Author: Lmnei

Today we decided to visit the Blarney Castle. This was supposed to be a stop on our tour, however the way it was presented to us “climbing 180 stairs to kiss the stone” was not very accurate so the group decided to pass on visiting the castle. When I read more – there was a lot more to visiting this castle than just kissing the stone! As Blarney is not far from Cork, it seemed like a great day trip! As you probably can tell, fall is starting to hit Ireland and the colours of the trees etc were pretty spectacular along with the fact that Ireland really likes to celebrate Halloween! At the entrance the big tree along with other areas all had pumpkins and ghosts abound! As I cannot get into the castle very far (basically in the door and that is it) both Andrew and I received free access to the Blarney Castle and grounds. We still had to pay for parking though which was more than fair – a whole 2 Euros! Where the entrance is to the park, you have to walk about .5 km to the Blarney Castle itself and as you will see below, there are a couple of other “features” to look at on the way. However what made this visit most enjoyable was the fact that when we got near the castle area, a bagpiper started playing! So I (we) sat and listened to him for a few minutes as it was such a perfect situation. Later, when Andrew was in the castle, I also listened to him play while sitting waiting for Andrew to return – such a haunting type of music to play in such a historic venue.

When we got up to the castle entrance (which they did have an accessible pathway instead of the huge amount of stairs), Andrew thought he would climb the staircase inside to look upstairs. I do not think he realized just how far he would climb and the conditions of the stairs when he came down! However he did get to see the Blarney Stone (although he did not kiss it as he did not want to be suspended backwards and upside down to do the “kiss”) and took some pictures for me! We then went to have a drink – I needed hot chocolate as I was cold sitting outside the castle and Andrew needed something cold as he was hot from all that stair work – which is so different than normal with him drinking coffee and me some cold beverage! We then had a nice walk around the castle park and back to the car where we found out that our parking, when we went to pay for it, was also free as the parking machine was now broken where we had to pay! So it was a nice free visit to the Blarney Castle and a great outing!

To see my recording of the Piper playing see the end of this page.

Below, are Andrew’s picture of where I left him at the Blarney Castle entrance as he climbed up to see the stone and back down again. He took pictures of the signs of the rooms and places that he saw as they were often just a rock space without any decorations – they were just noting what would have been there.

Now, I am sure you are going to ask – Why do people kiss the Blarney stone upside down?  Well, because it’s the only way to reach the stone! The stone is small when compared to the castle’s wall and to reach it you have to extend down about six inches from the rooftop base. To do so, you lie on your back and lean backwards. An iron railing and an assistant is there to help. So, while one holds on tight to the iron railing to avoid falling, you kiss the stone while looking down at the ground from 90 feet up. Simple as that! As legend tells us, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you will be gifted with eloquence and persuasiveness!

Now, as we left Blarney Castle, the weather seemed to be holding so we decided to visit another village that was the last stop and land that the people on the Titanic saw before the end of their journey. So we drove to Cobh, which is on the southern end of Ireland. It was a very pretty city with lots of colour on its townhomes, however the streets were really narrow (many should be one way only) and hilly which made driving a challenge at times! Remember, Andrew is driving on the left side of the road…

Well, that was a very interesting day exploring around Cork! On the way back into town, as I had seen so much accessible parking the previous day, I had an idea and that was due to a parking issue with the hotel (they advertised a flat rate for 24 hours but it did not have in and out privileges which could make it expensive at an 18 Euro flat rate everytime we parked) to see if there was an accessible parking spot near our hotel – sure enough one block away there was one! Like in other parts of the Republic of Ireland, parking in accessible parking spots, unless marked otherwise, is free for as long as you want to. So after paying 48 Euros for two days and a couple of hours of parking in the hotel parking lot (which was owned by a different company) we parked for the next 2 days in the accessible parking spot for free – a very good deal!

I also had the hotel print out a standardized message from an international accessible travel website which for Ireland was in English, explaining that I have an accessible parking permit from Canada (which was hanging from the rear view mirror like normal) and it is valid around the world. At the same time I had them print a copy for Iceland which was in Icelandic for when we travel there next week.

Now back in our lovely hotel room, Andrew prepared some dinner while I tried to figure out what was going on with my website and why my pictures were not wanting to upload! This has happened previously when we were in Thailand, however this time it seemed to be tied to what hotel we were staying at on some networks they would upload and some they just would error out. I do not need technical issues when on vacation!

Our route for the day –

Happy Birthday Joanne!

