Ireland Honeymoon - Day 5 - Kate & Steve

Ireland Honeymoon – Day 5 – March 13, 2013

We woke up nice and early because of course we hoped that by getting up early (where Steve showers at night and I shower at 7:30 and we get the early breakfast slot at 8) we might get out on the road to our nearest destination early, but it never seems to work that way.  We just get into conversations with hostesses at breakfast or other travelers.  Our stuff that we had washed in the sink the night before was NOT dry, so we had to bag it all up really damp, and then went out to load the car.  I explained to Steve that we needed to pack our stuff in the car’s trunk, which has a cover to hide what’s in the trunk area, and then we’d unpack our wet stuff and lay it out flat in the hopes of it drying throughout the day.  But when we got outside, the owner’s puppy (we think she was also a Bernese mountain dog, named Rollo, and was ready to play.  It was so hard to pack and focus (especially for Steve) with an adorable 1 year old excited dog to play with!   We took some pictures of the dog, and it was my turn again in the driver seat (I think), so I got in and sat down and started the car, and then Steve opened the back door and it felt like something else was in the car…so I accused Steve of stealing the puppy!  I think he probably would have if he could have!

Finally we got on the road, but first stop was a shop in Kenmare called “Blackthorn” and I wanted to get my blackthorn walking stick, but they were closed.  So we went to a gourmet shop called Truffle Pig and bought a loaf of soda bread and some jam, but the soda bread was made with pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and it just didn’t taste right when we ate it.  But we didn’t eat it then.  I will admit that this morning we actually did get out of town a lot faster than we have left places previously – because we were heading directly to Muckross Estate in Killarney along the Killarney lakes.  It didn’t take very long to get there, and it was a beautiful estate – hundreds of hundreds of acres, and so much to see but most was closed for the “off” season.  A few more weeks and we’d have been able to see much more but the house itself was remarkable. 

Muckross House was built in 1843 for a couple, the wife was a watercolorist.  Preparations were made early on in the 1850s to make the house presentable and suitable for a planned visit from Queen Victoria.  Queen Victoria announced her visit 6 years in advance!  An entire suite of rooms was built for her!  But back to the ownership.  After the expenses of preparation and the Queen’s visit, the Herbert’s had to sell the estate and it was purchased by Arthur Guinness (yes, THE Guinness), and then it was purchased by a California couple as a wedding gift for their daughter Maud, who married Arthur Rose Vincent.  Sir Vincent became a Senator and contributed the estate land to creation of Killarney National Park, and the House to the State of Ireland.  Originally the décor was reflective of a hunting lodge, as the main entrance is filled with skulls of animals (before the era of taxidermy) killed by the men of the house and the male visitors.  There is also a skull of a Giant Irish Elk, now extinct, whose antlers were found in a bog.  There is a billiards room just off the main entryway, and women were absolutely not allowed inside the billiards room.  However, Maud decided to put the library adjacent to the billiards room, so men could go to the library from the billiards room, and the sitting room, usually relegated to the women, was just on the other side of the library so both men and women had access to the books.  This was quite ballsy of her! 

We saw things that I am sure I have seen before and never really understood – but there are fire screens – sometimes ornately decorated, and they slide up and down on a pole, depending on a woman’s height, and their purpose is to shield the woman’s face from the heat of the fire while she sat near it.  The reason?  Women’s makeup at that time contained arsenic, lead, and wax – hence the expression “saving face” – the screens prevented the makeup from melting!

We went into the apartments for Queen Victoria and the bed appears to be very short.  I walked up to it saying Steve could never fit in it, and discovered that it is actually a normal sized bed.  This was something seen throughout the house and our guide said that they were considered “optical illusion” beds – designed to look small, but aren’t.  In her chambers, we were allowed to use our camera only to photograph out the window of the bedroom at the back garden and one of Killarney’s beautiful lakes.  I sneakily turned around and photographed the Queen’s bed.  We’ll see if it turns out.

