The race to the top of Blarney Castle

Traveling with George is a bit like being on the amazing race. Not only on travel days does he have me racing through airports but many times our tours are like this. In Paris we went to Notre Dam Cathedral, where he walked in looked around for 1/2 a second and said "I'll be buying the postcard outside." But nothing compared to the race around the Louvre Museum. In his defense we did have limited time but it was crazy how fast he had me moving around the museum. It was a quick blur of art but I did see the Mona Lisa & ancient statue of Aphrodite, Venus de milo.

That brings me to our recent trip to Ireland and the Blarney Castle. Our tour group arrived first thing in the morning so for a few minutes we had the place to ourselves. We had a tour guide who talked to our group for just a few minutes about Blarney Castle, the history, and the gardens surrounding the castle.

The group we are traveling with are Philadelphia Eagles fans and love that we wrapped him in our flag.

While this was taking place other tour groups were starting to enter the area. That was all he needed to see and it was forget the history lets get this castle thing done and kiss the stone.

Having no idea what the blarney stone actually was or where it was I just followed along trying to keep up.

Before I knew it we were in the Castle scaling the 100 tiny steps in a very narrow passage to the top of Blarney Castle in record time.

We were the first to arrive!

At this point I needed a few seconds to catch my breath before hanging upside down to kiss the stone.

The sign on the wall was of no comfort since in order to get to the you first needed to back down.

I did in fact kiss the stone and now have the gift of eloquence bestowed upon me.

The stone you kiss

The views from on top of the Castle were fantastic.

Having been first up there left us with lots of time to explore all the beautiful gardens that surround the castle.

Many people had to opt out as it can be very confiding and a slow process when there are crowds.

In this case I missed the history but got to kiss the stone without crowds of people.