Day 12 - Blarney to Rosslare

Day 12 we left Blarney behind and headed for Rosslare.  It was a longish trip and the countryside was still beautiful.

We stopped at Cove and checked out the history museum and some of the Titanic memorabilia.  Cove was the last stop of the Titanic before its sinking.  The Irish lace that was taken with some of the passengers was just beautiful.

 There were pieces of old luggage around the old terminal, I thought they were beautiful.

 We stopped for tea, coffee and scones, and had a great chat with a lovely old man, he even joined us for a coffee.

We then continued our way and stopped at Waterford Crystal.  That was an expensive little stop.  But I can't wait to get our package when we get home.

We found some more old castles on our way.  This one was on the very edge of a river.

Then we arrived in very cold and windy Rosslare.  We checked in, went to drop off the car, then walked back to the B&B.  This one was really nice and the owners were great too.

We went into town to find dinner and ended up with dinner & drinkies at one pub and drinkies at the next.  We made sure we had a drink at the last pub in Ireland before our trip across the Irish sea int he morning.

Day 11 - Clare to Blarney

We packed up pretty early on day 11 and our first stop was the Cliffs of Moher.  This reminded me of the great ocean road, but seemed to be higher.

It was a bit windy but we walked to the top and even up O'brien's Tower to check out the view.

Even the cows were cold, they were wearing warm jumpers, but the crows were still cheeky here.

We were then back in the car and headed for Blarney.  The trip felt like it was taking forever, but we did spot the sun on our travels, so we made sure to take a photo  It was the only time we saw it in Ireland.   There was also a sign on the highway that we just couldn't ignore.  So we made sure to get our horse and carriage off the motorway.

We found many ruins on our way, but stopped to check this one out.  It's an old monastery.  It was very pretty.

We reached Blarney and checked out our accommodation before heading for the Blarney Castle.

The first thing we saw after entering the grounds was a small river.  It was running so fast.  So we got a local to take our photo.

Then walking round a few bends we came across the castle.  She was beautiful.

So off we went to explore, and to find the blarney stone.

Clay has been finding that they didn't make doorways to suit tall people back  in Medieval times.
Blarney is the first Castle that we could walk through and explore.  Kids, you would have loved it.  There were Battlements to climb, rooms to check out, Witches steps to walk and even Badger Cave to explore in the mud.  Clay was looking for someone to get muddy with, but Cody and Mekhaela were nowhere to be found.

We headed up to the top to brave the Blarney stone. 

Even though there was no chance of falling, it felt very very wrong to be laying with your head over the edge of the battlements, but we both kissed the Blarney Stone!

From the top of the battlements you could look back through the castle over what was once the dining hall.

We finished checking out the castle and went to check out the castle grounds.

 We made a wish on the witches stone and explored the badgers cave.

We found the Wollen Mills store and did a spot of shopping before grabbing some take away fish and chips.  It was really weird, we had a choice of Curry or Pea sauce to go with.  We chose the Curry.  It was really yummy.

Ok mum, I'm now only 1 day behind......  I'm catching up :)

Day 10 - Bushmills to Clare

Day 10 we got up early and went to check out Giants Causeway.  We have found it really strange.  All of the natural wonders here in Ireland are things that you need to pay to see.  It cost us $8.50 each to see the causeway.  Giants Causeway's fee gave you an audio guide for your money, but some other things are costly. 

The Causeway was very very cool.  The rock formations were made by the slow cooling of lava millions of years ago.  Amazing!

It was a long walk but a very pretty one.

We then jumped back in the car and headed for Clare.

Along the way the scenery was beautiful.  There were loads of old ruins, everything from castles like this one to what once were stone homes.  It's like the owners of the land just got tired of living in the family home and wanted a new one, so built another right next to the original. 

We even had to stop to let the cows cross.

It took us a little to find, but we finally got to our B&B.  It was run by a lovely old lady in a little town called Doolin.  We want out for dinner, taking the car cause we thought we'd have to drive to find food.  We drove to the end of the road, past 3 pubs and a bistro, so turned the car around and parked it back in the B&B and walked to dinner.  We went over the little bridge and river and into the pub.

The pubs were small, yet full of people.  And so warm.

We had ourselves an Irish Pub dinner before heading to bed.

Day 9 - Dublin to Bushmills

We woke up nice and early and headed for the Jameson's Distillery,  just across the park.

We went on a tour that taught us how Irish whisky is made, then we got a drink after the tour, nice!  I tried Jameson's and Cranberry, I think I found my new drink.

Then we collected our next hire car and headed north, way north. 

