So sad, our last vacation day in Ireland. It was obvious why everyone looked at us like we were crazy when we said we were only in Ireland for 3 days, there was just not enough time to get more than a little taste but I'm still glad we got to experience it!
We woke up and checked out of the Arbutus and drove - in heavy rain - to the town of Blarney. Michael didn't even seem phased by it anymore! We stopped in Macroom, which was a fairly large town, for breakfast. Made it to Blarney Castle and it was still raining, and chilly, but not nearly as bad as before.
Holy crow there are so many tiny, super steep, stairs on the long spiral staircase up to the top of the castle. A little scary since it was wet and slippery but we made it! At the top is the famed Blarney Stone which is kinda ridiculous since it's some nondescript section of the wall that you only know is the Blarney Stone because there's a 200-year-old man sitting there with a giant camera over his head so they can scam you into paying to kiss a dirty piece of rock!! Linda, Kara and I did it while the guys stood by and watched, they were not about to be suckered...for once.
The rain didn't keep us from walking around the grounds and Rock Close but decided not to do the house tour...had to save time to move on to bigger and better things...
Another hour of driving brought us to Middleton where the Old Jameson Distillery is located. Can you even imagine how excited Michael & Kev were to finally be at Jameson?! The air smelled delicious, sorta like bread, due to the new factory on an adjacent lot that was busy distilling some tasty whiskey.
The tour was cool even if you have no interest in whiskey, reminiscent of Slater Mill but on a much larger scale. The Distillery was from the mid-1800's and the giant waterwheel powered the place until the early 1970's, rather remarkable! Their current Master Distiller was born, raised and still lives in the 'cottage' on the Old Distillery property. Don't be fooled, the cottage may have been only one story but it was so gigantic that there were over 25 rooms in it, not too shabby!
Kara volunteered to be a special taste-tester at the end of the tour and got a nifty certificate. Oh and of course she found another old man (Brian) who will probably end up leaving her everything he owns one day!! We all got a glass of real Irish whiskey afterward, tasty!
Once we were done at the distillery, we continued on to our final destination, the Cork International Airport Hotel. Now I know what you're thinking, ew, really, your last night was spent in an airport hotel, ick....that's exactly what my first thought was, but when I saw this place and the price it was clearly the best choice. It was built in 2007 and was an ultra-modern and funky hotel with airplane seats used all over the place. The rooms were fantastic but it was not really located near too much other than the airport so probably not a place you'd want to stay for the entire vacation.
It took a whole lot of debating, but we decided to venture into the city of Cork for our last vacation dinner and ended up at Zak's. Cute little place and we got a huge banquette booth, but there was seriously no one else in the place, so weird. Food was really good, dessert wasn't the greatest but it was edible and it was sugar so can't complain! And they had an early bird menu until 7:30 - what?! - love it!!! After dinner we went back to the hotel and had a drink in the lounge before hitting the hay...everyone was dreading the 5am wake up call!
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