Days #16-18 - Ring of Kerry, Bog Village, Medieval Forts, Ballycarberry Castle Ruins & Thanksgiving

If we thought our morning scraping ice in Belfast was bad, it was about twice as intense in County Kerry! In fact, it was so bad, one of the innkeepers felt bad for us and came out with two carafes of boiling hot water to pour all over our car windows to help us with visibility. I think she saw the two helpless Hawaiians furiously scraping away with their tiny credit cards wondering how long she'd have to watch that and took pity on us.

We drove on the Ring of Kerry for a bit until we got to the Irish Bog Museum- sort of a living museum built to replicate a traditional 19th century Irish village...complete with stone/thatched roof homes filled with antiques, as well as a pony and a large breed of dog that are both traced to Ireland.

The first thing you see greeting you as you walk into the living museum are these two inhabitants- who did not bark, but just stared...waiting for their treats. They were Irish wolfhounds, the world's 'tallest dogs.'

Was the village everything I had imagined it to be? Noooot really...we were once again, the only visitors there (a common occurrence outside of the cities), so it felt both intimate/private and a hair eerie. ;-) There was literally no staff there, and we had to track someone down to even pay. It felt a bit neglected, lacking in information and the interiors were almost a hair cheesy with figurines/sound effects. What it made it worth the admission was of course- the opportunity to walk into so many traditional homes in such a beautiful and quiet setting.

These dogs literally appear to dwarf all other dogs in photos in an almost comical way.

This was called a 'famine pot,' which the government used to try and help feed the starving masses during the potato blight famine. Typically, it would be filled with mostly herbs gathered from the Earth, with not much substance to fill bellies.

 

We left the Bog Village fairly quickly (it's a quick visit when there is neither visitors nor staff anywhere in sight!) and headed over to Cahirsiveen to check out the Balleycarberry Castle ruins. It was built sometime in the 15th century, by a McCarthy clan. There are zero signs/entry points to the ruins, as it's literally one of over a thousand castles in the country. Once again, we were the only souls there, and it was so tempting to want to hop the fence and check it out a little closer. But as is my luck, I'll accidentally kick a brick and the entire tower will come tumbling down on me, and even though I'm lying in traction with all four limbs in casts and sipping my mushed spaghetti with a straw...I'll be served with papers suing me for disturbing the historic sight. So NO. We stood outside the barbed wire and zoooooomed as far in as we could to get these snaps!

Our next destination was two medieval forts located nearby. The first one was called Cahergal and was much taller. It formed a perfect circle, and was built around 600 AD, roughly 1500 years ago! The fact that it is still standing (with some reconstruction) is beyond impressive. It's built with a view of both the castle and the bay, and is about 6 meters at it's tallest section, and about 3 meters thick. Most of the 50,000 known ringforts that existed in the country (about 40,000 remain) were built not just as protection, but as a show of wealth.

I cannot tell you absolutely impressive the size, symmetry and sturdiness of this fort was...and the fact that we roamed it SOLO again made it even more amazing. 

 

The entryway to the fort

Because there are stairs everywhere, you can easily climb/scramble to the top and see a 360 degree view of farmland, sheep, the bay, Ballycarberry Castle, etc.

I was inspired to do a second Irish jig

 

The second fort was not far away, but a bit of a hike up a hill and a solid 7-10 min walk. This fort was called Leacanabuaile, and was less tall/imposing. 

However, you could see the remains of what appear to be four different structures within it. This fort is believed to have been built much later, in the 9th or 10th century, for the protection of the farmland of a wealthy landowner. Like so many walls/fences in Ireland, the walls were covered in turf, so it was easy to roam atop them. This fort also had a crawl space that went into the Earth a bit, but there is no information as to what/why.

There is literally NO information about either site, on site! And there isn't much more online. However, the inner historian/architectural fan in me definitely wanted to visit these, despite the lack of fanfare...and they ended up being one of my FAVORITE sites of the whole trip. It was just wild to be able to run around these man-made structures, with no ropes keeping you off...attendants stopping you. 

