More errands today, but it was also very chilly and looked like it was going to rain a bit. Towards the end of the afternoon, however, I told myself that I must go adventuring, so adventuring I went.
I hadn’t made it to Ross Castle on the bike because I felt as though my entire lower body was about to fall off, so I decided I could make it on foot. A quick look at google maps confirmed my theory. I should have, however, brought a sweater.
I made my way down to the Castle, about a mile and a half away, feeling pretty good, taking lots of beautiful landscape pictures. I ran into a herd of deer and took a TON of photos because they just looked a bit different than our deer back home. I found out later that they are red deer, and very overpopulated in the park due to lack of predators and the hunting ban.
I made it to the castle at just about 5 where I discovered that the last tour left at 5. I rushed inside and was lucky enough to grab the last tour of the day. There is no photography allowed in any of the museums in Ireland, but I didn’t know this so you’ll see 2 rather poorly taken shots. The castle was very interesting and had a long history (I did manage to photograph the info boards) that started with the fortress home of a clan chief way back in the day (14? century). The buildings had fallen into disrepair after the army pulled out in the 1800s(?) and remained derelict until the late 1900s when it was decided that it should be restored. To restore the castle (only 2 outer walls remained standing and the roof and all floors had caved in inside) it was decided that only the building techniques the original builders used should be used in the restoration. It was really cool to see the inside restored and it was super cool to see all the furniture the castle had purchased (almost all from the time period of the original owner, including furniture, tapestries, and some serving ware) some of which was the oldest of its kind in all Ireland. I also learned that they think the reason that people died so young was that they often ate off of pewter dishes. These, when polished, looked very much like silver, but were made of lead and tin. Do you see where this is going? Nobility that wanted to look a little richer than they were used pewter instead and got lead poisoning from their dishes. Whoops.
After leaving the castle I decided to take the longer way home because a) I try to avoid taking the same path twice, and b) there were supposed to be more look out points and I owed it to myself (and my loyal blog readers) to find and photograph them. It turned out to be a great idea because on the way I met Patsy and her boxer Mitch.
Patsy and Mitch were lovely to walk with and I had a thouroughly enjoyable conversation about boxers, her dog, and life in general. We parted ways so that I could take the shorter route back to the B&B (and also because I’m really bad at small talk for extended periods of time) and I hit town exactly at the right time for a movie I had been wanting to see. I took this as a sign that I should see the movie and paid an exorbitant amount to be shown ONE PREVIEW. I was very disappointed. The movie was quite enjoyable, however, and I found myself laughing often. If you want a kind of kitchy, romantic comedy, then Killers is a great choice.
After the movie it’s time for bed because of an early day. Last day in Killarney tomorrow and that means my tour of the Ring of Kerry. I want to get up extra early though because I haven’t gotten to walk around Cherry St Gardens. More adventuring….
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