The Last Day

On the last day of our trip, we visited Kilkenny, which Rick Steves says is "often called Ireland's finest medieval town."  While wandering into town we noticed this little eatery with a great name:

Crazy though it may seem, we did not avail ourselves of the sandwiches.

Kilkenny has a picturesque castle:

Front View

Back  View

Paul made friends with Indiana Jones:

We also saw quite a few bookmakers in Ireland.  At first I was all "that's so awesome, look at all these small independent book making shops!"  But then I realized I didn't quite understand the meaning of the term 'bookmaker':

We decided to enjoy one last kebab as dinner for the train ride back to Dublin:

where we were greeted by the friendly cat residing in the Airbnb place in which we were staying.  He made himself right at home in our room:

Giant's Causeway

To see Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, we took trains back to Dublin and then north to Portrush.  The trains in Ireland radiate out from Dublin, so you have to go back through Dublin to go northward.  There are buses but they take just as long as the trains and would have cost us money.  The trains were covered by our Eurail pass.

Portrush is a popular beach getaway town, so we spent a little time on the beach our first evening:

We also saw this huge cruise ship with sails - pretty crazy!

The next day, we went to Giant's Causeway.  The hexagonal rocks are neat!

It was hard to get pictures without other tourists - there were many:

After some time at this very touristy area, we started walking along a path along the edge of the cliff... and just kept going.  We walked 4.8 miles to the next bus stop, realized the next bus wasn't for an hour, and walked the 4.8 miles back.  It was a beautiful walk:

Paul claimed the cliff (I think he's really gotten confused about Carcassonne)

We brought a small picnic lunch and ate it while enjoying the beautiful view:

We were walking along farmland, and these cows were nice enough to pose for a picture:

 The sky cleared up a bit when we were just about finished with our walk:

I continued to try to conquer my fear of heights by standing far out on a promontory:

Okay, okay, to get out to the last little bit (which isn't actually represented in this photo), I had to put my hands on either side of my eyes like blinders for a horse.  But I made it, dangit!

And because I can't help myself, just one more photo (we took a bazillion, it's so hard to choose!)

And finally, on our way back to Portrush, we stopped by the very picturesque Dunluce castle:

Killarney and the Ring of Kerry

Ireland is beautiful.  I think Paul and I both have questioned whether book-ending our trip with Ireland was wise.  It was the cheapest round-trip flight but we ended up flying between Ireland and mainland Europe both times.  However, it has been the perfect way to end this trip, and we are both very glad we included it.

We flew from Amsterdam to Dublin, stayed the night in a hostel, and headed out to Killarney via train to visit the Killarney National Park and tour the Ring of Kerry.  It's obvious that Ireland is really best done by car, since so many sites are inaccessible or inconvenient by public transportation.  However, we wanted to use our rail pass and didn't want to drive.

Our first night, we wandered around Killarney National Park and saw some amazing views:

The second day, we took the Ring of Kerry bus tour.  Not my favorite way to see an area, but our only option without a car.  The first stop was a bog village for an extra fee, so we opted not to participate.  It didn't look very interesting.  Then, we stopped to take some pictures here:

We also stopped at a sheep-herding demonstration.  We both weren't super-excited about it, but it ended up being really neat.  There were three dogs who all knew the same commands but had different signals for them.  There was a full set of whistles and a full-set of spoken commands for each dog.  These included left, right, forward, back, and stop, I think.  A dog's hearing is incredible!  The shepherd spoke pretty quietly, and the dogs could hear him way up the hill.  Here's a movie of the dogs in action [visit the blog website to see the movie]:

More views:

Ireland makes up for its (usually) drab weather with colorful buildings.

Unfortunately, scenery photos with mountains in the distance just don't turn out well, so most of our other photos of the Ring of Kerry aren't super-exciting.

After the tour, we rented bikes and toured more of Killarney National Park.  We saw some deer:

And took more pretty photos:

Ross Castle

Suddenly Castle

On the only full day we spent in Bacharach, we visited Burg Eltz (located on the Mosel River), which is Rick Steves' favorite castle in all of Europe.  To get there from Bacharach, we took a boat down the most scenic stretch of the Rhine (again, according to Rick Steves) from Bacharach to St. Goar.  We saw quite a few castles, many of which were once owned by robber barons:

The robber barons would build their castles along the Rhine and put in place some sort of blockade to keep ships from passing through - until the ship paid the toll.  This was clearly a popular activity, since there are quite a few castles!

After the boat, we caught two trains and then had to walk about an hour on a rather muddy forest path to get to Burg Eltz.  We walked and walked and walked and rounded a bend and... suddenly castle!

Kate, Liz, and castle:

One of the castle courtyards where we waited for our tour to begin:

Liz clearly loved the drainspouts, since she took quite a few photos of them:

Photo by Liz

And, of course, as with all the other castles, no pictures were allowed inside.  We did take some photos of items within the treasury, however.  Liz liked this golden statue of Diana on a stag (although she bemoaned the idea of Diana riding sidesaddle):

Photo by Liz

Paul was enraptured by Drunkenness Conveying Gluttony.  And let's be honest, who wouldn't be?

And we were all puzzled by some of the very elaborate drinking vessels:

Photo by Liz

How do you drink out of that?

Afterwards, due to a bit of a mixup, we had some extra time to walk around and snap some shots of the castle from other viewpoints:

Finally, if you've been keeping track, that's one boat, four trains, and two hours of walking to get to and from Burg Eltz.  And it was worth it.  The inside of the castle was quite neat.  We saw bedrooms, a children's room, a kitchen, and much more - all very neatly designed and well-preserved.

Sleeping in a Castle

More blog posts from Liz about Füssen are in the works.  However, since she's currently busy visiting her German relatives (or maybe even on her way back to the States?), we'll move on to Bacharach for now.

Bacharach was our third and final German destination with Liz.  Recommended by Rick Steves, this cute little town has one of the best places to stay - a 12th-century castle that has been turned into a hostel:

Located high on a hill, it was quite a hike to the hostel, especially while toting our moderately heavy bags.  However, it was definitely worth it.  Not only was the castle fun to explore but they offer filling, delicious dinners for the cheap price of 7.50 Euro per person.  You can't beat that!

Clearly, they were pretty stingy with the gravy...

Here's a photo of the courtyard of the hostel with the tower (which, yes, we climbed around in, but sadly you couldn't see much since it's mostly hostel rooms):

And the view from the hostel wasn't too bad:

The Rhine River

There is also a very neat ruined chapel below the castle.  Liz was excited to note that they'd be performing a Shakespeare play there sometime in August.  It would certainly make a good stage!

We took a Rick Steves walking tour of the town and learned about the oldest building (from 1368), the Altes Haus:

And wandered along this lovely little stream-side garden:

We enjoyed ice cream cones (Liz and Paul tried the local specialty - a Riesling ice cream - while I opted for chocolate):

And finally, a parting view of the town of Bacharach: