The next morning we climbed back on the bus for the Ring of Kerry. I thought the Ring of Kerry would be
like the Ring of Brodgar or Stonehenge. Instead, it was a loop tour of the peninsula that surrounds
Killarney National Park. Every tour bus seems to do it and the scenery was beautiful. Unfortunately it
also poured rain most of the day so we didn’t spend much time off the bus.
We stopped first at the Kerry Bog Village, a reconstructed village from the 19th century, around the time of the Irish potato famine. The name made it sound like some Neolithic place but the houses were tidy and
neat and heated with peat. There were good displays on harvesting and using peat, which is found in
bogs, hence the name of the village. A young boy in one of the huts was playing a button accordion. He
only knew one song, “Star of the County Down,” but he played it fairly well and was collecting a nice
cache of coins.
Our next stop was the village of Waterville on Ballinskelligs Bay. It might have been a nice place to visit on most summer days, but it was raining and extremely windy. I got off the bus because I never miss a chance to walk a bit. I set off at a brisk pace for the Charlie Chaplin statue on the main drag. Charlie Chaplin
owned a house along the coast in Ballinskelligs Bay. There was a long line of tourists waiting to get their
picture taken with the statue so I snapped a picture and headed back to the bus.
Our lunch stop was another farm-to-table served in the oldest house in the village of Sneem. There were
sandwiches served on homemade bread, followed by freshly baked scones. The scones were delicious
and moist. I put the homemade raspberry jam on them and topped them with soft, clotted cream. They were so yummy I had two. After lunch Tom and I took a quick walk through town. It stopped raining temporarily so we could enjoy the waterfall from the town bridge.
Our group probably finished the Ring of Kerry in record time. The rain and cold made our scenic stops very short. Look at the view and snap a picture. Look at the lake and snap a picture. The scenery was beautiful but it was better from inside the bus.
The sun finally came out about the same time we pulled back into Killarney. Tom and I headed off for a
scenic walk around the gardens of Killarney National Park. We only did a couple of miles in the park,
and then walked back through town to pick up some supper. It was a rare evening of eating on our own
and we were glad to have a salad with a plain chicken breast.
Our tour is amazing and we are seeing so many things. But we also appreciate and value our few free
evenings. It gives me a chance to make some notes that are helping me write my blog posts in the future.