Humdawg's Travel Blog: Rock of Cashel

September 8

While we couldn’t wait to get out of Kilkenny (which was a much larger city than I initially thought), we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Kilkenny Castle in the morning, and St. Canice’s Cathedral (which was nice, but probably not worth the entrance fee) before heading on our way to see a few more castles and then head down to Kinsale for the night.

One of the most interesting things we noticed with many of the castles (Dublin, Kilkenny, Cahir and Bunratty) were that they were right in the middle of the towns. I guess in my visions of castles, I always pictured them more like the Rock of Cashel, out in the country on a hill with a beautiful view below, so it was interesting that so many were located in the midst of the busy, modern cities.

Kilkenny

Kilkenny Castle

Kilkenny Castle was a beautifully maintained castle in the middle of the bustling city of Kilkenny. It was a self-tour experience, and they did a beautiful job of restoring the grounds and the castle.

St. Canice's Cathedral

Let me be clear: St. Canice's Cathedral was a beautiful cathedral that overlooks Kilkenny. But compared to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, it wasn't that great. We felt like it was a waste of money, to be honest. It wasn't that it wasn't beautiful, it just paled in comparison. We spent 12 euro and barely stayed there 5 minutes.

After leaving Kilkenny, we made our way to Cashel to see the infamous “Rock of Cashel”, which did not disappoint, then left for Cahir Castle (pronounced “Care” Castle), which was not quite as impressive.

Rock of Cashel

Of all the castle ruins, I'd have to say Cashel was our favorite. The cathedral ruins and gravesite overlooked THE most incredible view of such a beautiful valley. They are currently continuing to work to restore the ruins, and it was really neat to see a recently-discovered fresco!

Cahir Castle

Cahir Castle was probably one of our least favorite castles, but not because it wasn't neat - more because we saw 8 pretty incredible castles while we were in Ireland, and it wasn't as awesome as the others. But it WAS probably the most intact of all the ruins we saw. It might have been more interesting had we had time for the tour, but we just wandered around for about an hour, then headed on our way.

Blarney Castle

After visiting three castles, we figured why not go for 4? The problem was that we got horribly lost getting there :( Had we only known about the "Mallow Road" (a.k.a. N22), we might have made it alright, but we spent a good hour trying to find our way.

Thanks to a young gentleman at a local gas station, we finally located the correct road, and after even more confusion upon arriving to Blarney, we FINALLY made it to the castle.

(sidenote: My plea to Ireland is that they PLEASE learn how to make road signs that make sense!)

In a nutshell, we didn't feel like this castle was worth 15 euro apiece to visit. It wasn't a well-maintained ruins, and the ONLY reason we can think of that it is even a big deal at all was because of the infamous Blarney Stone.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Legend says that if you kiss the Blarney Stone, it brings you good luck. I was expecting to climb to the top of this castle, then kiss some big rock. But no - it's actually PART of the castle, and there's a professional camera crew, and you have to actually hang off the top of the castle in order to kiss the stone. It was ridiculous, and we were going to pass on it, but we figured we'd probably never be back to do it ever again, so we might as well.

Badger's Cave

We came across this cave on our visit to Blarney Castle - it was within the walls of the castle, and it was pretty neat!

Kinsale

We finally arrived in Kinsale, and after hardly even getting lost, we found our way to our B&B there in town around 6pm. The view from our room at Danabel B&B was just incredible! Kinsale was SUCH an adorable little town, and we SO very much enjoyed out time there.

After checking in and unloading our luggage, we walked into town to find some supper, and decided to eat at The White House, which did not disappoint. I had the seafood pancakes (YUM) and Mark had some sort of stir fry that he enjoyed as well.