Ireland: Day 4

One of the things we were looking most forward to is driving what is called the "Ring of Kerry." It is a 120-mile scenic drive that starts and ends in Killarney. We had high hopes for this drive, and it did not disappoint. We stopped several times to get out of the car and take in the amazing scenery. 

This beautiful valley was one of our first stops.

We ran into this interesting fellow with his donkey and dog :)

This is what a typical road in the Irish countryside looks like. Narrow (this is two lanes), no shoulder, and hedges that are so close to the road they sometimes brush your car!

Here's a video I took to show what it was like!

The little white dots are sheep. They are everywhere! And almost all of the sheep had been marked with a spot of color somewhere on their coats. Not sure if it is an ownership thing or what.

Notice the little sailboat in the background.

This was one of the most amazing views from the entire trip.

The color of the water was amazing!

We stopped in the city of Sneem and went to this pink pub for lunch.  

Davis was a fan of the pub! Everywhere we went, the women swooned over him and talked about how he was "a big lad" :)

I know I have a lot of pictures of streets and buildings, but I couldn't get enough of the color and charm of them all! I love that the Irish people aren't afraid of color.

At the end of the Ring of Kerry we stopped and took a short walk up to Torc Waterfall. Sean described the area best when he called it "Ferngully." Green everywhere-- even the trunks of the trees were covered in bright green moss.

Next, we took a tour of the Muckross House, which is near Torc Waterfall. It's a nineteenth century Victorian mansion next to one of the lakes of Killarney. The tour was really cool, and so many aspects of it reminded me of Downton Abbey. The house had ropes in each room attached to bells in the servants' quarters and the kitchen looked so similar!

The gardens at the house were pretty amazing. 

Sean had fun :)

Even the house itself had flowers growing out of it!

We headed into Killarney for dinner that evening at Cronins Restaurant. This was one of my favorite nights of the trip. Sean made fast friends with the host of the restaurant (who himself was a Cronin). They talked about soccer and the NBA and how we needed to add an O' before our last name to make it O'Ricks. 

Our food was amazing-- probably my favorite meal of the trip. We got to sit in the upper level of the restaurant and spent most of our meal laughing and talking about the cool stuff we'd done that day. After that, it was off to bed to get ready for an early start the next morning!