Travels With Jim and Rita
Discussing the challenges, rewards, and drawbacks of living overseas. Follow our decision to sell our home and live abroad until the housing market adjusts. Information for the would-be expat, digital nomad, roving retiree, or just plain traveler. Host Jim Santos is a published travel writer with over 200 articles and seven books (jimsantos.net). He and his wife Rita lived in Ecuador for 6 years, and are currently test-driving the roving retirement lifestyle. Jim is also the host of the popular "International Living Podcast".
Travels With Jim and Rita
Episode 57 - Navigating Ireland's West Coast
The wild western coast of Ireland beckons with its dramatic cliffs, winding mountain roads, and villages where Gaelic still echoes through local pubs. Our adventure through this stunning landscape reveals both the tourist-filled hotspots and the authentic gems that make Ireland truly special.
Setting off from our base in Oranmore near Galway, we discover that sometimes the most celebrated destinations don't quite match expectations. Galway's Latin Quarter bustles with tourists but lacks the authentic charm we find in smaller towns. Meanwhile, the Cliffs of Moher deliver their promised drama—especially when viewed from the water—giving us a fresh perspective on these famous "Cliffs of Insanity" from The Princess Bride.
Nothing prepares us for the white-knuckle drive over Conor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula—a road so narrow that two-way traffic must negotiate with a rock wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other. Yet the panoramic views from the top make every tense moment worthwhile, revealing lake-dotted valleys and the expansive Dingle Bay beyond.
The true magic of western Ireland emerges in places like Kenmare, where we sit outside pubs surrounded by locals speaking Gaelic, and in Killarney National Park, where Muckross House and its magnificent grounds offer history and natural beauty without the crowds. We learn that Blarney Castle's famous stone might draw tourists, but it's the surrounding gardens that truly captivate.
Our most memorable discoveries often come unexpectedly—the massive St. Coleman's Cathedral in Cobh with its 300-foot spire, the remarkably preserved Charles Fort near Kinsale, and small seaside villages where authentic Irish life continues untouched by tourism's influence. These moments remind us that travel's greatest rewards often lie just beyond the well-trodden path.
Join us as we navigate Ireland's challenging roads, discover hidden treasures, and find that the heart of Irish culture beats strongest in its smallest towns. Whether you're planning your own Irish adventure or simply dreaming of emerald landscapes, our journey offers both practical insights and the inspiration to explore beyond the ordinary.
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Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita. And welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increase our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. While we did manage to increase our net worth while we traveled, a bout of pancreatitis in Latvia caused us to return to the States for surgery and recovery and to rethink our plans in light of our ages and other factors. Enter Plan B. We now have a home base set up in eastern Tennessee and are ready to hit the road once again. Our plans are now to spend anywhere from six to nine months a year abroad, returning to the US to visit friends, family and to recharge. Join us now as the adventure continues on Travels with Jim and Rita. Hello everybody and welcome back to our podcast, travels with Jim and Rita.
Speaker 1:Now, today, rita and I will be picking up where we left off, talking about our recent 10-week overseas trip. Now, when last we spoke, we were leaving Roscommon on our way to Galway and the Wild Atlantic Way. So it's May 11th. We head to Galway first, getting there around 11 am. Galway is the fourth largest city in Ireland, fifth if you include Belfast and Northern Ireland. Population only around 86,000. The Corrib River runs through the town and its position on Galway Bay make it a very important seaport and, of course, it's known as a big tourist center with lots of festivals and the colorful Latin Quarter. So, rita, what did you think of Galway?
Speaker 2:It was busy the day that we were there, especially the Latin Quarter. We didn't spend. We walked through it from top to bottom. It was a little bit too much for me, too much going on, so we headed to more scenic areas down by the river.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the river walk was very nice. There were a couple of waterfalls there.
