Kiss my Blarney Stone

On Friday, March 14, 2008, we headed to Cork, Ireland, in preparation for Saint Patrick's Day. Friday was a pretty uneventful day as Greg had to work still, so we sat around a hotel lobby (not where we were staying) for some free wi-fi. I read and did crossword puzzles while Greg worked. Once he was done working we decided to walk around a bit and grab some dinner before heading to our hotel. I want to start off by saying that Cork was very odd in the fact that it was trying NOT to be Irish, therefore, it was impossible to find some good Irish food. Friday was Cork's late night shopping night so most stores were open to 9 or 10 pm, which was good for us. We went to several stores and Greg made up my boring day by buying me some Rocket Dog satin black ballet type shoes, they are so cute. After hitting all the major stores there (though not buying anything) we decided to have dinner at Star China, the first Chinese food we have had (other than Wagamama's) since we moved to London; even though we did have curry there, it was excellent Chinese food.

Saturday was a much more exciting day. We got up early and got on a bus to Blarney, we missed our stop and had to ride the bus to the end of the route and wait for him to come back, oh well 5 others on the bus missed the stop as well. So, we get to Blarney and we go to the Blarney Castle, before any of the major crowds. Right as we arrived it had just started to drizzle, but that was okay we were in Ireland and we expected that. We walked around the castle, making our way up to the very top. The Blarney Castle was more of ruins of a castle, rather than an actual castle, so there isn't a roof which meant that everything inside was wet, including the very slippery, spiral stairs. That's okay we took our time and finally made it all the way up. Once we got there we went to kiss the blarney stone.

The Blarney Castle:


Looking up at the top of the castle, where someone else is kissing the Blarney Stone (as you can see also it is pouring down rain):


For those of you who don't know about the Blarney stone, let me tell you, it is not a simple matter of walking up to a stone and kissing it. You have to lie down on your back, on the side wall of the castle, where someone will hold your feet while you grab on to 2 metal bars behind your head, and you slide backwards over the wall to kiss the blarney stone, you don't stay down very long as you would get a severe head rush. Once we both kissed the blarney stone we headed back down the castle and to the Rock Gardens, which was probably the coolest part of the castle.

Tami kissing the Blarney Stone:


There were 8 stones that make up the rock garden. My favorite ones were the Dolmen, Wishing Steps, Witches Kitchen, and the Witches Stone. The Dolmen was pretty cool, it was the large rock that was just kind of perched on a few other rocks and just suspended in air. It has been there for centuries and still kind of rocks back and forth but never actually falls.

Greg holding up the Dolmen:


The tree at the Witches Kitchen (the actual kitchen is underneath at the left of the picture, but it is very dark):


The Wishing Steps are rock steps that legend says if you go up and down them with your eyes closed and you think nothing of a wish the entire time then you will have a wish granted. It is also underneath a beautiful waterfall.

The Wishing Steps:


The Witches Kitchen was my favorite area. You walk to this very old creepy tree with lots of creeping roots coming out of the ground and going back in. The tree looks very dark and twisted, reminds me of Sleepy Hollow. Well, the best part is under the tree, the back side of the tree is on a hill and underneath that part of the tree the hill is carved out and there is a cave there. In the back of the cave is a dug out kitchen, where you can see things that have been burned, as in a kitchen.

The last favorite was the Witches Stone. This is a natural stone that looks like a witches face. The legend is that there was a witch that lived in the woods outside the castle grounds and would go in and steal things from the castle, including animals for food and plants.

The Witches Stone....see the face of the witch in the right side


We got back on a bus to Cork where we took another bus to Middleton. When we got to Middleton we actually got off the bus too early (afraid we were going to miss our stop again) and had to walk to into town, no big deal. Once we arrived it had really started raining and we were pretty soaked. We were trying to find the Middleton Distillery but were having no luck so we decided we needed to eat lunch and regroup. We went into a local shop that had pizza and sandwiches and such. Everyone in there eating was local, so we knew it was a decent place to eat. Once we were done we decided to look for the distillery again, and low and behold we were only a block away, oh well. We went in and got ready for the tour of the distillery. This Middleton Distillery was closed in 1975, and a new one is just down the road, but they keep this one open for tours and such. The Middleton Distillery is where Jameson is made. The tour was very cool, we got to see how they used to make whiskey and even see a large water wheel that was used to power the plant. There was the largest still in the world as well here, in held over 300,000 gallons, it was gigantic.

Not the largest still but a pretty big one, can you see Greg in the picture?


The large water wheel that powers the plant:


At the end of the tour they ask for 5 volunteers to do a whiskey taste test, I assumed that people would be jumping to fight for the chance to do the whiskey test, but no, only 4 people, including Greg volunteered, so I decided not to let the tasting be wasted so I did it as well, I was the only girl. It was good, you have 3 Irish whiskies, 1 Scotch, and 1 American whiskey, of course it was Jack Daniels. Greg still liked the Scotch the best and I chose the Jameson. During the tasting we met 3 people from Philly on vacation, Peter, Joey and Robert. We ended up riding back on the bus to Cork with them and just talking to them.

Our whiskey tasting:


When we got back to Cork we ended up walking to McCurtain Street where we went to a couple of pubs before heading to dinner. We ate supper at Isaac's, which was recommended in several places that we had seen, and the food was worth it. I had large crab claws and Greg had risotto cakes. We topped it off with a Banoffee Caramel Cake (to die for). We then went to another pub and met some people from Seattle, before heading back to our hotel for the evening.