Ireland, Day Seven: Crag's Cave and HOME!

The rain was back on our last day in Ireland, so we opted for an inside activity close to the airport.  Crag Cave was pretty neat and some genius had the idea to create a kid's bounce house/play area and restaurant in the facility!  We toured the cave and then had lunch and played until it was time to head to the airport.  The kids, ironically, played with another American family! 

 

This could potentially be an Ireland attraction that you pass on unless you are desperate for an indoor activity because of the weather or in our case, it lined up nicely with our 3pm flight. 

 

It was hard to take pictures in the dimly lit cave, but it was pretty cool.  It wasn't discovered until the 1980's...crazy!!!

 

 This was the spot where the diver swam up into from the other side to discover the cave...

We said goodbye to Ireland and made the 2hr flight back to Germany only to unpack, do laundry, repack and head to the States a mere 20hrs later....or so we thought!!!!!!  To be continued....

Ireland, Day Six: Ladies View, Town of Killarney

This was definitely my most favorite day of exploring (probably because the sun was shining!!!)  Ladies View, named by Queen Victoria of the UK while visiting Ireland in 1861, is a stop on the Ring of Kerry in Killarney National Park but since it was so close to our rental, we saved it for another day.  I'm guessing most people just pull over for a picture, but we walked/hiked around below on the rocks for a good 45 minutes soaking up some much needed Vitamin D!  And a funny tidbit, Kailee started to collect brown rocks which were definitely NOT rocks; it was billy goat droppings!

 

I love this one! 

 It's overlooking the Lakes of Killarney...it was gorgeous!  It almost looks like a painting!

 

We headed back down the hill and pulled over at this church hunting for some waterfalls that we could see from up on Ladies View.  I hopped out of the car to see if it was worth unloading the kids and yes, it was perfect!!!!

 We crossed the bridge and there was a small trail down to the water...

I don't know how many times I said, "yay, for rainboots!"

And my favorite picture from the trip...my favorite because it totally wasn't staged.  They were just checking out the water.  (And on a side-note, Leevi is holding Kailee's hand not so much out of bonding-snuggle time, but more out of she was so "brave" that we were certain she was going to fall in!!!! 

We spent close to another hour walking around exploring the water, throwing rocks, sticks, and leaves.  It was so fun and so peaceful!  It would have made a perfect lunch picnic spot!!!  Once we left, we headed into downtown Killarney and window shopped and got some yummy ice cream (they even had Guinness favor, which we passed on!)  One other hot ticket item on the Ring of Kerry is the Gap of Dunloe, which we decided to skip.  We read mixed reviews about if it was safe enough to drive yourself, walking that far with the kids was definitely out, and the Jaunting Car horse drawn carriage ride would have cost us about $200!!!  We had had such a great time at the other two stops that we felt satisfied. 

Ireland, Day Five: Dublin (with the Guinness Storehouse)

We picked a rainy day to make the 3hr drive to Dublin for the day.  We figured that the kids would have to suffer on the way there, but we waited until bedtime and they just slept the 3 hrs coming home.  There wasn't a direct highway (no autobahn!) for a straight shot, but we loved the countryside scenery and small town main streets. 

We thought about taking a detour to the Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone but it would have added about 1.5hrs to our drive and you have to be at least 8 to lean over to kiss it! 

The Guinness factory was our main reason for the trip to Dublin (I definitely enjoyed a black and tan every night in Ireland!)  I was able to take in a bit of the history while chasing 3 kids, but I left Leevi alone to tour in piece and actually be able to focus and read about the history of Guinness!  I pulled this from a wikipedia source..."St. James's Gate Brewery was founded in 1759 in Dublin by Arthur Guinness who leased it for 9,000 years at £45 per year. The exhibition takes place over 7 floors, in a building the shape of a 14 million pint glass of Guinness. The final floor is the Gravity Bar, which has an almost complete panorama over the city, where visitors can indulge in a free pint of Guinness."

This pit of barley was my saving grace!  They dug around for almost half an hour and we even came back to it at the end after visiting the snack bar. 

The view of the city from the top

Each person got a free guinness or soda at the end of the tour!  Kai doesn't like "spicy" drinks (carbonated), so Hailey drank hers. 

