Start: Killarney
End: Our only non-ensuite room, MacGabbhainn’sBackpacker’s Hostel, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny
When I was a little girl, I had a book that I
loved called Richard Scarry’s Busy BusyWorld. In that book were a great
many wonderful stories about different countries, one of which involved a pig
family in Ireland. If I recall correctly,
the little boy pig wasn’t talking, so they took him to kiss the Blarney Stone,
and ta da! He was cured! This produced
in my young brain something of an obsession with the magical Blarney Stone, so
you will perhaps understand why I was gung-ho about today’s adventure:
Visiting Blarney Castle.
I was surprised at how expansive the grounds were,
but we didn’t spare much time for them on the way in, because I Had a Goal. When we got to the castle proper
and got in the queue I was pleased because it didn’t seem to be that long- just a few people on the stairs leading through a doorway- it didn't even extend down to the ground level!
What I’d forgotten, of course, is that the Blarney
Stone is at the top of the castle.
It actually wasn’t that bad of a wait- we
moved fairly consistently, and there were good views. The stairway was, of course, incredibly
narrow and twisting, but there were enough windows and doorways that I was fine.
Nathan took me by surprise by informing me that
yes, actually, he was planning on
kissing the Blarney Stone. Just goes to
show you can know someone for sixteen years and still not know everything about them.
I’m not entirely certain how I feel about the
event itself. It certainly takes a bit
away from the magic to have an Official Photographer on one side and an
Official Tourist Steadier on the other as you scoot your butt across the
Special Sliding Mat so that you’re close enough to kiss the stone. But I guess there was one small moment when I
was just an inch or so away from the stone, where I couldn’t see anything else
but the smooth green-gray surface and could pretend like I was all alone… where
I was overwhelmed at the thought of how many pairs of pressing lips it takes to
smooth something out like that… that moment was a teeny bit magical, I guess.
I don’t know that it’s actually improved the
quality of my gab, but let’s face it- I was pretty damn gifted in that
department to begin with. You can’t
really top off when you're already at 100%.
Once we got back down to ground level we took a
tour of the Poison Garden, which I personally thought was super awesome and fascinating (and amusingly child-free). And then we went to explore the Rock Close,
which was pretty wonderful- but probably would have been more wonderful if
whoever had made the informative signs had eased up a bit on the whimsy. Very few people can actually pull of
whimsical, and whimsy done poorly is just… annoying.
Nathan felt
pretty content with our Blarney experience at that point, and I of course had accomplished my goal, so we moved on with our day to Dungarvan, where we had a very late lunch at a place called Nude Food, which
was exceptionally tasty (Lonely Planet redeems itself a bit). They had a gluten-free sourdough bread that
was so delicious I almost cried. I was
actually afraid they’d forgotten to give me gluten-free bread, that’s how good
it was. Nathan had a local brew and was
quite pleased.
After that we pushed on to Kilkenny, where I came
face-to-face with the age-old problem of bloggers: when you are blogging you
are not “doing things”. Hence Nathan is several hours worth of acquainted with Kilkenny than I am, although once I
wrapped things up the two of us did a bit of wandering, chasing down the rumor
of live music at a particular pub. We
found it and settled in for a drink, but the musicians seemed more concerned
with tuning and picking at their instruments than with actually playing, so we
soon lost interest and moved on, finding a random still-open Indian market/take-awayrestaurant where Nathan bought himself a meal (I had a bite- it was as good as only hole-in-the-wall food can be).
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| K is also for Kilkenny |
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