We did stop on our way at The Crown in Belfast for lunch and a warm beer.

We kept on truckin for another 1.5 hours and were able to get to the Bushmills Distillery in time for the last tour of the day.

This tour was different than Jameson's as Bushmills is still a working Distillery.  We got to see and smell all the different stages of whisky making as also to feel how terribly hot it is in the still room.  We got a drink at the end of this one too, but it was only straight whisky and was way to strong for me.

We checked into our hotel, then did a quick run down to the Rope Bridge, and met a lovely man named Dave from the National Trust.  We worked out that Irish Dave's are very lovely people when he let us in to check out the bridge just on closing time.  The bridge was scary but cool and we were able to go across and back before Dave got back from his rounds.

After the adrenaline rush, we headed back to our hotel for dinner.  We weren't going to have dinner there, but after the waiter bought us drinks, we thought we'd stay.  Luckily, because it was one of the best meals we have had so far.

Tomorrow, we walk in the footsteps of giants.....

Day 8 - Nurburg to Dublin

Day 8 we spent the morning shopping in Anadau, before jumping back on the road and heading for Frankfurt-hahn airport.  The GPS took us on this strange route, through lots of little towns, up winding country roads, through farming areas till we were sure this thing was taking us to China.  When we got to where it was telling us was the airport, we both thought 'this can't be right'.  We were on an old US military airbase that looked like it hadn't been maintained in years.  But yes, this was the airport, and yes we were getting on an international flight from here....  Oh shit!

So we hung out at the 'airport' until our flight then hopped aboard the sky bus (half an hour late).  This was really strange.  We had reserved seats on the plane, but most people had a general ticket which ment that they got there really early ad lined up in the hope to get the best seat on the plane possible.  So as we were boarding people were running past to get onto the plane, it was weird.  Then once on everything was very very basic.  It was probably one of the scariest flights I have been on. 

We landed in Dublin (thanks universe) and hopped the airlink bus into town.  We then had to walk up the street to get a tram out to where our hotel was. 

Dublin felt nowhere near as safe as Munich.  We never saw anything to make us feel unsafe, it was just the feeling in the air.  We arrived at our hotel, to be greeted but a cranky man.  We then had the worst dinner of our trip so far, two tub salads and juice from the supermarket down stairs from the hotel.  It was an interesting day.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Day 7 - Rothenburg to Nurburg

On day 7 we woke in Rothenburg.  We had to make sure we got more sightseeing in before we had to leave.  So we went down for another yummy breakfast with the owner of the B&B.  The lovely old man cooked our breaky for us then made sure we knew where we were going and how to get there.

After breaky, we headed out into the city again.  We found the entrance to the battlements and walked them for as far as they would take us.

Along this wall there were plaques with names and locations on them.  These are for the people who have purchased part of the wall to help Rothenburg stay as the beautiful medieval city it now is.

We found a museum of all things medieval and decided to take a look.  It cost us an extra 3 euro on top of admission to be able to take photos, so I made sure I took heaps!  Here are a couple of the cool stuff we found.

As sad as it was we had to then say goodbye to this beautiful place and head for Nurburg.  The cars were calling our names.

On the drive north, the scenery changed and seemed dryer.  As we got closer to towns, we came across heaps of tunnels and bridges.  We pulled into Nurburg, quick;y checked into our hotel, then headed for the infamous Nurburgring race track.

Clay checked into RSR and got ready for the track briefing.

The Nurburgring is a race track that runs like a business, so you are charged to drive it, and if you bend it you bought it.  You can drive anything round the track, even a bus if you wish.  Clay has much more style than this, so he drove the BMW M3.

So after the briefing, it was go time.  First lap was with the driver trainer, second lap I jumped in the passenger seat then the last two laps were all Clay.

The single lap that I rode along for was unreal.  Both extremely scary and thrilling all at the same time.  At one stage, I was sure I was going to hurl, but If they were going to charge $4000 to replace one section of guard rail, then I really didn't want to know the cost of cleaning the car, so I made sure I held it.

After the drive, we checked out some of the track cars in the shed.  Lucky Clay didn't request this one,  he didn't fit!  Clay then signed the door and the drive day was done. 

We headed to a local restaurant called Pistenhause and had the most awesome pizza's ever.  Then we drove back to the hotel for a couple of drinkies.  I fell in love with Germany a little bit more when I asked for a Malibu and coke, to which the bar tender, whilst holding the bottle to poor into the glass, says "say stop" just awesome!

We took a stroll afterwards and found this sign.  It points to all of the major race tracks throughout the world and the distance f