Walking through Dublin on our way to dinner.

We were wondering if Dublin would actually look like a real city considering we had only seen farmlands and small towns all week...it did!  I couldn't help but think of the City Mouse meets Country Mouse story! 

Ireland, Day Four: Ring of Kerry (with the MacCarthy castle)

This was definitely one of my top two favorite days of the trip.  We found an Irish church to go to Sunday morning (it was exciting to be in a foreign country that speaks English!) and then headed off to the Ring of Kerry.  The ring is a touristy loop of the County of Kerry and because we were staying in Killarney we were able to see some of the sites on different days.  It's just over 100 miles total and with stops to get out and walk around, it was just too much with 3 kids.  What we saw though, was breathtaking and the pictures just don't do it justice!  For those of you planning a trip to Ireland (Jenny and Dawna!!!!!!!!) add this to your agenda...How to Drive the Ring of Kerry, Ballycarbery Castle and the Leacanabuaile Stone Fort.  We fizzled in our planning/research during March, but I had a general idea of the "must sees" and our rental had wifi, so we would research at night for the next days activities, but once we were out of the house we were out of luck looking up something quickly on our iPhones since we were out of country.  The Ring of Kerry has countless bus tours, but again, it wasn't something that seemed feasible with three little ones.  We loved being on our own time schedule, even though we probably missed a lot! 

Our first stop was on Valentia Island (there is a ferry to take across or it's just as easy to drive around and over the bridge!) The weather at the beginning was pretty bad, so we just stayed in the car for the Bray Head Loop Walk to see the Skellig Islands.

The wind was INSANE!!!!  When you take a panoramic photo with the iPhone, you have to hold the phone steady as you move it from left to right, but the wind was blowing sooooo hard that this is how the picture turned out!!!

We didn't take Luke out in this wind, but it was pretty fun to stand there and get blown!

The day cleared up as we continued our drive....so beautiful!

 

We LOVED exploring here!!!!!!  The ruins behind Hailey are known as the Ballinskelligs Castle/Tower or sometimes the McCarthy Tower...it was built in the 16th century to protect the bay from pirates and to potentially charge a tariff for incoming vessels.  I don't know how erosion hasn't just wiped it out completely...it basically looks like it's on a sand bar!  The tide was in so we had to cross an ankle deep ocean stream and I was the only one without waterproof shoes so the girls got a big kick out of Leevi giving me a piggyback across!  ;)   

We were able to climb up on the top of the tower...grass had grown all over it!

View from the top!

Exploring the inside...

The wind was KICKIN!

We saw this bright green seaweed everywhere and called it Leprechaun hair! 

There was a little cafe near the beach parking lot where we got some coffee and ice cream and then decided to call it a day and head back vs. continuing the rest of the ring.  

 

It's a little hard to see but there is a double rainbow!

 

Ireland, Day Three: Dingle Peninsula, Blasket Islands, Inch Beach

It would have been nice if it were a sunny day when we ventured to the Dingle Peninsula because I'm sure that the coastline would have been gorgeous, but we still had a good time exploring! 

 

More tiny two-way roads!!!!!

We stopped in the Oceanworld Aquarium and even though it was pretty wimpy, it got us out of the cold and the kids still had a great time! 

The touch tank...

The penguins were a big hit...we were there for feeding time also!!!  The girls had a penguin checklist that gave the names of the penguins and they had to find them according to the color-coded wing-band (the girls were on the left arm and the boys on the right)...pretty fun! 

We left the peninsula in time for Luke's car nap and headed to the Blasket islands and Inch beach...the girls were desperate to play in the sand!  It was really pretty, but rainy, windy and cold, so we took a quick look and were on our way! 

 

Farmlands on the coastline EVERYWHERE!

Inch beach is a popular beach in the summertime although I can't imagine the water ever getting a chance to warm up too much!  Again, I was soooo glad that I thought to bring their rainboots, because they would have been miserable playing barefoot in the cold sand!  They each gathered countless shells!!!!  And the yellow rainboots that Luke has on were at the rental...too funny that they were his size, although he had a really hard time walking in them!!  :) 

There was a really cute (ridiculously over-priced) cafe right on the beach where we warmed up and had an afternoon snack.