Day 5: Tuesday (6/11/2013)

Today's goal: the Ring of Kerry and on to Dingle!

This is a tall order for one day, so we got up early, had an excellent breakfast (I honestly can't recommend the Old Presbytery enough, despite crappy wifi), and hit the road by 8:30am.

Welcome to County Kerry, Ireland.

We drove northwest and hit the Ring of Kerry by about 10am.  Almost immediately, we were blown away by the amazing vistas--Kerry is just astonishing countryside.  And boy, did we really put the vomit comet through its paces today--we were tooling around roads in backcountry Ireland that would be a tight fit for hikers.  I think our GPS spent the day trying to punk us.

Staigue Ring Fort

Our first stop: the Staigue Ring Fort.  Getting to this place was a challenge, but it was worth it.  The ruin is almost intact, and still stands guard over a valuable and healthy crop of rocks and wind.

From there, we continued our drive (stopping at several lookout points for pictures) until we hit Daniel O'Connell's house at Derrynane.  You can read more about Daniel O'Connell elsewhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_O'Connell), but in short he was an important political in the 19th century who won equality for Catholics in occupied Ireland.  His house wasn't that interesting in and of itself, but the history it teaches about this extraordinary man made the stop worthwhile.

We went from there to around the Ring of Skellig.  In the plus side, there were no tour buses here.  On the minus side, there's a good reason why: the roads got even crazier.  I don't know who decides the speed limits for roads in Ireland, but they have a great sense of humor.  The highlight of the loop was a stop at the Skellig chocolate factory, a modern building marooned in a sea of heather and stones.  The chocolate was absolutely amazing...and of course Mary left with plenty.

We kept going down to Portmagee, the cast-off point for Skellig Michael.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the Abbey on Skellig Michael due to time constraints.  I really wanted to see the abbey.  Another time.

By now it had really started to pour, so we were grateful to finally arrive in Dingle.

While in Dingle Town we stayed at Bamberry's Guest House, a quiet, clean little place within easy walking distance of the center of town.  Overall, we enjoyed our stay here, and recommend it.

These guys were realllly good.  See
the video here.

Once we had checked in, we went out to John Benny Morrisey's pub for dinner, drinks, and Irish folk music.  Dinner was meh--see my review here--but the draft cider was great, as was the music: a guitarist and an accordion player running through a number of Irish folk tunes.

We left late--and lo!  The rain had finally stopped!  Maybe tomorrow we'll actually get to wander outside without drowning?