Blarney - Day 2

Today we started with a visit to Blarney Castle, which is only a short walk away from our hotel in Blarney. We’ve see a few impressive castles already on this trip and have been unable to visit a few others. We found this one to be especially interesting with its fabled Blarney Stone. It is remarkably well preserved considering it dates back to medieval times. As well as the castle, there is also a very large area with a variety of gardens surrounding the castle open to the public. We spent over two hours touring the castle and exploring the grounds and then walked back to our hotel for some lunch.
We spent the afternoon going for a drive to Cork and Kinsale. We parked in downtown Cork and walked along the extensive pedestrian shopping area. Beyond that, we didn’t see much of interest in Cork so decided to drive about 25 kilometres to the seaside town of Kinsale. We really enjoyed walking along the narrow streets with the many colourfully painted shops and cafes.
We got back to Blarney in time to go for dinner at an Italian restaurant next door to our hotel and then return to our room to watch soccer and get packed for our trip to the airport early tomorrow morning.Read more