3 hours on the bus to Blarney – and we’ve been rotated to the back. Bummer. There’s more room back here, but we don’t get Alacoque and Tony’s chatter – which we adore. Ah well, we settle in and watch more green countryside flash by complete with old Monastery looking buildings and fortress tower ruins off in the distance.

Arriving at the castle, we dutifully follow Alacoque from the bus park to the gates, where she gives us our entry tickets and we immediately head for the cafe and cappuccino. Hey – it’s cold and overcast and A) we’ve been here before and B) even in the before-times we would NEVER kiss that stone, so we have no plans of going into the Castle. We are only walking along the gardens, so we are no hurry. Plus, after sitting on the cafe patio and listening to another lady at the next table, ain’t no way we’re going in there because C) there is a huge Celebrity cruise ship in port with an outbreak of at least 50 in quarantine and they had 11 buses here…so..oh yeah…garden walk!!!

Cappuccino done, we head toward the castle for some great photos…

…then skirt around it and enter the garden area. We don’t have time to walk the entire perimeter trail – only because we want to have lunch while we are here – but we do have at lest an hour or more to wander the different gardens. And talk about different! There is a fern garden and an old ice house – ok – you’d expect that.

But also a Vietnamese woodland. What? Complete with Palm trees that are so perfect they look fake and a huge rock waterfall. how do they keep this stuff alive in this weather? It gets awfully cold here. Wow.

Skirting around the walled kitchen gardens, we ended up in the Belgian beds which were a riot of color and flowering bushes. The Rhodies were amazing. And huge!

We passed the old Limekiln, next to the pasture with the cows and beds with more flowers….

….on to The Blarney House, which to be honest, was more attractive than the castle….

…..and back toward to the entrance, past the castle for more photos, then taking our leave and meandering through the village of Blarney looking for a place to eat.

We found the perfect spot at O’Connor’s Muskerry Arms Bar & Restaurant. Plopping down right by the fireplace in the bar, we dug into a hearty ham sandwich with fries and a not so hardy chicken Caesar salad. All perfect. And all perfectly warm with the blazing fire taking the chill off the both of us.

Then it is back to the bus to wait for the rest of the group and onto Kilarney for the evening and our afternoon Jaunting Car tour.