What was very interesting to us was that the children had their own wing of the house.  It used to be that women of status had very little interaction with her own children, same with the men and their children.  The children had their own bedrooms, their own play rooms, somewhere for tutors to come and teach them, and even had their own staircases so that the servants who were assigned to the children would come up and down their own children’s staircase.  Sometimes I wonder if that was a horrible idea…or if they were on to something.  Just kidding.  But I must mention, they had some creepy dolls.  We weren’t supposed to take photos inside and I’m not sure my sneak photo took, but I tried to take a sneaky photo of the dolls.

After our guided tour, we walked around a little bit and admired the estate and the grounds and the secret rock garden and decided to eat lunch in the cafeteria there with a view of the gardens as it was sprinkling a little bit.  Not only had we had some fruit in the morning with breakfast (not as much as at the Ashfield), but we scored by having side salads and vegetable soup at lunch!  Trust me, sometimes you really want fruit and veggies.  Especially when you have a glass wall and can watch beautiful gardens and trees and not be rained on while you enjoy them!

After we finished with Muckross Estate, we drove along the Killarney Lakes and before reaching Limerick, we took a pit stop in Adare, famed to be “one of the most beautiful Irish villages”, by many guidebooks and websites and even Steve’s friend Tyler said we needed to go there.  There was a visitor center, so we decided to go in and find out if there were a map or if there were any ideas that they might have for what we should do to see the beauty of Adare.  What’s funny is next door to the visitor’s center is a beautiful church, and across from the center are many thatch cottage businesses with brightly colored painted walls.  This is relevant soon.  The older gray-haired woman (don’t get me wrong, I color any grays I might have) gave us a map and recommend that we take the “river walk” to see the lovely sights of Adare.  So we walked across a gigantic parking lot, past a business cove with no beauty to it, passed an ugly subdivision, and climbed to the river walk, which was us walking along on a narrow shallow river with not very nice clay banks, and ahead of us about ¾ of a mile an old bridge and the ruins of something, maybe an abbey.  So we walked and walked for a long time (in our Wellies, mind you) on a sidewalk along a not-so-pretty-river, took pictures of the ruins once we got to the bridge, turned right, there was a pretty church, walked maybe another block, and there was the church right next to the visitor center and the thatched cottages that Adare is so known for.  We could have seen “beautiful Adare” without the ugly walk.  Sure we got exercise, but we were on a mission today!  And we had been parked by all the sights right then.  So if ever any of you head to Adare, just stay on the main drag, and see all the churches and the ruins and the thatched cottages within a half a mile space.  Don’t do the “riverwalk”.  It was not impressive, and it was a roundabout way to get exactly to where we started and not scenic for people who grew up around water.  A small river doesn’t impress us much.  Focus on the 2 churches and the thatch-roof cottages.  Oh, it also rained heavily on us while we were walking.  Don’t forget your umbrella. 

In fact, at this point in my journal, I should mention how we prepared for each day.  As the weather is extremely unpredictable, we both had rain jackets, Steve’s heavy and meant for motorcycle riding so it kept him warm, mine lined with a zip-out, zip-in lining for warmth.  Then we dressed in layers if we felt necessary, though I never layered my legs.  We had fleece Welly liners that kept our feet warm – wore regular socks and then put our feet in the Welly liners, and that kept our feet and legs dry, provided support for walking, and the liners kept blisters from forming because on my first day I didn’t use liners and I had blisters from the inner boot seams.  Then we zipped up – I had a cross-body purse big enough for maps or a guidebook, money, sunglasses, lip gloss, cell phone.  Then came the regular camera strap around my neck, and the camera bag strap around my neck, so I could protect the camera in the rain by zipping it in the case and keeping it there until it was needed, and it was always safely hanging off my neck.  Steve had a point-and-shoot camera and a case that snapped on his belt so that was easy for him, a manly hand-off way of carrying it.  And we both almost always had an umbrella strap hanging off our wrists.  After a while, you don’t even notice it.  And you’re always prepared to use it, or put it away.  I don’t care about getting damp, and neither did Steve, so we only used the ‘brollys for heavy rain.  Like in Adare.

