What a lot of Blarney!

            Sunday, we finally made it out to Blarney. The town is quite small and it turns out that there is a huge Blarney estate, complete with blarney house, a huge lake, stables, several gardens, forested areas and fields. Once we got on the estate, we headed for the castle to make sure we saw it. In the ways of castles, it is quite probably the most intimidating one I’ve seen, it certainly embodies the menacing, unrelenting aspect of castles, whereas Kilkenny embodies the luxurious, majestic, grandeur side of castles. While they’ve renovated Kilkenny so that it’s refurbished and beautiful, close to what it’s halls used to look like, they’ve let Blarney stay old and faded with time. The castle is built upon some rock that jutted out of the side of a hill and the quarry above which it sits is the source of all of the stone used to build the castle. The spiral staircase to the top was quite possibly one of the most awkward staircases I’ve gone up, I think it was worse than the one at Ross castle. It didn’t help that we got stuck in the middle of a tourist group of foreign pre-teens either and we had our luggage with us (i.e. I had a backpack on). Once we got to the top and walked around part of the perimeter, we got to the Blarney stone. Legend has it that if you kiss it, you’ll get the gift of the gab for 7 years (one of the only legends I know with a time limit attached). The man overseeing the kissing had it down to a science: “next, sit down, grab the bars, slide up, kiss the stone, good job love”. Really fast. They have a plastic sheet, much like those for under your computer chairs, on the floor so you can slide easier and handle bars on the side of the wall so you can easily get to the stone. I didn’t realize that it was actually part of the castle wall, I though it was a separate stone underneath or something else, but instead it was just another smooth stone in the castle wall. There was a huge gap in the floor that would land you straight on the ground if you were to fall (from the top of the castle – quite a fall if you weren’t careful). That’s why you have to go backwards because it would be dangerous to try to lean forward over the gap to kiss the stone. I must say, it lingered on my lips and really did not taste good. I don’t go kissing rocks so I can’t say if it was just a bad rock taste or the fact that millions of people have kissed this thing but I’d rather not think about it. Anyways, I should now be able to have some smooth-talking, though I don’t think I needed any help to talk at all.

Blarney town (most of it)

beginning of the Blarney estate

Blarney Castle

entering the castle

Isaac and Victor as we're going up the spiral staicase

view from the top of the castle 

inside of Blarney

blarney or baloney?

the kiss

walking in the foresty parts

Blarney house

walking in the fields

brown and white sugar? haha

Blarney lake

cool flower

these are all over Ireland

Victor and I infront of the castle

            After we saw the castle, we went to the Blarney house, but apparently it was not open on Sundays. So we walked around to part of the fields, saw some horses and headed for the lake. It was a beautiful lake, with lilies and some cute places to sit. How cool would it be to have your own lake? Of course, you wouldn’t want the upkeep. After that, we saw some gardens with beautiful flowers and then walked around the tiny town of Blarney. Finally, we caught the bus back to Cork and then the train back to Dublin.