Blarney Castle was worth the hassle

9/14 Its all Blarney after Killarney!!

Blarney Castle was on the agenda today after one last Irish Breakfast in the morning(bangers and bacon again ohh boy!). The drive in our stick shift VW Polo(getting quite adroit at the old stick) took about 2 hours from Killarney. The castle has a checkered history with the first structure (made of wood) built around the beginning of the 13th century, which then was fortified with stone about 10 years later only to be destroyed in 1646 by the Parliamentarian forces(those loyal to Cromwell) . It was rebuilt again and changed hands on numerous occasions. We were able to walk thru was the ruins of a castle with a few rooms available for viewing. Did we kiss the Blarney Stone? Unfortunately, the Swine Flu paranoia prevented us from doing so. For those of you who are unfamiliar- kissing the Blarney stone will supposedly give you the gift of the gab or the ability to articulate rather cleverly. Since I know that I have that gift, I felt that it best be shared with others....

We walked around the beautiful gardens and enjoyed the Blarney experience overall.

We hopped in the car and headed to a stopover place that would allow us to leave Dublin in the early afternoon on a flight to Amsterdam. For those who read about my feelings regarding RyanAir, you would understand that it would be quite cunning to fly Air Lingus(national airline) instead of RyanAir, which we did and enjoyed immensely!

9/15 Drive to Dublin Airport

Despite having the car navigation unit, we had a miserable time trying to find the hotel at Dublin Airport to drop off our rental. Nobody had mentioned that the hotel had changed owners and names making it a massive pain to find even with the help of a few of our Irish Brethren.

Alas, we finally arrived into Amsterdam without much fuss and hopped on a bus that took us close enough to the hotel I had found on the internet located close to the heart of the tourist centre of the city. More on the double dutch days in Amsterdam in the next blog.