Wednesday Morning in Killarney

I did have dreams of curling toes and woke up to a heck of a wind and rain storm. It woke both of us up and we closed out window which seemed to have opened up during the night. We both went back to sleep. I got up around 7 and went into the hostel proper and made myself a cup of tea and caught up with the journal. Joe , a teacher from Dublin, was up and starting to get things organized for his 100 students who were on a bicycling tour. He was a very calm man for having to put up with what he had to put up with. He was a cyclist, teacher and cook.The hostel had signs up that you could stay for free in exchange for work.That would be something to check out in the future.

Maureen came down and we had a lovely breakfast of tea, cheese and bread planning the days activities.

We had pulled card number 37 from the village walks and were going to park at St Marys and walk from there.

We headed out to town. St Mary's cathedral was our first stop.

It was truly impressive in its neo-gothic style and was huge.

It was built in the 1840's and is the only cathedral in County Killarney.

It had a giant redwood tree planted outside of the church that was actually to mark a mass grave of famine victims.

The stained glass windows were spectacular. We lit candles in the church and took a lot of photos.

A short walk across Cathedral street and into Killarney National Park to walk down Cherry tree walk and we saw a jaunting cart.

Well that was the coolest thing we had seen so we asked one of the cart drivers where we could get a cart. He gave us directions and we headed there lickety split.

We found the jaunting car area set up across from the theater in town and booked Bob the Horse and John the Driver.

John had been doing that for 32 years and Bob for several. John was very knowledgeable in his history of the area.

He brought us into the National Park and along the lake. It was a bitter wind that was blowing that day and We were glad for the blanket and tarp that covered our laps.

We saw deer up close and cattle in the distance that are only raised in the park.

Ross Castle was very cool. It was the last stronghold in Ireland to fall to Cromwells army. We stayed there for about half an hour. there are tours that you can take but we did not have enough time to go on one so we just bought some postcards and poked around the outside of the castle.

Then back onto the jaunting car and out to the road by Muckross and into town.

We did pass a racetrack but there were no races that day.

We let John and Bob know that enjoyed our jaunting car experience very much when they dropped us off back downtown. We decided to find a place for lunch before continuing with out tour of Killarney.