry, and the Dingle Peninsula.  This was one of the wider roads we traveled on our way to Dingle, where the roads are narrow.  VERY narrow!

Ah, we left the cities behind, and we finally saw more of the beautiful, green Irish countryside.  

We enjoyed the sunny Irish weather.  It only rained the last day we were in Ireland, and the Irish people were very happy to believe we brought the sunshine with us.

Isn't it just beautiful!  Everywhere we looked it was so green and lush.  We loved the Dingle Peninsula.

Jaime likes calla lilies, and she'd like it here because they were growing wild everywhere.

Rock walls are everywhere too.  We were told that during winter farmers use their time to build rock walls, and some of the walls go straight up the steep hillsides.

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This was our home away from home in Kerry, with easy access to The Wild Atlantic Way and other scenic drives.

Our hostess was very sweet, and she was a good cook too!

This narrow road is a typical two lane road on The Dingle Peninsula.  The scenic road along the coastline is called The Wild Atlantic Way, and this section of road was on the Slea Head Drive.

We like to hike and our host at the B&B told us that the Lub na Cille, Dun Chaoin walk would be a good place to hike.  It's one of Ireland's National Looped Walks.

 The views were spectacular, and the trail was sort of spongy because we were hiking on peat.

More calla lilies, and that piece of land sticking out into the ocean is the first land that Charles Lindbergh saw when he reached Europe during his trans Atlantic flight.

Of course there were gates to pass through on the hike.  We have to keep the cows and sheep where they belong you know.

If you saw the movie "Ryan's Daughter" you might recognize this old building because it served as the schoolhouse during the filming.

We always enjoy having lunch along the trail.  

We didn't stay in Dingle town, but we did go to check things out there, and we were glad we stayed out in the beautiful Dingle countryside.

After spending a few days on the Dingle Peninsula we reluctantly moved on. 

Next stop:  Clare