Ireland, Day 3

Day 3's itinerary included a long drive to Blarney Castle.  This was at the top of PaPa's "to-do" list...he HAD to kiss the Blarney Stone!!  So off we went!  It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from our house to the castle.  And this was a cold and rainy day, but we bundled up and grabbed our umbrellas, and we were ready to go!



Driving into a town on the way.

Charleville says "cheese"!!  : )

Pretty scenery along the way.

We were on a BIG road this day! : )  It had painted lines!

Stopped at Super Mac's for lunch!  We learned we even like Irish fast food!  It was so good, we stopped here again for ice cream on the way back to the house at the end of the day!

We made it to Blarney Castle!!

Cold & rainy, but the grounds were beautiful!

Umbrellas were necessary!!

The grounds were beautiful...we were wishing it was a nicer day, so we could spend some time just enjoying the grounds.

Umbrellas STILL necessary!!

Right before the trek up the stairs to the Blarney Stone!



On our way up!  Lots of neat rooms.  MiMi & I had no intention of going to the top, but we were going to go part of the way.













Little R's opinion of castles?  If you've seen one, you've seen them all!!  He did like this one because it had nooks and crannies to play around in! : )

PaPa kissed the Blarney Stone!!



R kissed the Blarney Stone!

A kissed the Blarney Stone!!

T kissed the Blarney Stone!

And, before you ask, NO I did NOT kiss the Blarney Stone!  There were several reasons....primarily I had no intention of going all the way to the top of the castle in the first place!!  I'm still not sure how I ended up there!  Second, since I DID get all the way to the top, there was NO way I was going to hang (almost) upside down from the top!!  And last (but definitely not least), the idea of putting my lips on something that numerous other people have put their lips on makes my stomach (violently) turn!!  EEEWWW....no way!!  And you know what??  I don't regret my decision one bit!


Beautiful view!!

More beautiful views!

It rained at least a little every day we were there...but everything was SO green!!

Exploring more nooks and crannies!

In the poison garden...there were two plants from the Harry Potter movies, so the girls were excited about that!

Anything related to Harry Potter, the girls LOVE!



MiMi & PaPa posing in front of the castle!



More posers!



MiMi & PaPa with the grandkids....Little R refused to participate!



More of the beautiful grounds.

A trip to the gift shop and some hot chocolate finished out our visit to Blarney Castle.  A stop for ice cream on the drive home finished out our day.  Then we were back to the house to rest up!!  Another long, great day in Ireland!

Sunset at the house on the evening of the 3rd day.  Beautiful!!