July 26 Waterford, Ireland

Our guide, Liam, had us out of the hotel at 7:45 am because we were going to Blarney Castle and he was worried about crowds.  He says the line to kiss the stone can get up to 2 hours.  There are cruise ships in Cork and they always have excursions to Blarney.  Not to worry, we got there in good time and there was only one group of Italians ahead of us.  When they stopped to take photos, a bunch of us went around them and hustled on.  When we got to the actual castle entrance there was no one tbere, so we went on. I hadn't realized that the stone was at the top of the castle, up 127 steps.   And these are tiny circular stone steps that are irregular and poorly lit.  You have to pull up on the rope and metal banister as you go.  Just getting to the top was enough for me so I let Michael do the kissing while I took pictures.  You lay on your back, hang the upper half of your body over the edge with a little help, grab the two rails and put your head back and kiss the bottom (or top from your perspective) stone.  I kept thinking about all the people who have done this before we got there.  The "helper" had a bottle of disinfectant but he didn't use it while we were there.  The trip down is better and you can actually see some of the rooms of the castle.  We had lots of time left so we wandered the grounds. There is a Poison Garden full of, well, poisonous plants including foxglove, juniper, poison ivy and cannabis.  The definition of poisonous is a little loose, I guess.

Next was more driving through the countryside to the village of Youghal (pronounced "yall") for lunch.  We noticed that even the beverage menus list the possible allergans. 

During these longer stretches Liam gives us information on various aspects of Ireland like history, costs of living here (about 50% in taxes including all of them), the education system, etc.  He sometimes plays Irish stories over the PA system which is how we learned that Cinderella is based on an old Irish folktale.

We arrived at our hotel in Waterford late afternoon and we had a bit of a walk around the area before a nice group dinner at the hotel restaurant.  The part of Waterford that we saw was my least favorite we've seen.  It didn't feel dangerous as such, but just a little more uncomfortable than we've experienced.