Here is the Piper at the Blarney Stone playing –

Good morning Cork! Today is a beautiful day to explore the city! After a wonderful breakfast at the Residence Inn, along with I had a discussion with the General Manager of the Residence Inn and Moxy Hotels regarding some accessibility issues, Andrew and I then decided to check out downtown Cork! Our plan was to head towards the English Market which is like Granville Island but in the middle of downtown Cork on the ground floor of several buildings. We also needed to patronize a bank machine as I have access to withdraw Euros when in Ireland, however when we go to Iceland we are going to need to exchange some Euros for Krona cash. Lastly, we needed to visit the Tesco grocery store to pick up some goods so we can hopefully make some meals in our little kitchen! Here are some pictures below that I took along our journey!

We were not able to spend much time in the English Market due to the smells of raw meat making Andrew not feel very well. We did walk into the dry goods section though and it reminded me of being in the Spice Market in Dubai – there were spice vendors (and others) there and the smell was wonderful!

Eventually after about 12,000 steps by me, we made it back to the Residence Inn to spend the evening. Andrew is starting to feel better now – perhaps the fresh air is helping him out – so we are thinking of going to the Blarney Castle tomorrow! We shall see what the weather is like first in the morning…

We were off early (10am checkout deadline) from Killarney on our way to Cork. We originally were staying at a different hotel in Cork, however I noticed when searching when in Washington DC to see if there was a Marriott Hotel at the Dublin Airport we could stay at, that there were two new Marriott Hotels in Cork! So I moved from the hotel that we were staying at (where we had to pay about $200 CDN a night) to the Moxy Hotel, which was one of the two Marriotts that had rooms available for point bookings for the 4 nights that we needed. When we arrived in Killarney, I decided to take a peek to see if the other Marriott – a Residence Inn, had point booking space yet and it did! I much prefer Residence Inn hotels as they have either a kitchenette (fridge and stovetop) or a full kitchen (bigger fridge and stove with oven) so I moved us from the Moxy to the Residence Inn at that time. So today we are off to the Residence Inn in Cork!

If you use the Marriott App, it gives you the ability to check in in advance and then once checked in, you can message the hotel. Most hotels in Ireland have a pretty firm 3pm check in time. However as I am a frequent stayer at Marriott Hotels, I decided to message the hotel to see if we can check in early. They were more than happy to accommodate us! I did that as Andrew was again driving not feeling too well and while the drive was only just over an hour, I did not want to prolong his agony any longer than needed.

We found the Residence Inn pretty easily – it was interesting – it actually shares the block with the Moxy Hotel! When checking in, it seemed they were a bit dis-organized and we got to chatting and I found out both hotels had only been open for 3 weeks. So that is why both Marriott Hotels suddenly showed up in the hotel search for Ireland only a month ago – when I was originally looking for and booking hotels back in April or May, they were not taking reservations! What a luxury to be able to stay in such a brand new hotel. In fact we were the first people to stay in the Queen Accessible room which is pictured below. The Residence Inn has 50 rooms (Moxy has 200) however not all the Residence Inn rooms were able to be occupied – when I had requested the Accessible Room type, they had gotten it ready for us. Pretty nice!

So we then relaxed the rest of the day after we parked the car and moved in. I also decided to go through our suitcases and empty out some of the extra papers we had accumulated during our various stops – I had kept some so that I could write some of these blog posts accurately and some for research for the 2 weeks that Andrew and I were going to be on our own. I ended up recycling a lot of paper – mainly brochures and old medication blister packs! We stayed in for dinner – Andrew was a bit gun shy to eat anything and I had a variety of snack type foods such as yogurt and crackers with turkey and cheese.

Here is the route we took from Killarney to Cork – no idea why also on this map it had us go to the left going into Cork – Andrew was NOT impressed as it lead us into some small roads in a winding backroads way to enter the city! The light blue route is what we should have taken… much easier!

Tomorrow we are thinking of getting out and exploring the city of Cork! It is the 2nd biggest city in the Republic of Ireland.

Today we slept in 🙂 and then decided to go for a walk around town. We went to visit some of the stores that we had previously visited when on the bus trip, as there were a couple of small items that I wanted to acquire in them and also check on the pricing of sweaters. Also Andrew needed a heavier jacket as he had brought his thin, not waterproof jacket on the trip and that was not going to be sufficient for when we were going to visit Ireland. My original plan was to drive to a knitting store to check out their goods, however with the VERY successful purchase yesterday, that is now no longer on my list of things to do! Also stopping in Blarney at the Woolen Mills would now be a dangerous decision! We did some laundry (takes forever in the European combo washing/drying machines) and I caught up on some paperwork like paying my credit card bills so we could continue travelling and getting my email Inbox back under control. It was quite a pleasant day!

