Day: October 18, 2007

Day 1 – I'll buy you a teddy bear if you buy me an Audi.

The taxi picked us up at stupid early o'clock on Monday and we headed off to Stansted for the usual Ryanair experience. The flight was mostly uneventful. We landed at Kerry airport and the first thing that came to mind is that it's TINY! Lodz airport was actually bigger, and that's saying a lot.

Immigration and baggage reclaim took the whole of 10 minutes and then we were at the Budget counter waiting to pick up the car. The car hire cost twice as much as was originally quoted, but that's a classic (airport surcharge, insurance, petrol deposit). That last one is a great scam. They charged us 65 euro for a petrol deposit. If we returned the car with a full tank of gas, we'd get it back. A full tank costs in the region of 30 euro… Nice. I wonder how many people just can't be bothered to fill the car back up and lose twice the amount it should have cost.

We had a bit of a mishap with the car keys (they gave us the wrong ones) but we managed to sort it out with the couple who were also given the wrong keys (ours) and we were on our way. It took a while for Katy to get used to driving a different car but that soon passed and we headed to Killarney to check in to the hotel.

Even though we had a good map book (something that repeatedly saved our bacon on his trip), Katy had to use the force to find our Hotel. It's something she's remarkably good at :) We got to the hotel at 9:30 am and check-in would normally not have been for another few hours but they took pity on us and directed us to breakfast while they got the room ready for us. This was a sign of what was to come. The breakfast at the hotel was good. It was dang good! Both Katy and I fell in love with the brown soda bread :)

Killarney claims to have been a tourist town since the mid 17th century. As such, it has more hotels and guest houses than anywhere else in Ireland except Dublin.

We walked to the city center to do a bit of window shopping and then headed for a leisurely 10-15 km pootle in Killarney National Park. We overheard the day's quote in the city center.

Walking in the park was mostly fun, except for the swarms of flies that congregated on the mounds of steaming horse shit. Part of the path we walked along was the jaunting car route and the cars don't have shit catchers for the horses. It gets fragrant in some parts…

The scenery was beautiful though and we walked from the Cathedral entrance, all along the lakeside until we reached Ross Castle. We stopped there for a cup of tea and discussed the finer points of lesbian duck rape and other water fowl varia.

As we were walking, for some bizarre reason, I got a few Mary Poppins and Monty Python sketches stuck in my head. I did my best to get rid of them by singing them to Katy and infecting her with them instead.

After walking for 5 hours (and remember, we got up at 3am that morning), we were beat and hungry. We walked back into town to try and find somewhere nice to eat but all the nice places were either closed on a Monday or not open yet. We ended up in a little place called Salvadore's. The food was ok, the service was good up to the point where I had to ask 3 times for a sodding cup of tea. Also, they have the same stupid song on auto-repeat for 75 minutes. It got to the point where I had to point it out to them because it was driving me mad and I feared I was about to go postal. They completely hadn't noticed. It would have been ok if it was a good song, but it wasn't. For those who know it, it was the theme music to the TV cooking show 'Licensed to Grill'. I'll give kudos to anybody who can point me towards an MP3 of it just so I can link to it and share the pain with you.

We walked back to the hotel and plans for a bubble bath crashed and burned when we fell asleep at 8:30.

Day 2 – Ring of Kerry

The Ring is an ubercool drive, but man are we glad we did it in the low season. It would be completely insane to do it in the high season with all the tourists and the buses!

The roads are fast, narrow, winding and all the warnings we'd read about the utter lack of sign posts finally made sense. We nearly drove off a cliff at one point and the only indication we were about to lose our insurance deposit was a small road sign. We had a detailed AA road map, two travel guides and we still managed to get “lost” along the way to one of the most out-of-the-way view points on Valencia Island. It's just opposite an abandoned slate mine and gives a view on the whole harbour. At one point on the way back, we had to drive the car into the hedgerow to make way for a large lorry. We decided to avoid the pass that would have driven us up into fog-covered mountains (which is the point where we got lost again and almost drove off the cliff, but I digress).

