Southwest Ireland - 6th to 9th of May 2010

Only a one hour delay on route from Edinburgh to Galway on the west coast of Ireland, lucky in that the previous day all flights had been cancelled due to ash. So we had time for a pint and a yummy dinner in Galway town.

Friday morning walking through Galway, a nice enough town, nothing too spectacular.
Back on the road again and into castle spotting Irish style...
Around the coast to the cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland's key tourist attractions. Quote of the day from Ange - "So what is so special about these cliffs?". Exactly.
We spent an hour or so walking through Limerick before holing up in a little B&B for the night.
Saturday was driving the Ring of Kerry, one of Ireland's great coastal roads. Certainly a nice road although far from the spectacular sights in Scotland.
Ange with our sexy Scoda - our free "upgrade".
Things picked up though as we got close to Killarney and entered the national park.
Muckross House in the middle of the national park - donated to the people of Ireland in the '20s.
Keen for some more fresh-air time after nearly a week in the car, we wandered along the banks of the Lough to the Muckross Abbey.
Our final night on tour was in Killarney, easily the best town we'd come across on our little visit to Ireland. Even managed to find a good pub to have a Guinness or two. But back into castle spotting Sunday morning, this one in an awesome location, Ross Castle
Ticking off another of Ireland's key tourist destinations, Blarney Castle. Aside from kissing a scungy looking stone which we politely declined, Blarney is actually a great castle set in some beautiful grounds.Blarney is just outside the city of Cork, another town that didn't warrant a heap of photos. We did stop in at the old City Gaol for a quick insight into prison life in the 19th century.
We were flying out of Cork Airport, but we had a few hours to kill beforehand, so we drove down to Kinsale on the south coast of Ireland for a few hours in the sun at the nearby fort and some awesome fish and chips on the beach.