In the evening, we decided to go to one of the restaurants that Vinnie (tour guide) had recommended when we were in Killarney last time – the Quinlans Seafood Bar. He told us that they had GF fish and chips among other things, however the place is small and be prepared to wait. So Andrew, who was now hungry and I, who already had been able to eat some things, decided to go there for dinner. WELL, again Vinnie did not quite tell the truth. Nothing that is deep fried is gluten free – including the fish and chips, which is why we came here! Oh well, I noticed that they had Calamari on the menu, so I asked if they can make me just stir fried Calamari with fries instead and they were more than happy to oblige. The Calamari came with a sauce and they did not let me have the sauce until they checked all the ingredients and guess what? It was gluten free! It was a really good tamarind type tasting sauce for the Calamari with a bit of a kick to it. Andrew settled on fish and chips and a beer – what else would he have in a joint like this? It was interesting that he chose a Killarney Beer – which was the brewery that we passed by but did not go into yesterday!

After a nice (not) walk back in the rain to our apartment, we watched some TV and decided to call it a night as tomorrow we are moving onto Cork and Andrew needs to be rested for the drive again…. oh no! He is up in the middle of the night AGAIN – he ate too big a meal too soon and his body let him know that it was not happy! Now perhaps he will wait until his body starts to tell him he is hungry (instead of just wanting to eat) and it will work better! Oh the joys of travelling and getting sick. Of all the traveling we have done, this is the first time we BOTH have been affected and not just me, so I guess we have been lucky!

I was up fairly early today as I was a woman on a mission! To find more wool! After my disappointment on the Aran Islands and being in a country with a pretty booming knitting industry – there had to be wool around here somewhere! Yes, I already had bought some wool when we were in Blarney at the Woolen Mills there and I could return there when we go to Cork next, however I really want to branch out on the type of wool that I purchase! Low and behold – there is a yarn manufacturer close by in Kerry, which is about a 20 minute drive. So I waited until Andrew had completed his beauty sleep and had his standard breakfast of toast, peanut butter and coffee (he is feeling better now) and suggested that we go check out the Kerry Woolen Mills along with a brewery on our way back into town. He thought this was doable, so off we went! We also needed to get some provisions as I was starting to finally feel hungry and wanted to shop at Tesco instead of the Polish store so I could read the ingredients a bit better (not in Polish)! Tesco also has their own line of Gluten Free items and they are actually quite good! I really like their chocolate covered digestive cookies – they are only 1.70 Euros which is pretty reasonable!

I was VERY successful at the Kerry Woolen Mills! I bought a sweater amount of maroon coloured aran wool along with some thinner wool (fingerling) which I can make something different out of it – like a think shirt or a shawl! A table runner also jumped off the table into my hands too – I hate when that happens – so there were 3 things procured there which I deemed a successful shopping trip! Now to get that wool into the suitcase is the next issue I (not we) need to face! Just to note, I would not purchase the wool if I could get it for a similar price in Canada – but I cannot. It is more than half price here in Ireland so it is a VERY good thing to purchase and bring back home for future projects!

Now back in Killarney, we made a quick stop at the Tesco right in the middle of the town and then went back to our apartment at the end of Main Street to relax and have a bite to eat and see what is on the television. Not sure what tomorrow will hold for us, however we are currently taking it easy as we are both still feeling a bit weak and not wanting to exert ourselves too much! Here was the short drive we took today…

Well, that was a rough night! With Andrew falling sick half way through the night, I started getting concerned about our ability to get to Killarney. Unfortunately, he is the only one licensed to drive the car and it will be too hard to change that with Europcar. I went out and bought him some medication and topped up on our water and Sprite collection (luckily we were situated within walking distance of both a pharmacy and truck stop) and then asked the hotel if we could extend the hotel check out time from 11am to 1pm and they told me noon was as late as we could check out. An extra hour is better than nothing at all! After taking some medication and liquids Andrew was feeling a bit better and by that time I had mapped out all the places we could stop along the way if he felt sick or needed to use the restroom. At noon we were off to drive to Killarney! I did not take that many pictures as we took some backroads to make it easier for Andrew instead of being on the highway and him concentrating on driving on the left side of the road. Here are the few that I took:

