And back to the Ring of Kerry. On day four we went back to the end of the Ring of Kerry to see Mucross House. It was very pretty, but one of the many places where we couldn't take pictures. Unfortunately, I'm one of the few people who actually listens to rules like that, so all of my pictures are of the outside. Still, the outside was very pretty. Here are a few shots of Mucross House and the view from the front lawn of Mucross Lake, one of the Lakes of Killarney.
Here are a couple of shots from the gardens. They were very big, and very pretty. There are a lot of flowers that were in the gardens and one of my dad next to something I nicknamed the "umbrella plant" since it rained a few times that day and the plant's leaves made very good umbrellas. We found out later that it is called "Giant Rhubarb" or "Elephant Ear" and it's native to South America.
After we went through Mucross House and Gardens, we looked for the Abbey. It was a bit of a walk, and it was a little hard to find (my theory is that it's not well marked because it's free), but it was well worth it. This was one of my favorite places. Unlike most of the ruins we went to, this one didn't have gates everywhere to keep you out of rooms and stair cases and such. We were free to roam about! Yay! We got to wander all around it, down into the basement and up.. I believe three stories. It was like a giant playground. :)
After we left Mucross, we drove to Ross Castle, not too far away. Ross Castle has been restored recently. It is interesting to see the inside of the castle restored to what it probably would have looked like when it was built. There was one story that amused me about this castle. For a while the British government seized it from the owners and they built barracks on to it. When they gave it back to the family later, the man that inherited it had a home of his own and didn't want it. At the time, there was a roof tax, meaning that you had to pay a tax on any building with a roof. He didn't want to pay taxes on it, so he had the roof torn down to save money. But he decided that if the castle was going to be a ruin, it had to look right. So he paid to have the barrack windows narrowed to look like arrow slits so that the castle looked like a proper ruin. Weird guy, huh?
These are the last pictures of the day. They was taken in a little town called Macroom on the way to Cork. There was a castle, so I had dad stop so I could take pictures and we ate while we were there.