Speaker 2:It was very pretty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the cathedral looked really nice. We parked near it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we had hoped to get to see the inside, but services were going on and we did not see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sunday is not the best day for visiting a cathedral in Ireland.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I know we were looking for a place to have lunch while we were there. We walked through the Latin Quarter a couple of times, but I don't think we if we stopped anywhere, it wasn't very exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember us having lunch there, but we could have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, overall, Galway, you know, is a nice enough town, but it didn't seem to have the kind of spirit that some of the other towns had. It was like it was just there for tourists and nothing else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that doesn't appeal to us so much. We kind of like to get in with the locals, eat where they eat, et cetera, and really geared to tourists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all in all, I'm glad we didn't stay in Galway. Instead we were in a little town called Oranmore. It was only about 15, 20 minutes outside of Galway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a nice drive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we went back to that Airbnb. We did make a stop at the Tesco supermarket on the way we got some groceries. It was a nice Airbnb, an in-law suite with its own entrance. It had kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom. But there were a couple of odd things, Little weird.
Speaker 2:Little weird. It didn't have a table to eat your meals on. That was strange, and it had advertised something that we always look for. It had advertised that it had laundry and it actually did not have laundry. They opted to put a dishwasher in the kitchen instead of a washing machine, and then the weird thing is they wanted to do our laundry and we're we're nah, we said no, we'll just go to a laundromat.
Speaker 1:Leave your laundry outside the door and my wife will do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was weird.
Speaker 1:Uh, be fair, we were their first guest.
Speaker 2:Yes and yes, and it was a beautiful property. The apartment was really very, very nice. It was very super clean. It just had some oddities. We were his first guests and I think they had some things to work through.
Speaker 1:There was no place to hang our jackets.
Speaker 2:No, no closet, no hangers.
Speaker 1:No shower curtain in the bath.
Speaker 2:Right, and it was such a beautiful door on the bathroom that we had to be so particular not to get the water on it, because we didn't want to ruin it.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as was becoming common in Ireland, we didn't have any control over the heat.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Although you did bring in a space heater.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he did bring in a space heater. Yeah, he did bring us a wee heater.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do have to say we got there. We noticed there was a crack in what they call the hob, the encounter stovetop, I guess.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And we just pointed it out so he'd know that it wasn't us that broke it. But when we came back from our day trip that day, he had replaced it with a brand new one.
Speaker 2:Right. Really, in all honesty, he was very congenial and wanted us to have a great stay, and it was a great stay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we left him a few tips.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. We did especially the thing that we always look for a laundry service inside the unit, because when you do your laundry out it's another 20 bucks. So we're thinking when we get a unit that says it has laundry, that's $20 to our advantage.
Speaker 1:But it was a good location. Next morning we headed out early to go to the Cliffs of Moher. It was about an hour and a half drive away but the countryside was really beautiful and on the way just another random castle, the Dungwire Castle Right, was there and we parked in a lot by two thatched roof houses and walked back to it.
Speaker 2:Oh, they were really special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was really beautiful. It's on a little inlet of the Galway Bay and unfortunately we couldn't get in because it was between owners.
Speaker 2:Right, and the lady was there. There was a village person there selling her wares and she's the one who gave us the lowdown of it had not legally transpired yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's really the iconic castle, setting sitting there on her eyes overlooking the bay with swans in the harbor.
Speaker 2:It was really beautiful. Oh yeah, it was pretty.
Speaker 1:So we get to the Cliffs of Moher. It was a little after 11 am, or at least that's when we got to the parking lot. It was kind of a long walk from there to the visitor center.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It was a little cold there by the sea, not nearly as bad as the Giant's.
Speaker 2:Causeway. No, the Giant's Causeway was a showstopper as far as wind yeah but the cliffs are really impressive.
Speaker 1:At that time of the morning the more dramatic faces were still in shadow and, you know, despite being early May, it was still pretty crowded.
Speaker 2:It was, but I will have to say, even though it was in shadow sometimes, it was very impressive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. There is a lot of walking involved, a lot of it uphill.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And the path gets narrower the further down you go. It was much longer than I expected.
Speaker 2:It was quite a long hike down there it was and I opted not to do a set of stairs that Jim did go down and he had a little bit more advantage, but I was hobbling along with one of my knees and I didn't want to ruin my trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a long walk. If you have mobility issues, they do have some little shuttles that take you to but it doesn't.
Speaker 2:Area doesn't go that far. Yeah, it doesn't go all the way down, so you don't really see all of the cliffs.