It was easy to find the Park Place Apartments which I had booked and I was quite impressed that they actually were located where they said they were! So many times when a place to stay says they are “5 minutes from the main street” it means driving however this was walking distance to the area that we last stayed which was awesome! Here are some pictures of the Park Place Apartments that come closest to the type of accommodation that we stayed in which was a 1 bedroom suite. It contained a nice bedroom (although again one side of the bed was against the wall) with space and a chair, a long kitchen with a couch and two sitting chairs and a TV at the ends along with a kitchen table and most importantly a fridge and a European washer/dryer. We also had a terrace which we could go out onto or open the door to get fresh air.

While Andrew took a nap after the drive, I went downstairs to what I thought was a store to get some supplies. I was quite surprised to find out that it actually was a Polish store! So all the ingredients were in Polish! I got Andrew some bread (his request), some more water, apple juice and some yogurt for myself that looked good and came back to the apartment. At that point in time I had received a message to review the hotel that we had stayed at in Galway, so I told them how nice a room that we had, however how sick Andrew had gotten from eating their seafood chowder the night before. Almost immediately I was contacted with an apology and to let me know that he was not the only one who had gotten sick – there had been others and it seems Andrew had gotten food poisoning! I found it pretty interesting that within several days of each other I had consumed gluten and Andrew got food poisoning. Oh well, that is all over with now, lets move onto tomorrow – it is another day!

Here is our drive from north of Galway to Killarney where we are going to spend the next 3 days –

Although still feeling a BIT green, this trip has been a dream of mine for years to do – to visit the Aran Islands which are just off the coast of western Ireland – best accessed from either near Galway or Doolin. As we have already visited Doolin with the bus tour to see the cliffs of Moher, way back when planning this trip I thought the trip from a city near Galway would be better and a shorter passage on the boat as it can get pretty rough in these waters. Not like that bothers me at all! There are 3 inhabited islands in the Aran Island chain – Inis Mor, Inis Meain and Inis Oirr. Inis Mor is the largest of the islands and our destination today.

First, we drove for about 45 minutes to the town where the boats depart from – Carraroe. A very nice drive to meet the 10am ferry over to Inis Mor and the 4pm ferry to return. Each direction was about an hour ride. Here is a map of where we stayed, where we drove to and then we crossed to Inishmore and landed in the bay on the bottom right of the island, where it looks like a bite was taken out of it!

When we arrived in Inishmore, I realized there was an issue – we were traveling during king tides and it was a VERY low tide currently. Tonight was supposed to be the Harvest moon. The dock, which we were supposed to dis-inbark from the lower level, where we were sitting was incredibly high and instead I had to climb up to the upper deck of the boat and go up the gang plank to get off the boat! There is nothing link parking next to a wharf and all you see is a ladder going up and up… wish I had taken a picture of that! Once we got off the boat we were met by a man offering a van ride around the Island. I had tried to book one of these and it said online that you will receive the best price when getting off the boat – so that is what we did! He had lived his life on the Aran Islands and he and his son ran this van business taking visitors around the island everyday. So off we went on our island adventure which included a drive, a stop at a 4 store village so people could walk to some ruins and get lunch and then return to the harbour in time for the ferry home. Off we go!

The van dropped us off back in the main village where we had departed from at about 3pm so we could go have a drink or shop prior to walking around the harbour to catch the boat back to the main island. At this point in time I was VERY puzzled. We are ON the Aran Islands. There is WOOL that comes from these islands – where are the wool shops? I had come prepared with a big bag to carry my wool onto the boat but wool shops (as in ones that sell skeins of wool) are missing! All that was there were stores that you can find all over Ireland that sell sweaters etc that are already made! Oh dear, I need to find some more wool! This is not going to be a beer and wool trip if I do not find more wool!

Now we are back on the main island of Ireland, we made our way back to our hotel. I was not feeling up for eating dinner so Andrew decided to have some of the seafood chowder from the restaurant downstairs, which I went down to get for him as I also wanted to get some ice. Holy smokes things can be expensive here! The to go coffee cup (medium size) of seafood chowder was about 2/3 full and cost me 11 Euros! That was quite expensive and later I found out it should have come with bread too! Andrew seemed satisfied with it and we then went to bed as we were driving to Killarney tomorrow to spend 3 days at an apartment that I had found online. I know that I had said we were not going to move around a lot, however the B&B that I had booked for Galway did not work out (12 stairs to our room) and then were not honest about the stairs so we had to cancel that booking. As Galway was pretty busy still, we decided just to stay the 2 days to go to the Aran Islands and then go back to Killarney, which we liked when staying there on tour for the balance of the 5 days that we were to spend in Galway…

However the story does not end there…. a few hours into the night Andrew got sick! Not as sick as I got however rightly so, pretty sick. So that put a wrinkle into our plans!