We made it back to the main roads and continued on our merry way to SNEEM! Sneem rocks. It's a small village with a cool name. For the rest of the trip, we would derive great pleasure in yelling SNEEM at each other in funny voices for no apparent reason. Our parents would have hated the drive and been scared shitless. The roads were so potholed at one point that even the painted lines were all wonky because the suspension in the road-painting truck couldn't cope. But the views!!!

We stopped at Ladies' View and managed to snap a few pics just before the rain came in.

We made it back into Killarney and made reservations to go eat at Gaby's. It was NUMMAY! I can't recommend the place highly enough. If you go, try the crab claws, followed by the lobster Gaby ending with the steamed treacle sponge. Lobster Gaby is the house specialty. It's a lobster that is boiled, then cut in half with all the good stuff scooped out, chunked up and flavoured with cream, spices, tomatoes and a large portion of cognac, then grilled to perfection. I drooled. Honest to God drooled. We also had a crazy-nice waitress that made the evening that much nicer. Looking back on it, we were probably quite drunk when we paid because we left a 40 euro tip :) Still, worth every penny!

Day 3 – Torc and Kenmare

Torc waterfall, just outside Killarney, is beautiful. We got there just as the morning rain ended and it took my breath away. We had a walk around the mountain and then headed to Kenmare along our favourite bit of driving road. To get from Killarney to Kenmare, you have to drive through Moll's Gap and the road is just spectacular. We saw 4 car wrecks along the way that were not there the day before. These served as a bit of a reminder to not get cocky on the road :)

We got to Kenmare without incident and window shopped along the high street. The experience was spoiled by the gaggle of angry teenaged school children that were out for the afternoon. I maintain that there should be leash laws for kids. We stopped into Jam, out newly-discovered and favourite little cafe chain where we bought some decadent chocolate eclairs and a stuffed baked potato for later. If you're in Ireland and you see a Jam, go in. You won't be disappointed by the portions :)

We'd booked tickets to go harbour seal watching. The usual boat from Kenmare was out of order but Tourism Information had directed us to another place. Unfortunately, it wasn't based in Kenmare but from a little village on the Beara peninsula (about 10 minutes drive away). We learned this the hard way after walking all the way across Kenmare to the pier and discovering the error of our way. Katy got a bit flustered about the time we had left to get there, but after calling the boat people (for the 3rd time in about 20 minutes – bless), they kindly agreed to wait for us to get there before heading out of the harbour.

The bus was full of crotchety old English folk, but we managed to strike up a conversation with a nice couple from Derby. We saw a nice abandoned castle that we could have bought for 15 million euro (Katy already had plans to build a Starbucks franchise in it to sell coffee to people on the boat tours) and we did see some wildlife. It was a nice afternoon out on the water.

When we got back to the pier, we had a snack of eclairs and spud under the envious stares of a busful of the English codgers and we headed back to Killarney. I practiced taking-pictures-by-sticking-a-camera-out-the-window-of-a-moving-car skills. They were getting quite a workout on our driving days.

That night, we went to Cooperages for dinner. I was disappointed. The meal wasn't worth its rather high cost. The menu they'd posted on the window wasn't what was on that night. The starter of langoustine was way too much like work to get the good bits out and my coquelet was way too chewy. Katy loved her steak though. The puddings were ok, but nothing to write home to mom about. In the end, my meal wasn't memorable in any way and I was disappointed because the venison and crocodile were not on the menu. I won't be going there again.

quote of the day: “You know we can't ever leave Ireland, right? Why? Cause I've never been so regular in my life!

Day 4 – Dingle

We had the perfect day to drive around the Dingle peninsula. That day alone would have made the trip worthwhile. Our first stop was Inch beach, where we saw sea birds playing on the waves. There was a nice-looking cafe that had been recommended to us, but when we got there, two bus loads of blue-rinsed English tourists descended on the place and basically forced us out. They grabbed all the nice seats and mobbed the counter. It would have taken about 20 minutes to queue for a cup of tea and whatever cakes they hadn't eaten. It wasn't nice. We left in disgust. Katy tried to hit a few of them on the way out but sadly missed.