Speaker 1:I later learned that these were the famous cliffs of insanity in the princess bride movie, so. So it was a nice little touch to it, yeah. Well, the next day we had big plans. This time we were heading north of galway into some more mountainous terrain, an interesting drive, to say the least, made more interesting by sheep that were grazing right along the narrow roads in some places.
Speaker 2:It was very idyllic. I mean, it was exactly what you think Ireland's going to be, with the sheep, the mountains, the heather. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were little lakes as we went by and the landscape just seemed to keep changing it did Everywhere we went, the landscape just seemed to keep changing.
Speaker 2:It did Everywhere we went.
Speaker 1:But what we were looking for was the Kylemore Estates, which includes the Kylemore Abbey, a chapel and a walled Victorian garden.
Speaker 1:Right and really, the outside of the buildings are really way more interesting than the inside. Yeah, the Abbey was originally Kylemore Castle. Mitchell Henry who of course was an Englishman is a 40,000 square foot home. They started work in 1867 and took four years to finish. It had 33 bedrooms, only four bathrooms that must have been a problem. Four sitting rooms, a ballroom, billiard room, libraries, studies, school rooms, smoking room, gun room and offices and domestic staff residences. So it was quite a big thing. The story is he built it for his wife, but the bad news is that she died of a fever in Egypt only three years after it was completed. So all that work, they never really got to spend a lot of time in it. But the reason we couldn't see much of it when we were there, other than the outside and the gardens, was that since the 1920s it's been a sanctuary for Benedictine nuns. So of that 40,000 square feet, I don't think we saw more than 2,000 square feet.
Speaker 2:Right, it's also a private school too, although they do take the local children.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful setting, though. It's about 1,000 acres of land overlooking a lake with mountains in the distance. The trails are really nice to be walking around on the walled garden I'd have to say wasn't much.
Speaker 2:You know, I almost think. Do you think it was because it was the time of year that we were there?
Speaker 1:It could be early May. There just wasn't a lot of color in the garden.
Speaker 2:Right, and it seemed to have more grass than actual plants.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which I thought that was kind of unusual, comparing it to other places that we had seen in Ireland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were a couple of large pigs Huge. They were the only pigs we saw in Ireland.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we kept eating all of this pork all the time and seeing sheep and lambs, but no swine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pork ham rashers, all that, but only those two pigs Right. Maybe we ate them all.
Speaker 2:Maybe we did.
Speaker 1:But we couldn't linger too much there because we had lunch reservations at Ashford Castle, so we were basically circling Lake Korub that day, making a big loop back to Oranmore. Now, ashford Castle has been around since 1228. It's a luxury hotel now. It's got 83 rooms that have things like high count Egyptian cotton sheets, in-room bar, 24-hour room service, breakfast delivered to your room, they do a turndown service, there's a valet for your laundry and dry cleaning. To some of the features there. We really wanted to see the hotel, but they start at 1166 euros per night and go as high as 6163 euros, so we decided to get in by booking lunch instead, which I still think cost us more than 100 euros for the lunch.
Speaker 2:But it was well worth it. What a beautiful hotel.
Speaker 1:It was really nice to see the hotel that really looks like a castle and you had time to walk around the grounds and the gardens. There's even a falconry school there.
Speaker 2:we saw somebody with a falcon right walking, and it's a beautiful setting on on the lake, right on the lake, yeah, so I have to.
Speaker 1:The lunch was very good too, but the seating arrangement was a little weird. That was strange. Yeah, it's like the tables are too low to actually get your legs under them and but not low enough to be a Japanese setting.
Speaker 2:It was just strange.
Speaker 1:It was like you've bellied up to your it's like trying to eat off a high coffee table.
Speaker 2:That's it Basically. That's what it was.
Speaker 1:And you're leaning over and trying desperately not to spill stuff on yourself.
Speaker 2:Especially in this gorgeous setting and everybody around you. But they were all struggling, so it was good.
Speaker 1:By the time we made it back to Oranmore we'd covered a fair amount of County Galway and a bit of County Mayo actually.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we did see a Leiden's Lodge on the way through the village of Kong.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was exciting, because that is my maiden name.
Speaker 1:Yes, we saw Leiden's and Murray's.
Speaker 2:Right, murray was my mother's family's name and we saw way more Moray's and really that was the only Leiden that we saw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:And we saw all the counties of Ireland except for.
Speaker 1:The next day, headed to Galway again. This time we're going to the docks to catch a boat to the Aran Islands, inchmore, which is the largest island there, and that was a pretty interesting trip, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yeah, that's like stepping back in time.
Speaker 1:You know we usually don't go with tours, but really the only way you can see the island is by ferry.
Speaker 2:You have to get out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then once you're there, you have to have somebody drive you around Right, or rent bicycles, and I couldn't see us doing that.
Speaker 2:No, we only had a day. We would have been there a month.
Speaker 1:They did have horse-drawn carriages on some of the roads, which was really nice to see. I'm sure they were even more expensive than vans. The island was pretty interesting. They said that all these islands were all just covered with rock and the first settlers broke up the rock and used it to build the rock fences that you see everywhere in some of the buildings.
Speaker 2:But they made soil out of seaweed.
Speaker 1:You took seaweed and mixed it with the soil. So, everything that we were seeing had been changed over the hundreds of years that people have been living there, so it was really a lot of work if you looked at it.
Speaker 2:It was unbelievable, and it's amazing that they can actually eke out a living on those tiny plots and feed animals. Yeah, of course they have seafood as well, but still it was very impressive it was and the food there was amazing that we had for lunch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a nice Irish stew in a mash Right. I know you had carrot cake.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I had some carrot cake, yes.
Speaker 1:Almost a vegetable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, almost yeah.
Speaker 1:The driver took us around, showed us some things of interest, got out to look at some horses at one point. And then he dropped us for lunch in this like the only kind of built up area on the island. Yeah, just a few shops and a couple of places for food, a couple of food trucks, and left us there for a couple of hours because you could take a long walk up to a fort that was on a hill there. That was much farther away than we thought it was.
Speaker 2:And actually there was no warning about how difficult that hike was going to be. It was very rocky, very uneven terrain.
Speaker 1:The closer you got to the top, the harder it was to move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like scrabbling up a mountainside.
Speaker 1:But the views up there were great, amazing. It was very much like the Cliffs of Moher, it just wasn't as many people around Right, yeah, just not that many people get out to that island. I think the best part was on the boat back. We did a slow cruise by the Cliffs of Moher, so this time we got to see them from the water.
Speaker 2:And what a different look that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a much better way to view them. The boat really took its time there. I think we were probably offshore 20 minutes or more. Yeah and the sunlight was just absolutely perfect. Yeah, it was hitting it much better, so we really got a good look at the Cliffs of Insanity there much better, so we really got a good look at the cliffs of insanity there.
Speaker 2:You could really see how. And the bird life and the bird life, yeah, quite a bit.
Speaker 1:So that wrapped up our time in Oranmore and around Galway. We headed to our next day, which was in another small town, this one called Listowel or Listowel, I don't really know. As usual, we had some time to kill before we could check in, so we stopped for lunch along the way in the city of Limerick, and really glad that we did.
Speaker 2:Oh, we love that little city. I could live in that city any day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like Limerick. It's a good-sized city. It's close to an airport.
Speaker 2:A lot of restaurants around the river.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's got a nice riverwalk area. We had a nice meal there at a restaurant called House.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's right next to the river. Had a nice talk with the waitress. And the bathrooms, the bathrooms were kind of unusual.
Speaker 2:It had Chinese wallpaper, black or white, gorgeous paper and beautiful fittings for the sinks and the toilets. It was that in itself was worth going into that restaurant. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Actually, on our website you can see pictures of some of the wallpaper in the bathroom A little provocative and Limerick itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We only planned to stop there for lunch and to gas up, and I think we were there about three hours.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there was so much to see I really didn't want to leave. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was King John's Castle.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And St Mary's Cathedral, which also was preparing for an event, so we didn't get into that.
Speaker 2:Right, but we did see Moray there was.
Speaker 1:Moray Tombstones.
Speaker 2:Tombstones. So no matter where you go in Ireland, you're going to find Moray. But that's supposed to be posh. It's really Murray there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but a very livable town. It looked like there was so much to walk to. The waitress was telling about all the different festivals that they have along the riverfront there.
