finishing Ireland

We had a little more time in Ireland since my last blog update. In that time we bade farewell to our gracious host Ian in Galway and went to see a friend we had met up in Belfast. He lives in Castleisland, so that's where we headed. But en route we made a detour through the tiniest hiways. Check out this road sign showing fractions of miles. I thought it was pretty funny.

Anyway, we took such roads to get to the cliffs of Mohr...

Carrying on we met our new friend Tommy in Castleisland (he is a guy we met in Belfast). He had his boy Daniel with him (one of eight children), and we all went out for a pint of Guinness (well, Amanda and Daniel didn't partake, so I guess it was just Tommy and I who actually had the Guinness).

There was just one more item on our hit list before leaving Ireland and that was to kiss the Blarney Stone which rests on an awkward outcrop at the top of Blarney castle. It is actually at the bottom of an overhanging wall at the top so it's a little precarious to manoeuver yourself into position – especially considering that there is a gap between where you lie down to where the stone is. A gap that's maybe 30 meters above the ground.

Anyway, there's me leaning over the gap for a kiss...

The roads got larger as we made our back into Dublin for our final night before heading to Paris. In our rented car we managed to pretty much drive around the island. I would love to return to Ireland, but next time I would skip Northern Ireland, and spend more time in the tiny villages near the south west coast.