We bid our hostess Mary goodbye this morning. If anyone ever has reason to be in Kinsale, look up the Seagull – Mary was willing to do just about anything to make our stay nicer. As she would say – a grand woman.

We jumped in the car and headed northwest. The landscape change dramatically as soon as we left County Cork and entered Kerry – suddenly there were numerous mountains, and they were either covered in forest and heather or were rough stone and grasses. It was very beautiful. We headed on into Killarney National Park, to the Muckross House and gardens.

Oh, my, was that amazing. The house is very fine – a large mansion built in the 1860s, and donated to Ireland in the late 1920s. Much of the furniture is original, and the house is in excellent shape. What is most eye-catching is the setting – it overlooks Lake Muckross, which is surrounded by mountains covered in trees and purple heather. It was gorgeous.

We used our Heritage Cards we had bought back in Kinsale to book a tour of the house for free, but it was scheduled for about forty minutes later. So, we took the opportunity to roam the grounds and part of the gardens. I stumbled across a small, rough staircase made of rock, and we took it up into a rock garden, where the path was carved rock, and bedrock mixed in with the flowers and trees. It was very private-feeling, and there were numerous rock paths around. I loved it. After we explored the rock garden, we meandered down to Lake Muckross, where we took in the beauty as best we could. By then it was time for the tour.

The house tour lasted about an hour, and was well done. Our group was a bit large, consisting of about twenty-five people (including a family that had been with us on the Kinsale history walk yesterday). The main thing Mer and I took away was that we should never host a sovereign; it seems the owners of the house prepared for THREE years for a visit by Queen Victoria, a visit which lasted two nights. Sheesh. The house was elegant, and it was a good tour.

After the house tour, we had about twenty minutes before we had to head off to the hostel where we would be staying, so we explored more of the gardens, finding another small rock garden, a small stream garden, and a lower lawn garden, all of which were designed to make one feel solitude. The grounds are excellent (and free to the public).

We got back in the car and drove out to Kenmare, which is at the head of the Beara Peninsula. As we left the national park, we were treated to several dramatic views, which caused me to tell Mer that I thought I had just seen Michael with a flaming sword (i.e., guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden). Amazing. The views from a pull-off named The Ladies View were breathtaking.

We checked in to our hostel (in a large double room with a private bath), and headed back out again after a short rest. We grabbed lunch from a market, and headed off. Mer told me we were doing a driving tour of the Beara Peninsula. I have to admit I was not thrilled; the roads were very narrow, and the drivers were driving very fast. Still, off we went. I’m very glad we did.

There were so many “Wow!” moments that the drive is a bit hard to describe. The drive went along a bay (oddly called the Kenmare River), then up and up and up over Healy Pass on a winding and almost one-lane road. Once over the pass, the road wound down to the sea again, to Bantry Bay, and then back up over another pass. The terrain changed over and over again, from small fields to ocean to almost alien-looking landscapes of rock and grass. It was the most spectacular drive I can ever remember making.

My favorite part was Healy Pass. We pulled off at one spot, and Mer commented on how quiet it was – there were no cars or even birdsongs (because there were no trees). We could hear the occasional bleat of a sheep (yes, there were free-roaming sheep in the road, just to make driving even more interesting). The pull-off looked out over several mountains and a lake far below. It was amazing.

We got a tad lost on the way back to Kenmare, which ended up being a fifteen-minute detour that was also pretty, as it took us down to the ocean. Once back in town, we parked the car and had supper at a local Italian restaurant (Bella Vita), followed by ice cream from the market, which was still open. We ate the ice cream back at the hostel, and then called it a night.