16. Southern Ireland (Cork, Wicklow and surrounding area)

Dates: March 24-26, 2015

On Tuesday, we came into Cork county on some very tiny country roads, and our first stop was Blarney Castle. It was here that Will was able to kiss the Blarney Stone (I kissed it again, in hopes that the “gift of the gab” may be revoked a bit). Once we got back to the bottom of the Castle, we explored the gardens (including a 'poison garden') and then had a delicious picnic there. Once we were done eating, it started to rain so we packed up and headed into Ballincollig. We enjoyed a walk through the regional park there, where remnants of an old gunpowder mill can be found scattered along the paths. We are still amazed at all of the ruins everywhere in this country- in the middle of parks, farmer’s fields, in backyards, and on the side of the road. After a good walk, we had a really yummy dinner before heading into Cork to a pub with live trad music!

I did a terrible job of capturing Will kissing the Blarney stone, but this is it!

On Wednesday, we explored the main street of Ballincollig a little bit, where they had a great little market going on. We then entured into Kinsale, where we walked around the streets a bit and then had a fish ‘n’ chips lunch. It was quite a rainy day, so we changed our beach plan to a coffee shop and scenic drive plan. We ventured to Old Head along the way to Clonakilty, where we discovered an awesome coffee shop for a great visit. When we finished up there, we had another delicious meal and a great night of visiting! 

Thursday was our day to say goodbye to Cork and head back towards Dublin. We took lots of scenic roads to get as far as Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains. There, we had a great walk and explored the ruins of a monastic settlement. There was a filming crew there for an Irish horror film, which was cool to see. There was also a couple beautiful lakes and some goats! After leaving Glendalough, we navigated our way around Dublin to get back to the airport area for dinner and returning our car. 

We were at the airport again the next morning, ready to fly back home. We had an absolutely amazing trip, filled with great memories and feeling totally recharged!

A couple more fun tidbits…

Weather: We were so prepared for rain and cool weather. We did get a couple days of rain, but most of our days were breezy and sunny! Since we had better weather this March than when we went to Ireland in June eight years ago, I vouch for travelling at this time of year!

What would we do without technology?

-Having an Ireland phone was so handy! We couldn’t get a SIM card for our own phone, but luckily were able to borrow one my uncle bought last year in Ireland. These phones are inexpensive to purchase there, and adding money on the phones is really simple.

-If driving in Ireland, I would say a GPS is mandatory. Although it did lead us astray a couple times and sometimes was hard to follow in bigger cities, we could not have navigated our way nearly as well with maps. 

We managed to put 1896 km on the car we rented to tour Ireland!

We stayed in a hotel a couple nights and a hostel a couple nights, but found the best way to travel for us this time was B&B’s. We found some real gems along the way, and with breakfast being my absolute favourite meal of the day, they were even more perfect!

The Burgess Duo