We got back on the road and through some heavy rain, and Steve and I decided to head all the way to the Cliffs of Moher area and chose a B & B out of the book that said it was within 6 km of the Cliffs of Moher area, so Steve called and made the reservation.  The reservation was for a town called Doolin.  Actually, it was a village but the wildest roughest terrain we’ve seen so far.  Doolin is in an area of the northwest coast of Ireland known as The Burren area.  What’s crazy about Doolin, even though it’s well-known among the Irish as the place to go for musicians and music and near the Cliffs of Moher, is that it does not show up on the GPS as a place to go at all.  Thankfully, our B & B book has GPS coordinates in it, and so we found Doolin from the GPS coordinates – even though Doolin is in the guidebooks and maps and like I said, well-known in-country.  The GPS just didn’t know it was there.  This isn’t the first time we’ve had to work with a map or coordinates.  So remember – even if you rent an Irish GPS, you may still need to do some geography and use coordinates or a real map (we had about 6 real maps too). 

From the B & B, there was a beautiful view of the sea, which was grey when we arrived at our B & B.  There were two little dark-haired boys playing soccer in the drizzle when we got there, but they were quickly called inside.  Our hostess for the B & B was very sweet and recommended where we could go that would be open in the off-season to find live music AND food.  Doolin is known to be a haven for musicians, residents and travelers.  Every night, it is said, someone brings their instruments to the pubs and they join each other in an informal manner, called a céilí.  Once they find a common song or note or beat, they join in.  We couldn’t wait as we hadn’t had any live entertainment since we got to Ireland.  Unfortunately, we were dead tired.

We drove slowly toward the pub to take in the area and were so amazed at the rough terrain and the nearness of the sea and how drowsy we were.  We finally made it to the pub and much to our surprise, we were delayed upon entering the pub by an American couple having just been married that afternoon on the Cliffs of Moher and being photographed at the pub.  They had just a couple with them – the Best Man and Maid of Honor and maybe a few other people.  She was wearing a beautiful lace dress, and as any good bride knows, it was nearly black at the bottom, signifying a good wedding day.

It was 7 p.m. and we ordered some food at the pub and we asked when the music would begin.  We were told that it would start at 9 p.m. We both were totally NOT sure that we would be able to survive that long.  We sat at a table and realized it was an old foot-pedal sewing machine with a flat top on it.  A German group of people next to us were surprised when they realized there were moving parts under their table so Steve showed them how it worked and what it was for. 

After dinner, we tried to decide what to do – go back to the B & B and miss the music, or wait for the music.  We decided to bring the planning books into the pub and talk about what we wanted to do tomorrow, and we did that for about an hour, set a plan, and it was 9 p.m.  The music did not start.

Time crept by very slowly.  Neither of us had more than one drink, and then we were drinking water because we would’ve passed out.  In fact, there was a man there completely passed out on the bar.  Finally, maybe by quarter to ten, musicians set up, decided on a reel, and began to play.  I was really excited – grabbed my camera and took some sepia photos trying to be artsy, and then they took a long time deciding on the next song.  Steve grabbed our belongings and we decided to listen to just one more song and then leave.  It took a long time before they picked a second song.  Finally they found one, we listened, and then we left while they were looking for another song.  We had been early in the pub and we were the earliest to leave.  At least we could say that we had witnessed a céilí and heard some live Irish music.  Just not a lot of it.

Steve’s back was hurting him really badly today, so he took some meds and passed out as soon as he could get ready and get in bed.  I literally turned the light on in the bathroom, pulled a chair up to the light, and tried really hard to write in my journal or at least do an outline, but I fell asleep in the chair, then in the bathroom when I knew that I needed to get ready and go to sleep.  Finally I found the bed and was just out cold.  I hope we didn’t say we were getting up too early because I did NOT want that to be the case.