With apologies to Johnny Cash, but "We fell in love with the Ring of Kerry. We rode up, up, up, boy those roads they sure were scary. But oh those views...the Ring of Kerry, the Ring of Kerry!"Before hitting the ring, though, we drove to the teeny, tiny town of Inchigeelagh in southwest Cork to see the town from where my Arlington priest Fr. Gerry Creedon hails. Alas, we weren't able to meet up with the family as they'd had to go into the larger town of Macroom for the day, though the nice maintenance man let us rest a bit in Creedon's Hotel (of which there turn out to be two!) We stopped at one earlier on the route and this woman came out and said "oh are you one of Fr.Gerald's parishoners? You need to keep driving." (Those 4 last words were becoming my least favorite words to hear as my knees were not loving the hell of the tiny Hyundai).
However we then made it safely to Killarney where my knees got a rest as we put ourselves in the able hands of Michael our Ring of Kerry tour bus driver. Spent the whole day touring the Ring which is, in a word, GORGEOUS (as was Michael, who looks like actor John Slattery, aka politician on Sex/City and Desperate Housewives).
We also ventured at dusk to Ross Castle, set along Ross Lake and it was just Breathtaking! We also were able to get in on the last tour of Muckross House, during which we met a friendly couple from Rhode Island who gave us a ride back to our hotel (we'd planned to walk, but turns out it was much farther than our concierge had said). While our fellow Americans were fine in the House, once we got in their (equally tiny car) they turned in to the Bickersons. OMG, hope they survived the rest of their journey!
The photos of this part of our journey are now up on Snapfish.
Coming up next: "The Cliffs of Kilkee are just as nice, if not nicer than Cliffs of Moher"