The closest comparison I can come up with is to imagine that you could run around the Parthenon, or the Pyramids of Giza, by yourself...for hours...and not see another soul! Just a few scared sheep, to be exact (that took off when Ryan ran the ring).

Once we left the forts and got back on the Ring of Kerry, it was a race to get to Dublin in time to return our car that evening (& enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner together). We crazily/rapidly drove back through a total of 4-5 counties, one of which was Limerick...where the author, Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes) lived. 

I hadn't expected a relatively inexpensive airport hotel (Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport) to have any character, so I had prepared Ryan for a less than exciting final night in Europe. However, I was pleasantly surprise at just how wrong I was.

We absolutely loved the vibe of the hotel, and decided to be lazy and made reservations at the hotel's one and only restaurant. The cuisine was a hodge podge of tastes/flavors and we figured each of us would find something we wanted to eat.

Rich chose some kind of a charcuterie  board...

Ryan chose a wagyu beef burger and chips that cost more than Rich and my entrees...and then ate just under half of it! Grr!

I had a veggie pesto that was quite healthy and delicious in a very grainy/hippie type of way! Perfect, after two weeks of gorging on buffet breakfasts and Skittles by the handful on every road trip!

We had a lovely dinner with each other, giving thanks for our year, our trip, and our good health. It was a perfect Thanksgiving for us, and it reminded me of so many other Thanksgivings we've celebrated on the road. The evening was wonderful, and little did we know, the last peaceful moment we would have for awhile...

...OUR EPIC ADVENTURE HOME...

The next day, we set our alarms for 3:30am, and seamlessly caught the hotel shuttle over to the airport at 4am sharp...arriving at the airport around 4:10am for our 6am flight with KLM. However, as soon as we saw the line to check in...we knew something was very, very wrong. For starters, the line was long. Like Disneyland-ride long. And- NOT MOVING. I think in 30 min...we moved exactly 6 feet. We very quickly realized we were not only going to miss our flight to Amsterdam that morning, but we might not make an evening flight to Amsterdam either. We might even be celebrating Christmas in that line.

To make a long story longer- we stood in that line for a few hours, and eventually received an email notifying us we had been rebooked on Alitalia Air to London. However, this flight was leaving in less than 45 min, and we were in the wrong terminal, with no airline tickets for the rebooked flight. We decided to divide and conquer so we would not lose our place in line. Rich dashed over to the next terminal, and stood in the Alitalia line, only to be told when he got to the counter that the gate had been closed already. Had we all left the line, we would have definitely lost our hours of wait time already invested.

He came back, and about an hour later (roughly 4.5 hours after we first stepped into the line earlier that morning), we were able to get seamlessly rebooked by KLM on their partner airline, British Airways, back to LAX, via Heathrow. Perfect...not a big deal at all. We were handed a few 10 euro meal vouchers (insufficient, by the way, in ANY airport), that were largely invalid...as no restaurants were open. 

We caught our first flight to London without incident...a hair late, but with about 75 min to catch our next flight to LAX. Unfortunately for us, we had no idea just how distant the gate would be, and the obstacles in between. We knew it would be close, as large international flights tend to start the boarding process 75 min prior to takeoff. So we took off as soon as we got off the plane and starting to race walk to our gate.

Unfortunately, to get there, we needed to catch a train that was a 10 min walk away first...that took about 5 min to ride. We hopped off the train and race walked over to some gate wickets, and scanned our airline passes to enter the new terminal...and were shown a big red X informing us we need to return to to the ticketing counters. We ran back to those, and stood in a line for about 10 min...only to told by a stern, matronly British Airways agent that as the flight was boarding 60 min prior, and we hadn't checked in yet (which we could not do), we would have to be rebooked. We pleaded and implored her to let us sprint to the gate and at least try to get on board before they closed the gate, but she tersely told us we needed to complete new paperwork to fly through Heathrow, as the paperwork and COVID test results we'd completed a few days prior was for Amsterdam. She assisted us with this (very unhappily I might add), wordlessly handed us our tickets, and said, "You better run." (But I bet she's just lovely when she's not working.)

