our first glimpse of the famous castle
Waking up Monday morning my cold wasn’t too bad, mainly a sore throat. Katherine had to go to school and her parents had to work so Larisa dropped us off at Blarney Castle. It was another damp and chilly day but we had fun.
The usual path to the castle was blocked off because they are in the middle of some major renovations.
When we got close to the castle we stopped and had the most delicious and warm bowl of Irish Stew at the Coach House Cafe. It really hit the spot. In spite of my sensitivity to wheat I took a bite of the warm brown bread that came with the stew. Yummy! 🙂 It’s not often one finds something that tastes so good at a cafeteria!
The cafe was in the old stables and we ate in the main room. As we were leaving we saw that in the summer there was space right in the stalls for overflow dining. My only complaint was (again) no heat in the restrooms! Brrrr….
I think this bird might be a pied wagtail ~ he was surveying the stable yard
Because of the castle renovations we could not take the usual stairway up to the Blarney Stone. We never made it to the stone at the top because, well, the alternate steps were very small and continued to narrow the higher we went. We made it about 3/4 of the way up before we called it quits and retreated. We had to return home without our gift of eloquence. Notice in the picture above that the only railing we had was that wobbly rope. I’m only 5 feet tall and I had to duck to go through that doorway. And going down was even harder to pull off for these senior citizens. Phew!
On the castle grounds there are several other things to see. For this trip we chose the Rock Close. Pictures of that magical place in my next post…
Thanks for taking us with you to see the Blarney Castle, Barbara. That stairway looks treacherous, I think it’s amazing you got as far as you did, especially with only a rope for a railing. Everything here looks solid and ancient and filled with deep history; I can imagine it was very interesting. The birds were also fun to see in their lively brightness. Great post.
Thank you, Jet! Treacherous is a good word to describe those stairs. They seemed to be getting smaller and smaller as we went up but I don’t think they were because they didn’t seem to be getting bigger and bigger when we went back down them. If Larisa is still living in Ireland when the renovations are done I hope we can go and see more of the castle and the gardens and buildings surrounding it.
I love old places like this castle! But they were not designed as well as today’s buildings as exemplified by the narrow steps 🙂 Happy you also caught a couple of birdies. Happy Easter!
Thank you, Tiny! The steps were loads of fun when we encountered other tourists coming down while we were going up and coming up while we were going down. 🙂 We had to duck through those little doorways to make room for others a few times… Somehow I always notice the birds wherever I go.