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Touring Scotland and Ireland - August 2019 - Page 3
Felicia drove us from the west side of Ireland all the way to Dublin on the east side and we ditched our rental car with no dents,
bangs or scratches. We went back to walking around Dublin and taking Uber all over town. All of the Uber cars in Dublin are
taxis. On our first afternoon in Dublin, we went to see the old Kilmainham Gaol (Jail), the old prison where Irish prisoners were
jailed and executed. We ate at the Patriot’s Inn (1793), an Irish pub across the street from the gaol.
We had wanted to see the famous Guinness Storehouse, where over 5 million pints of Guinness Stout are made each day.
We bought tickets early online so we did not have to wait in line to get in. I think that is the most popular tourist place in Dublin
and we spent about 3 hours learning how Guinness is made and marketed. For the price of the ticket, we got to select 3 beers
to sample and then they passed out another new Guinness beer that is not being sold yet. And my wife stole some barley.
After we left the Guinness Storehouse, we took a horse carriage to a pub. We drank and ate dinner at the Brazen Head – the
oldest pub in Ireland. Had Guinness and bangers & mash plus we all had a shot of Tullamore Dew whiskey.
Our hotel in Dublin was at one corner of St. Stephen’s Green and a few blocks from Trinity College. A lot of history in the Easter
Rising in 1916 for Irish independence happened in the old area around the St. Stephen's Green. At night we walked around the
area and stayed up late people watching.
The last morning of trip we walked to Trinity College in Dublin, which is a very old and hard to get into college. We went on tour
of the college and went into the museum to see the Book of Kells and into the Trinity Library to see the very long and very tall library
shelves holding thousands of very old books.
Rented a car and got out of big city of Edinburgh as fast as we could and drove north into the Scottish Highlands. The steering wheel is
in wrong place and we drove on wrong side of the road. I would recommend to everybody to pay extra $ for an automatic transmission
and extra $ for car insurance as the roads are very narrow in places, not paved in some places and often there is a 500-year-old stone
fence within inches of the side of the road waiting to scrape off the side mirror of your rental car.
Drove north towards Inverness, a port town on north coast of Scotland. To get there from Edinburgh we drove through a large national
park in the Scottish Highlands. Lots of beautiful mountains, we stopped at several ski areas, small winding roads, one lane roads, and
saw a lot of fog and rain. The highest mountain in the UK/Scotland is there but it’s less than 4000 feet tall, so different than skiing in
Colorado or Utah.
On the way to Inverness, we stopped off at Balmoral Castle where the Queen of England stays in August. It was in a beautiful forest
with a river running through it. It is open to tourists for most of the year, but they had just closed the castle off 3 days before we got there.
Had 6 military security guards with guns at the front gate. Policemen in the UK & Scotland do not carry guns, so this was a serious
protection detail. We had to settle for buying a souvenir and ice cream at the shop outside the front gate. It’s good to be the Queen!
We took a short flight from Glasgow, Scotland to Cork, Ireland on Aer Lingus, Ireland’s biggest airline. Susie rented a car and Larry
drove us 90 minutes west from Cork to the smaller town of Killarney, in County Kerry. The Kerry Peninsula is in the southwest corner
of Ireland and sticks out into the Atlantic, providing many coastal sights, high cliffs, fishing villages, foggy mountains and wildlife.
Killarney is a town of about 12,000 in southwest Ireland near the famous Ring of Kerry drive. It’s a small town but was full of tourists
in August. There is a good pub about every 100 feet, so every time it started to rain, we stepped in for a beer. The rain usually stopped
before we started drinking our beers. We stayed at a wonderful bed & breakfast called Friar’s Glen for 3 nights. Lots of deer in the front
and back and close by to pubs, Killarney National Park and only a few miles outside of Killarney.
The Ring of Kerry is a very popular sightseeing drive around the Kerry Peninsula and we spent a day driving around this road and
stopping at the sights suggested by Bridget at Friar's Glen. She suggested taking a small 10 car ferry boat to Valentia Island to get
away from tour buses and have a quiet time exploring. We drank coffee and walked around the fishing village of Knightstown on
Valentia Island, drove to see an old church, high cliffs, a lighthouse and an old rock quarry called "the Grotto".
Driving around on the Kerry Peninsula was like driving in the Scottish Highlands - very narrow, single lane roads with pull outs so cars
could pass, lots of fog and rain. Winding rounds up and down the mountains and no fences to keep sheep off the road. We stopped
to hike out and see the Cliffs of Kerry, rising 1000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
We spent one day eating, drinking & shopping in Killarney, plus seeing the local castle in the National Park there. Ross Castle was a
very good visit and we learned a lot. Took a buggy ride with Paddy Coffee and his horse Maggie through the several thousand acre
Muckross House park that was made for the Queen of England and we also went to see Torc Falls. The Muckross House is a giant
lodge built with 52 rooms and 365 windows, really beautiful - the Queen stayed there for only 2 nights. It’s good to be the Queen!
Glasgow, Scotland was our last stay in Scotland. We had driven all over the north of Scotland, several hundred miles and then
back south. It turns out that Glasgow is only about 40 miles due west of Edinburgh. It was a beautiful drive getting to Glasgow,
but once we got there we turned in our rental car and walked / took Uber / did sightseeing on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus. The car
rental girl, perhaps suspecting that we were not from Scotland and did not know any of the rules for driving in Scotland looked at
our rental car for 5 minutes. I was sweating, but we got off easy and did not have to pay for any mirrors, dents, scrapes, etc.
We took a tour of Glasgow, walked around, ate several places. As far as the big cities went, I liked Edinburgh and Dublin better.
They seemed to have more history and things to do.
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