On the third day, we took a tour of the Ring of Kerry. That was interesting. The tour bus forgot us! But the lady at our B&B in Killarney was very nice, and she managed to get things worked out for us. It was a neat tour too. It's nice to hear stories and quips from the driver. For example, Kenmare Bay is called Kenmare River. Why? Because the English made a law that the Irish could fish in the ocean, but not in rivers. They decided the fishing was too good in Kenmare Bay for the Irish to be allowed to fish there, so they changed the name to Kenmare River. We also found out that the speed limit is the same on what is known to be one of the worst roads in Ireland as the best roads in Ireland, 100 kmp (around 60 miles an hour). (Which is typical, from what I've seen. My dad and I once turned off of a nice highway with a speed limit of 60 kph onto a hilly, little cowtrail, with a speed limit of 80 kph. Even more amusing after seeing the speed limit signs on some of the roads is coming across road signs that say things like, "Speed Kills!")
Here are some pictures from the Ring of Kerry. A lot of them have light spots from the reflection in the bus window. There's a really bad shot of a stone circle. I took it at the wrong angle and only got one of the stones into it. But that's another disadvantage of taking pictures from a moving tour bus. There's also a random castle, some famine cottages, and then.. shots of the coastline, because I thought the coastline was the prettiest part of the Ring. Oh yes, and a picture of the statue of Charlie Chaplin in Waterville.
Oh, and by the way.. if you ever go to Ireland and you drive around the Ring of Kerry yourself... here's a very important tip: Go counterclockwise, that way you are going the same direction as all of the tourbuses. And on those narrow roads, trust me, you don't want to be going against the tour buses.
Near the end of the Ring was the little town of Sneem. It's cute. Ireland has a Tidy Towns contest for the cleanest, most colorful town, and Sneem has won it several years in a row. Most of my pictures in Sneem are actually of the stream that runs through it. I walked downstream to get a few of the pictures and was somewhat annoyed when I noticed a guy walking on the rocks in the middle of the stream, right in my shot! "How on earth did he get there anyway?" I thought. And then I went back up to the bridge to look at the other side of the stream and saw my dad down there. It turns out there is a stairway down from the bridge to the stream. So then I got to go down there.
And, of course, there are the famous Lakes of Killarney. Most of mine are of the Gentleman's View, I think. That's where we stopped and got out of the bus. My picture of the Ladies View has a car and a sign in it, as you can see. Oops.