The scenery quickly lifted our spirits though. I mean, how can you say upset when you have this in front of you? Or this? Or this? Answer is, you can't.

We got to Dingle and had time to eat a bit of cake and ice cream before going on a harbour boat tour to see Fungi the dolphin. He's a single Dolphin who decided to stay in the bay of Dingle harbour for the last 20 years or so. He seems to have great fun to watch boats and tourists and will often swim right up to the side of the boat and race it and play in its wake.

After Dingle, we went on a tour of Slea Head. We stopped to see the Beehive huts, the westernmost point in Ireland, the Gallarus Oratory, a mortar-less church that dates back to the 6th century is still waterproof today. It was getting late and we decided to call it a day. We drove over the Connor Pass and then headed to Killarney via Tralee.

Day 5 – Muckross House

We didn't really know what to do on that day so we decided to head back towards Kenmare and drive a bit along the Beara peninsula. Along the way, we found the old holiday cottages where Katy and her folks stayed when they came to Ireland. Beara seems a lot more rugged than either Dingle or the Ring of Kerry and we were kinda-sorta all drived out from all the driving we'd done in the past few days. We weren't into it so we turned back to Killarney. We stopped to visit Muchross House. The house itself is beautiful and you wouldn't believe the splendor inside just by looking at the outside. The amount of solid oak, mahogany and rosewood in the furniture is… breathtaking. The whole house had been renovated at ruinous cost in the 1850s for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. We bought tickets for a guided visit that lasted well over an hour. Again though, bloody tourists made the visit less enjoyable than it could have been. I mean, we were tourists as well, but at least we were polite ones. There was a French married couple who did not shut up for the whole tour – at one point whispering louder than the guide was talking. Even the guide was getting fed up and I deserve a lot of brownie points for not telling them to shut up in vitriolic Quebecois french. It was sooooo tempting, but I was a good boy.

Since it was our last night in Ireland, we decided to treat ourselves and went to Gaby's again. I had the best steak I've ever eaten and Katy had the best lamb she's ever eaten. The food did not disappoint, the wine did not disappoint (we had a single estate Masi Campofiorin). The high point of the evening was when Katy almost set fire to the restaurant.

Imagine the scene. We're at a small square table and there's an open tea light candle in the middle of it. We get the bill, printed on thermal paper. I have a look at it and take out my credit card to pay. Katy picks up the bill (because we're impressed at the value for money for the meal. I mean, it's not cheap, but the food is EXCELLENT!) and when she sets it down, she doesn't realize that the corner of the bill is right above the open candle flame. Paper does what paper does best, i.e. catch fire quickly. On seeing this, Katy tries to put the bill out by waving it about, which only serves to fan the flames. She then puts the flaming bill on the linen table cloth to try and pat it out – but then realizes that it might be a bit hot by now. At this point, there's a burning bit of paper on a cloth table cloth in the middle of a rather nice restaurant :)

By sheer luck, I managed to pick up the flaming bill by a corner that was only smouldering and not actively burning and dumped the whole thing in my water glass. Of course, Katy is mortified and the people behind us are wetting themselves with laughter.

The whole thing would not have looked out of place in a Laurel & Hardy comedy skit. The best bit was when the Maitre D came by to pick up the smoking glass and said “if you didn't want to pay the bill, you could have just said so. You didn't have to burn it”. He said it with a big smile though, so there was no sting in it. All in all, no harm done and a few people got a chuckle out of it.

A good way to end the evening :)

Day 6 – Going home

We had our final breakfast at the hotel and checked out, but left the bags in the car and the car at the hotel. The only thing we'd planned for our last day in town was some souvenir shopping and goign to see the cathedral. Since we still had tons of time on our hards, we decided to hire a jaunting car for a last tour of the national parc. We drove up to the airport with time to spare, dropped the car off, had one last Irish Coffee and came home.

Conclusion

All in all, I had no expectations on that trip and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm really happy to have gone and I'm even happier to have gone at the end of the high season. If you're ever in Killarney, stay at the Earl's Court hotel and go have a meal at Gaby's. You won't regret either.