Speaker 2:And she loved it. She was a native. And we asked her well, it started out. How long have you lived here? And she said all my life. And I said would you ever leave here? And she said no, absolutely, this fabulous city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we actually. I think we picked up groceries there as well Right Before we went, because the parking garage where we had the car was part of a grocery store also. Right, yeah, but we moved on Listowel. It was another nice Airbnb, and this one did have a washer and even a dryer.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, woo-woo, which is really rare.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and our path from Limerick led us there, through miles of those one lane, two way traffic roads. Through farmland, but fortunately, when we left the next day, we found there was a much shorter way in and out.
Speaker 1:It was just the direction we were coming from. From there we were planning a day trip to Dingle and when we left Listowel we'd be driving part of the Ring of Kerry on our way to our next stop. If you're not familiar with the Ring of Kerry, it's a 111-mile circular tourist route in County Kerry in southwestern Ireland, basically circling around the Kerry Peninsula clockwise from Killarney to Glen Bay, where we'd be traveling counterclockwise, ending up in Kenmare for a few nights.
Speaker 2:Right, but we did Dingle first, the Dingle Peninsula.
Speaker 1:And in general those two peninsulas are kind of similar. They're very rocky and rugged and it's probably the most challenging driving I had to do the whole trip. I remember one road on the way to Dingle our first day trip was called Corkscrew Road and it certainly lived up to the name Sharp and steep, 180-degree turns, going up the mountain and trying to keep an eye on drivers coming down the mountain too.
Speaker 2:Right, it's actually called Conner's Pass.
Speaker 1:Well, that was coming up. Corkscrew Road was a road we took on the way to Conner Pass.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, excuse me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I remember it clearly.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But our GPS then decided to save us a couple of minutes, directing us straight to Dingle over Conner Pass, which Rita just mentioned.
Speaker 2:Right, it was the road of death.
Speaker 1:The last two kilometers or so of the road is one lane wide, with a rock wall on the left and a sharp drop on the right, and it's also a two-way road, so there are periodic pull-offs that were kind of carved out of the mountain to allow the uphill driver to pull over and leave almost enough room for the downhill drivers.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now, fortunately, we only had to pull over twice and bait it to the top of the pass unscathed what they call a high pucker factor, though.
Speaker 2:Wow, that was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:But when we got up to the top there and there's a parking area, that gave a view and it was just fantastic. It was looking to the east, there's this breathtaking valley dotted with lakes and to the west we could see Dingle and Dingle Bay.
Speaker 2:Right, and you could actually come up from Dingle to that pull-off and take your pictures and save your life.
Speaker 1:And not do counterpasse Right Now. Dingle itself was a very nice town. It was really lovely. It had wonderful views of the seas and the mountains, Kind of like Galway is a little touristy, a little over time Right.
Speaker 2:It had a nice park though that people could take a little, get their exercise, and it wasn't all tourists though, do you think?
Speaker 1:I guess the downtown area around the docks. Yeah, it was nice, it was touristy, but the town is kind of on the hills surrounding that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:There's a small St Mary's Church visitor arts center up on the hill and we had a decent lunch at the Dingle Pub.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was nice.
Speaker 1:And we took the easier road back. We went on the southern side of the peninsula so we avoided that Connor Pass again and the next day we were ready for our Ring of Kerry drive to Kenmare. Really that first part was kind of wasted on us because of fog and low clouds. Right, we couldn't really see anything for the first hour or so.
Speaker 2:It might have been a good thing. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:But things did clear up enough in Cahersideen where we got out and walked around a bit, checked out a place called the Barracks, a lovely little river and stone bridge, and another St Mary's Seemed to have a lot of those that that was a nice town, though not touristy at all.
Speaker 2:I don't think anybody stops there, but probably not.
Speaker 1:It's pretty early on the ring of carry it was once again another church. We couldn't get inside this time because they were doing renovations right we did stop on there at another place that we really enjoyed. Uh called waterville. It's the beach area on Ballinskillig Bay. It's got a nice little waterfront walkway. We were just kind of driving along and we saw this beautiful coastline and noticed hey, there's a parking lot.
Speaker 2:It was quite beautiful and it had public restrooms which we hardly ever saw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was a very nice little stop. I think we were there at least an hour, hour and a half. Yeah, it was a very nice little stop.
