Today we were headed down to Kinsale, but opted to take the incredibly scenic route and drive through the Ring of Kerry! After the first 20 minutes, my stomache wasnt thrilled with me reading through guidebooks sitting in the back seat during twists and turns, so I handed it over to Eric who did an amazing job getting us to many places of interest!!
Our first stop was on Rossbeigh Beach, a little beach recommended by our guidebooks.
If you check out the crazy little uphill notch in the first picture, yup that is what the GPS took us up to get out of there!! It was a good km or two on this twisty one lane road edged by a cliff!! Never trust a GPS for getting out of a tiny area!! lol. Dennis made it, and we only faced a car or two fortunately, finally making it back to N70 after a few crazy roads and hairpin turns!
Our next little stops were a few scenic overlooks, one of which we found a sheep that had an entire conversation with Eric, and proceeded to show us it was much more adept at rock climbing (not to mention less scared of heights!) than we were!
The next little detour was a trip to go see some ring forts and an old old castle. The ring forts had these crazy little staircases up the walls. Im not sure if I understand what they were for, or if this is another 1960's tourist trap... either way it was pretty cool!
The castle of course was ringed by barbed wire, but people had pulled up the barbed wire and climbed through, so we followed suit. At least there was no giant sign this time! We were able to climb up several crazy staircases and explore the castle ruins, it was amazing!
From there, we headed down to Portmagee on the very tip of the peninsula. We stopped at the Bridge Bar in Port Magee for a cup of chowder and some lunch (another good guidebook recommendation!)
We could have finished the Skellig Ring, but we decided it was already getting a little late, and we probably should try and get through the rest of the Ring of Kerry. So we pushed on to Coomakesta Pass, a scenic overlook where we could see the bay on one side and the Skellig Islands on the other.
Next we proceeded to O'Carrols Cove, the home of the only beach bar in Ireland! Unfortunately, having already stopped for lunch, we didnt partake in anything there, but the beach was quite beautiful! Though the water was cold!
A quick drive through brightly painted Sneem and we were nearly complete with our stops in the Ring...
And a while later, we finally arrived in Kinsale, and tracked down our B&B, set way up in the rolling hills, with a gorgeous view of the bay!
We headed downtown for some dinner, trying the Bulman, the Wine Bar, and Jola's restaurants - all guidebook recommendations, but finding all of them chalk full thanks to a local regatta and our later dinner time. We were hungry and tired, and finally stumbled on Vista's, which turned out to be a great find! A great beer & wine selection, including by the glass, and the food was amazing! We ordered the variety plate (meat, cheese & olives) as well ass some bread/oliveoil/hummus for appetizers. For dinner, Eric got the Beef Curry, I got the Catch of the Day (Hake) with a red curry sauce, my dad got the hamburger, and Dennis ordered a Veggie Pizza.
I also ordered a Rhubarb Crumble and a glass of port for dessert... both very yummy!
And we of course had to check out the sailboats on the way out.
Arriving back at Harbourview Farm B&B, we were greated by some cows in the neighboring field!
And its time for some sleep!
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