Our 2005 Trip to Ireland
In 2005 my family and I were able to visit Ireland for several weeks. We literally took hundreds of pictures. My husband, Joel D Canfield, actually felt homesick after we came home. Here's just a few notes I made about our trip.
My family and I were able to visit lovely Ireland January 11 through February 10 2005. We saw many beautiful sunrises in Ireland and took many pictures of them looking out the window of the cottage we were staying in on Valentia Island. It took a little getting used to the fact that the sun didn't rise until 8:30 a.m. We saw several castle ruins.
We really liked Killarney. It's about 90 minutes from Valentia Island where we were staying. It's a fairly big city (in comparison) and we spent quite a bit of time here. Ted Kennedy's bus took us in to Caherciveen regularly.
In Waterville, just a few miles south of Caherciveen, is the Charlie Chaplin statue. You'll also find a world–famous Arnold Palmer golf course.
We loved our cottage on Valentia Island. I lost Fiona's mittens early in our trip. So she often wore my extra ones and looked quite ridiculous. But at least she didn't get frostbite!
Our cottage was called Sea View House. It has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Joel and I took the downstairs bedroom and Rachelle had one of the upstairs bedrooms. The third bedroom never got used. It was self–catering; so we had what we needed to cook in the kitchen, linens for the bed and bath, a washer, dryer, refrigerator, iron, and even a blow dryer.
The view from the cottage was breathtaking. We were surrounded by green fields. I've never seen such green fields, blue, clear skies, or breathed such clean, fresh air. Cows though were a common sight, and smell!
We did lots and lots of walking on these roads. Most of the time Fiona did great! The day she was teething though was tough. After that we made sure to carry baby Tylenol with us at all times. We walked along the Shore Road from Chapeltown to Knightstown. We went down and walked along the beach. We ended up walking four hours this day and about seven miles! Fortunately, after two hours of Fiona's fussing because she was teething, she fell asleep.
Monday, January 24th, Ted Kennedy took us 'over the water' as they say in Caherciveen and we got to see two forts and Ballycarberry Castle.
The entrance to the Slate Quarry on Valentia Island is impressive!
So we fell in love with Ireland, especially County Kerry and specifically Killorglin and Killarnery. We would love to move here and make this our permanent home. We dream of the day!