We shot off like rockets, having lost another 15-20 min at the reticketing counter, and got through the wickets with our updated tickets. However, our hearts dropped when we saw that we needed to go through security next! And because we were not in the states, there was no pre-check line that was faster...so we were forced to stand in line, shuffle forward slowly and go through security! Another 10 minutes wasted...and of course...my bag was flagged for a more in depth search, and was placed in a line behind about TEN other suitcases. I was ready to cry! But I wasn't ready to give in, so I ran up to the agent doing the screens and asked if he could move me up in priority as our flight was boarding at that moment...and God Bless him, he did! I snatched my bag from him and we sprinted off again, certain we would spy our gate...but nope. We had to run down an escalator, and then...get this...catch a BUS to our terminal!!!

We caught the bus, and then SPRINTED another quarter mile or so through a terminal to our gate. I was heavily huffing and puffing, out of breath, with a severely dry throat from gasping, and staggering beneath the weight my heavy, souvenir-filled pack and purse. I was struggling to keep up with the boys, and despite being the 'runner' of the family, fell at least 100 feet behind them. However, I did not care, as I figured they would notify the gate agent that Ms. Tubby would be arriving seconds behind them.

Once we finally spied our gate (my legs we jelly at this point, and I was drenched in sweat), we once again knew that something was wrong, but in this case, it was glorious...since it was NOT an empty seating area with a closed gate (which we fully expected, as we were now at the gate only about 25 min prior to departure). Because it was PACKED with passengers, and many did not look happy. I ran up to what looked like two American females and verified they were on our flight, and was told they were still boarding a flight before ours.

We ended up sitting and waiting another hour before they started to board...and then once we boarded...a technical difficulty was announced, and that maintenance was on their way! They had no ETA, but would let us know if we would have to deplane. A full hour after we had settled into our seats, we finally pulled back from the gate, roughly two hours delayed...but still enthralled we had made the flight.

Even better? It was not full, and we each had our own row...until an LA Karen on board pitched a fit and demanded to sit in my row since she was 'too cramped' in her own row right in front of me. I was so dejected to have to sit next to a stranger who had made SUCH a scene with the flight attendant, at first demanding to be moved next to Ryan once she saw him seated in his own row. I intervened and said nope! Sorry, Karen! My son is not sitting next to you. He gets airsick, so unless you want to be puked on, leave him alone. So she set her sights on me instead! So annoying! But you know, whatever...I rarely sleep on planes anyway, I just didn't want to sit next to a stranger, much less a Karen.

We landed in LA about 7 hours late, and lost all of our free time there. However, Rich was determined for us to have our In N Out. So even though we landed at 9:30pm, and didn't get to our room until about 10pm, he walked over to an In N Out about a 1/4 mile away, and bought us a hot dinner! We were starved and so appreciative. 

And then the next AM, even though we'd lost our Trader Joe's time...he insisted on getting up early, and while we were eating our amazing buffet breakfast...he rented a scooter and rushed over to Trader Joe's with a list he'd asked for... He walked in right when they opened at 9am, and grabbed everything in 15-20 min, then rushed back in time to catch the shuttle to the airport with us! 

We once again boarded an empty Southwest flight, and each got our own row...but were delayed about a half hour on landing when we had to wait for an open gate. So although the journey back was fraught with a bit of drama...ultimately, we got home on the right day, at nearly the right time! 

This ended up being one of the most amazing trips in recent history- relaxed, successful in that we did nearly everything we'd set out to, stayed healthy, and had no hiccups other than the last day or two headed home. While we were traveling home, I kept reading about the Omicron virus, and how there had been 62 cases discovered at the Amsterdam airport from S. Africa on KLM airways (the exact airline and airport and on day we were scheduled to be there before getting rerouted to Heathrow). So we not only dodged that bullet on our vacation, but also on the route home!

We are unsure where we are headed to next, or when...but this COVID risk appears to be here to stay for awhile! Very lucky we managed to eke out a dream trip for ourselves!