Speaker 2:I think we were there at least an hour, hour and a half. Yeah, it was a nice walking area.
Speaker 1:But you know, all in all I think the Ring of Kerry was kind of wasted on us. Rita has vertigo so she didn't want to look at any of the scenery from the heights, and the roads were so twisty and narrow I couldn't really take my eyes off the road long enough to see much.
Speaker 2:And some of the architecture that was, the old mounds etc. They were on very, very narrow rock-based roads that really it was almost impossible to go roads that really it was almost impossible to go.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think by the time we arrived in a little town called Sneem, stopped for lunch. I think we were pretty much done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure that if we would have had a hiking trip which we have done and able to park on the main road and walk back several of those, if we had had the time to do that, it would have probably been super beautiful, but our time just didn't allow for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and where there were some overlooks, there weren't any signs letting you know there was an overlook up ahead. You'd just be driving along and suddenly there's an overlook and you don't really have enough time to cut across traffic to get over to it or something.
Speaker 2:Or to slow down and not impede other people's driving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or try to cut across the road on a blind curve or something like that Right kill yourself yeah. Yeah, but Sneem was another picturesque little town. The Sneem River runs through it, really rocky crevice area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was interesting.
Speaker 1:We ate at the Bridge Cafe and Bistro right by the water. The waitress seemed to forget about us from time to time.
Speaker 2:I don't know what happened to her. We were there for a while, but it was still pleasant. Right.
Speaker 1:And fortunately after Sneem the roads settled down a bit. It's still pretty narrow and some hills, but nothing like the mountains.
Speaker 1:we left behind A lot of farms and small villages marked by traffic calming zones, yeah, and, of course, plenty of roundabouts. But our next stop, our stay, was in Kenmare, and that was really a wonderful find. It was just what we needed to relax after a harrowing trip around the ring. Now we had reservations at a place called the Needon House, and I made them through Bookingcom, so it was really a terrific stay. It was a large home that had been converted into a hotel with ten or so en suite rooms, and it was the only hotel we stayed at that didn't have a breakfast. I can't really call it a bed and breakfast.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But there was a sitting room that had snacks and breakfast bars and, of course, a kettle and some coffee and tea.
Speaker 2:And it was really quite beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our room was on the second floor but there was a wide switchback staircase that made it easy to put our bags up and the room was really just wonderful.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 1:Even the bath had little floral decorations painted on the porcelain.
Speaker 2:I know you felt like a Cinderella princess in there.
Speaker 1:Now. The hostess was a pleasant older woman who greeted us warmly let me choose which room we wanted and I saw her one afternoon walking around with her granddaughter of about five or six years old changing towels, and the granddaughter was helping out and she was dressed in a little Disney princess outfit Right right, so that's really cute.
Speaker 2:It was so sweet.
Speaker 1:I only saw one other guest while we were there, a guy from Germany who was there with a motorcycle group during the ring. But Penmare turned out to be one of our favorite towns in Ireland. Shortly after checking in, we were walking the small downtown area it's only about three streets and sitting outside a pub having drinks, looking at a large wooded park across the street in the town center square, and everyone around us was speaking Gaelic, so we may have been the only tourist in town at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really didn't hear anybody speaking English or any other language and honestly, that village setting that appeals to me a lot more than going into like a Galway or a highly populated area that caters to tourists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was much more pleasant. We had some good meals there. I think that's where you found your favorite seafood soup and brown bread.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yes, oh, it was much more pleasant. We had some good meals there. I think that's where we found your favorite seafood soup.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, yes, oh my lord. So we really enjoyed the town itself and we had a great time on our day trip to Killarney National Park. Killarney National Park is kind of like at the end of the ring and you hear tourists talk about it all the time and usually they're staying in Killarney. It was the first national park in Ireland, created when the Muckross estate was donated to Irish free states in 1932. Now it's 25,000 acres Just huge, incredibly biodiverse land and lakes. There's the Muckross House and Alley kilometers of walking trails. There's a working farm there, the Torque Waterfall kilometers of walking trails. There's a working farm there, the Torque Waterfall horse-drawn carriage rides. Much more to see and do. What was your favorite part of that? Stop at Killarney.
