Eric reminded me last night that I never created a page for our Ireland trip last November. This is partially because I spent December traveling back and forth to Florida and time just got away from me.

The page is now up for those interested in seeing all our Ireland posts in one place.

I also never posted about the two bed & breakfasts we stayed in during our long weekend. We liked both for different reasons, so I’ll start with the Windway House B&B in Killarney.

(That’s our little gray rental car on the left!)

The best feature about this place was the mere 5 minute walk to the center of Killarney. The rooms were comfortable and plenty big enough, the breakfast was hearty and you were allowed to choose from one of five main entrees. We were able to park off the street, so that made finding parking a non-issue. Frank was a fantastic host; he gave us printed directions and suggested mutiple activities when asked, including providing us with a detailed map of downtown marked up with good restaurants and pubs. Wireless was also available, but for those without laptops, there was a computer for guests to use in the hallway. The only minor hassle for us was having to pay in cash as he didn’t accept credit cards, but I would still highly recommend this place for anyone spending the night in Killarney.

Our other B&B, the Avalon House, was perfectly located for our flight out of Shannon airport the following morning. The house was a bit hard to find in the dark (even with our GPS) but Mary was a lovely host and gave a us a few suggestions on where to grab a quick local dinner after the stressful drive from Killarney (i.e. in the dark, while it’s raining, on the opposite side of the road).

Her breakfast the next morning was supurb, I had the eggs and smoked salmon (the fresh pink kind, yum) and Eric had the full Irish Breakfast. The coffee was tasty and we nearly missed our flight because we spent the whole morning talking with her and a local lighthouse photographer, John Eagle. My only complaint was that our room was in need of some repair. On the surface everything looked very nice but during our stay the door handle to the bathroom came off (I was briefly trapped), the shade wouldn’t open and there was mold growing behind the toliet. Still, for one night it was more than adequate.

Feel free to send me an email or just ask if you want to know more about our trip. :)

One of my concerns about driving in Ireland was the whole driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road thing. What I should have been concerned with was the width of the roads and the completely unrealistic speed limits.

I mentioned more than once to Eric that I finally understood the term speed limit.

Picking up the rental car took a while and frankly, I think they gave us our car because we were American.

See all those “x”s? The front left hubcap was missing, the front left mirror was busted, there was a huge scrape along the front left quarter panel as well as scratches and dings all over the place. Even the windshield had a small chip in it!

To be honest, I probably would have lost the hubcap sometime during our three days anyway and I’m not entirely sure all the dents in the rim were there before. So, it’s safe to say I didn’t feel too badly about the condition of the car. The brakes on the other hand, while they never failed, certainly sounded like they were on their last breath.

The roads were very, very narrow in places and Eric even noticed a few hedges with a swath missing at side view mirror height. It was often a stone wall on one side or oncoming traffic at 100kph on the other side, so it made for some hair-raising experiences.

Thankfully, I couldn’t go anywhere without being reminded to drive on the left!

In the end, I would totally do it again. :)

Even though it rained for most of our last full day in Ireland, we still enjoyed some scenic views of the Dingle peninsula coastline, Dingle Bay and the Blasket Islands.

This is nearby where Eric almost got blown out to sea.

Looking east from one of the many pullout areas. Amazingly, there were sheep grazing right on the edge of these cliffs.

This photo’s purpose is to illustrate what a two lane road often looks like in Ireland. I believe the Tobacco Trail by our house is wider than this.

We were able to drive our little rental car down to the beach. Turning around was interesting.  A closeup of those signs at the very bottom are on Flickr.

Eric and I on a very chilly Irish beach. And loving every minute of it.

This shot of the Blasket Islands was the last good photo of the day as the rain and wind began to pick up. After our delicious pub lunch, we got a shot of a roadside falls along Connor’s Pass on our way back to Limerick, but unfortunately the stunning advertised views were completely blocked by fog.

I ate my fair share of ploughman’s lunches (what is the deal with pickled onions?) and pub food during my last visit to Ireland and when the weather started to turn against us out on the end of the Dingle peninsula, we sought refuge in a small pub, Tig Bhric, in Riasc.

Eric had “the best grilled ham and cheese sandwich he’s ever had” and I thoroughly enjoyed my ham and pea soup with fresh brown bread and a pint of Guinness.

We grabbed two chairs in front of a peat fire and warmed out feet while listening to the locals at the bar speak Gaelic.

It turned out to be my last Guinness of the trip and it was delicious!

On our last day in Ireland we drove out to the end of the Dingle Peninsula for some amazing shots of the rugged coastline. There was liberal use of the available pullouts and quite a lot of jumping out and then quickly back into the car. We have several lovely shots from this day, but I couldn’t resist taking this video of Eric (from the comfort of inside the rental car) trying to take photos in what looks like hurricane-force winds. At least we saw some blue sky!

We had a very difficult time finding a good resource for waterfalls in Ireland before we left on this trip. Even when we asked locals, the most common answer was “Oh, how about the Torc waterfall?” The best we could do was a few snapshots of cascades using the images view on Google Earth. So, we weren’t expecting a whole lot.

Well!

There were waterfalls all over the place, which is probably why folks think nothing of it. Ireland received a tremendous amount of rain recently and all the rivers and creeks were flowing to capacity. I don’t think any of these falls are named, so we used our Garmin to note the GPS coordinates of each of them.

Enjoy!

These will be added to our waterfall database shortly!

Eric called this one of the top three most scenic drives we’ve done. Considering Chapman’s Peak in South Africa and Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park are both on that list, that’s saying quite a lot.

The trek consists of a (mostly) paved road barely wide enough for one car for about 22 kilometers. Each passing of a car going the other direction was an adventure (vast understatement) and in total, it took us about 2 hours. :)

I’ll let Eric’s photos speak for themselves!

More photos in our Ireland Flickr photo set.

After driving through Killarney National Park we took a detour down to the Beara Peninsula to see Gleninchiquin Falls. I had emailed the private park a few days before we left but no one ever got back to me, so we had no way of knowing how much it was going to cost to get in.

Once we got to the turn-off, a small sign listed the “modest entrance fee” at 5 Euros. In general, we are not big fans of paying to see waterfalls and I think $6.25 per person is more than a modest fee but we decided to see how close we could get.

We had nice views of the large falls while navigating the narrow road past private farms, but ultimately we decided to turn around short of the entrance near the Uragh stone circle. Eric went traipsing uphill through a bog to get the following shot… and I am still trying to get the mud stains out of his pant legs.

After our stops at Muckross House and the Torc waterfall, the weather improved slightly as we meandered through Killarney National Park. The N71 took us past many small lakes and beautiful viewpoints.

We parked at this old church and took a short walk to some cascades. The fall color was lovely and the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds.

We had an amazing view of Killarney and the many lakes of County Kerry from Ladies View.

Plus, we got to see some punk rock sheep. One of the things that amused me during my last trip here was how all the sheep were spray painted in different colors. This guy has three color markings and was probably wondering why we stopped to snap his photo.

Our first stop on the second day after a hearty breakfast at our B&B on our way through Killarney National Park was the Muckross House. We decided not to do the house tour but instead walked around the grounds all the while becoming damper and damper in the misty rain. Unexpectedly, there were a few rose bushes still in bloom, even in mid-November!

We decided against walking to the Torc waterfall from the house as the rain was getting stronger and Eric’s rain coat was absorbing more than it was repelling. Instead, we drove a little further down the road and after a short stroll on a leaf-littered, paved path, we reached the base of the falls.

Stunning.

There was no one else around and the setting was very lovely… here’s a short video I took of the scene with Eric’s camera set-up making an appearance. :)