Ireland: Kenmare and Killarney (Sunday, February 24)

Written Sunday, February 24 at 6:40 pm, Killarney (at the kitchen table)

Today, we drove down to Kenmare, through the Killarney National Park.   We stopped at Lough Leane and walked up to the Torc Waterfall, then travelled further along.  The roads were incredibly narrow and winding, and the speed markings were as high as 100 km/h (60 mph), absolutely ridiculous for those roads; 40 km/h (25 mph) would have been more appropriate.  Later on, we stopped at Ladies View, named for the reaction that Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting had when viewing the Lakes of Killarney from that spot.

Kenmare was a nice little town.  We had lunch and stopped into a linen and lace shop and into two wool shops.  Kenmare is on the Ring of Kerry drive, so we’ll go through there again later in the week.

Driving back, we took what looked on the map to be a lesser road, but we knew it couldn’t be any worse than what we had been on.  Indeed, it was technically longer (length-wise) than the N7 through the park, but only took us half the time due to much easier road.

We stopped at the grocery store again for snacks for tonight and a few other things.  Included in this purchase: Nutella, and honeycomb ice cream.  Never had them before.  (Nutella is chocolate-flavored hazelnut butter, next to the peanut butter; not nearly as flexible as peanut butter due to the cocoa in it.  Honeycomb ice cream is honey flavored with crunchy bits of toffee or seafoam or some such.  Yummy.)

Going to definitely get into town to the Internet café tonight.