Speaker 2:Really I loved the McCross House. I thought it was beautiful and the grounds were very well taken care of. The walkways are easy to walk, even going up to the waterfall. It was very pleasant. We spent the whole day there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and unlike the Conmore Abbey, we actually got to see a lot of the.
Speaker 2:Muckross interior. Oh yes, yeah, absolutely, it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:And it's, you know, a pretty decent self-guided tour. You just were able to wander around by yourself and take your time.
Speaker 2:There were a lot of people outside but not so many in the interior of the house, which that was pleasant. I think locals come there and just picnic on the lawns and you know the walkways and trails and just enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did really enjoy walking around the grounds and that hike up to the waterfall. Had a nice lunch there, except for one screaming child that was.
Speaker 2:I felt sorry for the parents. I mean, he just really would not get give up. I'm not sure what the problem was, but he was not happy for at least 20 minutes yeah, but we did end up spending another night at that uh little house hotel just because the town was so pleasant, right, and then we got to enjoy the pubs again, so that was nice.
Speaker 2:and we were up at the park and saw how crowded and touristy killar town was so pleasant, right, and then we got to enjoy the pubs again, so that was nice.
Speaker 1:And we were up at the park and saw how crowded and touristy Killarney was, so I was really glad we were seeing a nice, quiet Kenmare, absolutely. Well, from Kenmare it was on to the southern coast and the seaside town of Kinsale, but on the way we were stopping in Cork, which is kind of on the way, and I have to say Cork was a bit of a disappointment for me. How about you?
Speaker 2:Well, it was an old harbor city. Not that it was dirty or trashy, it just had a lot of construction going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there wasn't trash, but it somehow seemed dirty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did, I don't know either.
Speaker 1:Now, Rick Steves really loves the English market. There we saw him talking about it, but it seemed pretty average really.
Speaker 2:It did. It did, but we've seen some magnificent markets in our lifetime, so if you've never been in one, it's definitely a place you should stop and see Just spoiled, I guess. Yeah, I think we're just yeah spoiled.
Speaker 1:Now there was the St Finn Bowers Cathedral Right and that looked. There was the St Finn Bowers Cathedral Right and that looked great from the outside. Beautiful, but again a funeral was going on. We couldn't get inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think maybe the Grim Reaper was either, two steps ahead of us every time we want to see a big cathedral.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we did see some nice wall paintings walking around town. The Sober Lane Pub had the three monkeys on it. Yeah, see no evil hear no evil. All that, and the big St Nicholas Cathedral also looked lovely, but again surrounded by chain link fence for construction work Right right. And I think the only thing that really saved Cork for us as a stopover was we found a terrific Mediterranean restaurant for lunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was wonderful food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had some kind of pork steak and chicken grilled platter and you had, I think, grilled salmon and some kind of beetroot salad. It was excellent, and baklava for dessert.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that saved cork.
Speaker 2:Yeah, saved it.
Speaker 1:Now in Kinsale we were back in Airbnb land, another narrow farm lane just outside of town but it was a comfortable place to relax and catch up on our laundry. You had to actually hang some things on a clothesline, which seems a little retro, but it worked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of nice.
Speaker 1:Kinsale itself was another nice little seaside town, again a little touristy, but I guess all the little seaside villages are going to be like that. You've got people with their boats and everything stopping there, but it was a jumping off point for us for a day trip.
Speaker 2:we'd been looking forward to a visit to the famous Blarney Castle and Gardens. Right, I will say that Kinsale had a section that was like medieval-like, because you couldn't drive through it. It was only walkable, which I thought was very nice.
Speaker 1:I have to say, blarney Castle itself was not a very big deal. No, nothing we certainly have seen more impressive castles.
Speaker 2:Right, and we certainly weren't going to kiss any slobbered-on stone.
Speaker 1:It's a great example, though, of how a silly story and superstition can be built into a major tourist marketing campaign.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because it's really just one square squares tower and a couple of smaller round towers nearby. Really, wouldn't have gone out of my way to see it.