Now that I have gotten everything out of my system, I am feeling good enough to move hotels and the 1 hour drive to Galway. However first, we are going to make a quick visit to the Athlone Castle, which I had wanted to do yesterday. Also for those that want to know, YES, I did speak to the hotel about my gluten encounter – both the Duty Manager last night and then the Hotel Director (GM) this morning when we were checking out. As I am pretty sure that I consumed gluten at the hotel, they are going to investigate what I ate, after I provided a list of all the food that I consumed.

We arrived at the Athlone Castle, who I had emailed in advance regarding accessibility. They told me that the ramp up to the castle is pretty steep, however once in the castle, the majority of the exhibits and castle is accessible! I was impressed! Now, as for the ramp up to the castle to “dissuade enemies’ from entering” as they told me was a piece of cake! It must have been hard with all the armour that they wore or something else! It truly was a castle with 7 different rooms for us to “wind” up through where there were both displays and some things to do (mainly to keep kids interested I think but there were adult kids things too!) and then one ends up in the building in the middle of the courtyard where there was an exhibit by kids about the local flowers and fruits that are grown. Oh there was the gaol of the castle too – that was a bit disconcerting!

Now that we have left the castle and made it back to the car, we are now on our way to Galway – we took the 55 minute route and paid the tolls 🙂 Here is the route that we took to the Maldron Hotel, where we stayed, just north of the city centre and on the way to the ferry we will take tomorrow to the Aran Islands!

Up in good time for breakfast – the Sheraton provides breakfast each day for us and they have both a hot and cold breakfast buffet. Yesterday I ate some scrambled eggs and then had the normal yogurt, fruit and cereal in a bowl. They have a GF section which contained 3 cereals – a type of corn flakes, chocolate rice krispies and a muesli type cereal. I had the muesli type cereal and also a round pastry that was in its own package. I had asked the wait staff if it was gluten free (despite the sign next to the plate) as it did not have ingredients on it and they confirmed it was. Despite already haven eaten the muesli cereal, I asked them to show me the ingredients as I was curious what they were as the cereal actually tasted pretty good! It had a variety of GF grains in it – sorgum, brown rice, buckwheat mainly. Sounded good. We went upstairs and at that time, about 3 hours later I started feeling off. I already had not felt right overnight however I was now beginning to feel really sick and about 30 minutes later I was. I have not been that sick since we were in Mexico and I had gluten at that point in time – no idea what I had eaten that made me so sick, however I was now in bed for the day! Andrew was really nice and watched TV, got me some sugar free Sprite (no Ginger ale in Ireland it seems) while I tried to sleep off what ever I had consumed. I only took one picture today and that was from the bed actually with the curtains wide open – it was such a beautiful day! Let’s hope tomorrow is a better one as we are off to Galway!

What a beautiful morning! These are the views from our room at the Sheraton Athlone. I think we were upgraded as we are in a room that is curved and the windows go all around the curve – it is quite spectacular! The Sheraton is also part of a mall – which you can see the mall area below on the 1st picture – there is a Marks and Spencer down there (with a Food Hall).

While I was looking for cool places to visit on our drive around Lough Ree (lake) Andrew was tasked on finding a laundromat – only requirement was it had to be indoors. There is a bit of a trend here to have some washing machines outdoors it seems so they have 24 hour access, however the propensity for them to work has not been high, based on the feedback by people in the tour group. Besides it is nicer to sit indoors and eat lunch! He found one in Roscommon, so off we went to circle Lough Ree and stop in Roscommon, half way around to clean our clothes!

We got back to the hotel safe and sound and hung our laundry up to dry – this hotel had everything – it even had a drying line you could pull out over the bathtub to hang things! Very cool. Then we watched the sunset prior to going down to the Sheraton Club room and having some dinner – they had breaded things in there for dinner so they brought me a GF cheese sandwich which was excellent!

No plans made for tomorrow yet – there is a castle here in Athlone – perhaps we will go explore it! Here is the drive we took today –