Day 4: On this day, my Mom and I had a full day of touring the Ring of Kerry. Along the way, we saw Moll's Gap, Ladies View, the Torc
Waterfall, and visited the grounds of the Muckross Castle. During our drive, we encountered a little friend on the road walking in the other direction!
We had a funny little adventure due to the wonderful guidance of our Frommer's Ireland book. He recommended to visit Glenbeigh- "sweet little seafront town with streets lined with palm trees and a sandy beach." We arrived at the town and didn't see any of that! Mom ended up going into the gas station, where the teenage attendant explained the palm trees weren't doing so well this year...check them out.
Anyways, we continued on through Cahersiveen, Waterville, Derrynane, Caherdaniel, and took a little interesting side journey to see Staigue Fort. The fort itself wasn't worth seeing, but I did enjoy Mom's worrying since we were off the beaten path. From there, we continued on through Sneem and finished back in Kenmare. It was a full day's journey! After a nap, we had a delish dinner at Davitt's, where they had some nice live music with fiddlers. For dessert, we had Irish coffee with a Banoffi pie--biscuit bottom, toffee, bananas, and cream--yummy!
Day 5: Today we spent the first half of the day journeying from Kenmare to Dingle. The ride was so beautiful to the town of Dingle! We went through rolling mountains, rolling green fields spotted with cows, sheep, lambs etc. When we arrived in Dingle, we had some delicious fish and chips. From there, we did our obligatory pictures in Dingle.
After that, we headed to Tralee, towards our place for the night--Ballyseede Castle! This was definitely one of the best parts of the trip-staying at a castle in Ireland for the night. Our room was so spacious, and we had slippers and robes to wear. :) We walked around on the grounds, played with the clever little dog of the castle, enjoyed a drink at the bar, learned some history of the haunted castle, then had a cool 2 course dinner in the dining room of the castle!
After dinner, we hung out at the bar with other travelers, enjoying a drink and writing out postcards to friends and family. Ironically, I had a hard time sleeping that night in fear of encountering the ghost....luckily, no ghost sightings this time.
Day 6: After a lovely stay in Ballyseede Castle, we left in our little nerd mobile on a full day's journey. We drove from Tralee to the Cliffs of Moher. Neither my Mom or I were really impressed with the cliffs. While they were of course beautiful, it was very touristy and crowded here. Sometimes it's hard to enjoy beautiful parts of nature with crowds of people speaking a million different languages, all trying to get pictures of their own.
We stopped for lunch and ice cream at a little restaurant in Doolin, and then headed to Galway, driving through the Burren. Mom and I were singing while we drove around all the hairpin turns. We stopped at the Galway airport and returned the rental car, then proceeded to our adorable hotel: The House Hotel. It was an adorable hotel, very nicely decorated, in an awesome location. We walked around Galway a bit, and getting a yummy dinner at a place called Milano. It was almost like a Bertucci's, haha. We enjoyed dinner, then deaded out and grabbed a glass of wine at a bar called "The Front Door." From there, we went to Taffe's, and spent a while there enjoying some drinks and some great, modern Irish music. On our walk home, we were surprised by how hopping it was in Galway on a Wednesday night!
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