Speaker 2:No, but the gardens there were magnificent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's truly amazing the number of people who feel the need to wait in line on the wooden stairs, sometimes for hours, right Just to lay down and hang your head over a drop, put your lips against a filthy rock that strangers have been slobbering on all day.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But yeah, the grounds and the gardens, they're well worth the visit. That's really what you should be going to see.
Speaker 2:Yes absolutely.
Speaker 1:Two rivers come together on the property. There's lots of wooded areas. They have a poison garden, a Jurassic fern garden, they called it and a lot of walking trails over the grounds.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:We also found the Blarney House.
Speaker 2:We did and we were all excited about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but apparently somebody's living there now.
Speaker 2:So our excitement left.
Speaker 1:So it's not shown to the public. We had a nice little snack in kind of like a converted stables area.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was nice.
Speaker 1:And then went to the rock gardens, which were just another really beautiful place there.
Speaker 2:It was A lot of beautiful plantings. It was well worth it.
Speaker 1:It had the wishing steps. The witch's kitchen yeah, witch rock, dolmen stone which is really strange. It's big stone Right, just kind of be hanging there. Yeah, lots of plants and water features there, so that really made the trip worthwhile.
Speaker 2:It did. We actually rescued a lady who was lost? Helped her get out of the rock garden. She was totally lost. Her husband had left her and gone back to they. Had come on some big bus touring thing. We thought we had her straight and then 20 minutes later we ran into her again. So we finally absolutely walked her to where she needed to be to get on the bus.
Speaker 1:On our way out of Kinzel, we made a couple of stops that weren't really planned and they really turned out to be some of our favorite things.
Speaker 2:They did.
Speaker 1:First, just across the bay from Kinzel, there's the remains of Charles Fort. I don't remember how much I think you said it was about five euros to get in. It was a pretty reasonable fee and you got to get in and just wander around this large fort on your own time.
Speaker 2:And it was huge.
Speaker 1:It was amazing, it was huge and, of course, as you'd expect from a fort, you got a good view of the entrance to the harbor. It's really interesting looking over the exhibits and reading about the history of the fort. The exterior walls of most of the barracks building the armory and so on are still there, so quite an extensive little compound. I think we both really enjoyed that.
Speaker 2:I did, and the fact that most of it was brick.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was amazing.
Speaker 1:Next, on our way out of town, someone from International Living had mentioned to me in an email a town named Cove. Actually it's spelled C-O-B-H, but it was the German I met back in Kinsale who told me it's pronounced Cove, not Cobb or something like that. Anyway, you go off the major highway leaving Cork and head south toward the sea, cross a couple of bridges over to an island and I see this church spire in the distance and I think, oh, we must be close. But turns out we weren't. When we got into town and found a parking lot I saw. The reason we could see the spire a good 10 minutes before we got to town is because it is freaking huge.
Speaker 2:I think that was one of the biggest churches we saw in Ireland.
Speaker 1:Yeah, st Coleman's Cathedral of Cove, really one of the most impressive churches we've been in Marble columns inside, vaulted wooden ceilings, intricate carvings through the whole thing. We weren't expecting it at all, just a complete surprise to us. It's a fairly new church, as these things go. 1749, there was a smaller church there, but in the late 1800s construction started on the church that you see there today, just completed a little over 100 years ago. It's probably the most expensive cathedral ever built in Ireland, according to experts, at about a quarter of a million euro.
Speaker 2:Oh, I believe it.
Speaker 1:It was huge. The spire is 300 feet tall and it looks bigger because it sits on top of a hill Right On the town. The town was kind of hilly, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was quite a walk to get anywhere.
Speaker 1:It's always leg day in Cove.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But we spent a lot of time in that church and then walking down down down to the waterfront for a stroll and to have lunch. There's a Titanic museum there. Cove was the last stop before the Titanic set out across the Atlantic and there's a list of people who got on there at Cove. So we really had the whole Titanic experience. We were in Belfast where they built it, we were in Dublin where it had also stopped, and then we were in Cove where it made its last stop.
Speaker 1:But we did enjoy the town very much, had a nice lunch there as well, and then worked our way back uphill zigzagging as much as possible, trying to take the path of least resistance, and then set off for New Ross, which is going to be another Airbnb that we were staying at, but that's going to have to be a story for the next podcast. You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes. We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Thank you.
