Well we have had a couple of busy days, and now have a chance to reflect on it.

Monday morning we woke up to a lovely day and headed out to Cashel town. We visited the Rock back in 2007, but thought it would be nice to visit again and photograph without the scaffolds. To our dismay, the scaffolds have multiplied since our last visit, so we decided not to go up. We stopped at a little shop down the hill, across from the rock, and met a lovely young lady. She suggested we take a visit to the Cashel Folk Museum. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but Bernhard has packed the area with information and things to see. We strongly suggest a visit, but be sure to allow several hours to be able to ingest it all. His 1916 display could keep you occupied for a full day on its own!

On our way out from the museum, we stopped to look at St Dominic's and snap more photos, before heading out to Hore abbey. Hore is an amazing sight to see, both from the rock above, and the field below. Be sure to mind where you step though, as the cows seem to fancy the sidewalk! We spent about an hour at Hore abbey - most of the time just us.

We continued down the road and made our way to Athassel priory. What an amazing sight! The priory's are always so large, but Athassel is the largest in all of Ireland, originally occupying 4 acres. The condition is not as great as some, but what what remains is truly impressive. The high walls in one section looked to be 3 or 4 stories tall.

This was an early evening in to celebrate my birthday. We stopped at the Dunnes store in Mallow and picked up a few things, then headed home to make dinner. It's so nice to travel with a trained chef! Rib eye steak, sauteed Irish mushrooms, fresh green beans - so yummy! Since it was my birthday we had desert - Vienetta ice cream with Bailey's Chocolat on top. What a great end to a wonderful day!

Yesterday we decided to have an easy day so we headed down to Blarney to shop and see the castle grounds. The Blarney Woolen Mills store is huge! We spent about 2 1/2 hours there shopping and buying! Parking was free - what a treat! There was a lovely lady working in the jewelry section of the store who said she would be happy to hold our finds until we were ready to checkout. We kept stopping back by to see her and drop off a few things. The worst thing is that she kept getting farther away as we ventured on to the other parts of the store!

Once we made our purchases and secured them in the boot of the car we decided to walk to the castle grounds to snap a few more photos. We have plenty of them from our 2007 trip, but thought we would supplement - no need to go in the castle this visit. To our dismay things have changed, and it now costs 12 euro each to get on the grounds. This includes admission to the castle - something we didn't need. We decided against the grounds visit and saved that 24 euro for shopping or other stops.

We came back up to town and visited the old ruins of Mourne Abbey. There isn't much to see anymore, but we still enjoyed it. Finally, we headed back to the cottage and started a turf fire. It made for a lovely evening.

Today we headed into Killarney town (needed to top up the mifi). It was a pleasant drive along the N72, a bit overcast and cool, but nice. Once we reached town we stopped at the Failte Ireland tourist center to see if we could get directions to the 3 store. What a great tourist center - and the people working there know their way around. Not only did we get directions to the 3 store, but to several other stops as well.

We stopped into 3 and topped up the mifi, then visited the Clearys jewely store across the street to make a purchase at their going out of business sale. We wandered through town looking at the sights, and stopped in the Aran Sweater Market shop. Nice folks, in the back they were packaging and shipping orders from aransweatermarket.com. I purchased a nice lined zip front sweater for Keith from the online store for Christmas. This stop yielded a pair of merino slippers for myself. They are quite nice, and keeping my feet all snuggly warm right now!

After visiting a few more shops, we headed out to Ross Castle. We took pictures on the outside, but came inside to find that entry is by guided tour only, and no inside photos allowed. Not wanting to wait 30 minutes for the next tour, to see a castle that we couldn't photograph, we moved on. Next stop was Muckross abbey. As we parked the car and started to walk toward the gate a nice mature jaunty cart driver asked if we'd like a ride. No we said, we were on a schedule, and didn't have a lot of time. But I can take you around to the abbey, the lakes, the house, and show you everything, he said. We don't have time for the whole thing we said we'll just walk in and we continued through the gate. After walking 10 feet or so here he came - I can have you there in half the time of your walk, and still show you everything. Persistence paid off and we agreed to the ride - and we are so glad we did.

Michael was fun and very educational. As we rode along he pointed out various species of trees, plants, flora and fauna. He told us about the estate and how it came to be the Killarney National Park, back in the hands of the Irish. He stopped as we wanted to take photos, and waited for us at each stop. The first stop, the abbey, I stayed behind in the cart. As Keith went in and took many a photo, I had an enjoyable chat with Michael. We hadn't planned on seeing Muckross House, but thanks to our jaunty ride we did get photos and got to see all 52 chimneys and about 1/2 of the 365 windows. At Torc waterfall Michael again waited as both of us ventured up the path to see the falls. Upon our return to the cart Keith said oh Michael, they have quite the water leak up there. A lovely grin appeared on Michael's face. As we rounded the next corner he stopped and showed us the the small herd of red deer in the field along the path. It was a lovely ride and the Irish wool blankets kept me snuggly warm in the misty rain. We even got Michael to speak a little gaelic with Keith, something he seldom does with his passengers. Well worth the trip at only 35 euro and an hours time.

Next we were off to Macroom to see two castles - Carrigaphooca and Carrigadrohid. The first is a lovely tower house on a hill. Unfortunately, the farmer who owns the land keeps the gate locked with no style available for a close look. We were able to snap a few photos from the road, but a closer look would have been grand. The Carrigadrohid castle is right on the road and very easily accessible. Nothing on the inside to see through the gate except lovely plants. The location on the river is nice, and there is a quaint park on the rivers edge looking at the castle.

We continued on our way back down toward Blarney where we could pick up the N20 and head back to Mourne Abbey.

Tomorrow we're off to Cobh and Spike Island. Not certain what else - but those for sure!

The weather has been fabulous - today was our first day to see rain, and it was only a light mist.

More later - time to go to sleep now!