After three days in Glengariff we went North and West. The Ring of Kerry is world renown for it's scenery and we didn't want to pass it by. Problem is, it's so famous that it's filled with cars and tourist coaches as well. Driving on winding roads while avoiding monster sized buses was just too much. So we decided to buy seats on one of the coaches and stay in the launching base, Killarney. What can we say? Imagine the Wisconsin Dells or Niagara falls before the casinos. Compared to all the beauty and charm of our experience in Ireland so far, Killarney was a leering leprechaun on black velvet. The downtown "pubs" were decorated floor to ceiling with police ballcaps and patches from every American city in the Northeast. I didn't hear an Irish accent that wasn't behind a bar. Every day the 10 cities in 12 days tours deposited another batch of bleary tourists. It's such a shame that this is the only vision of Ireland that they would see.
We stayed in a bed and breakfast that was closer to a Super 8 on the main drag with bumper to bumper travel coaches.
The next morning we hopped on to the day long tour coach (surprisingly cheap) and spent the day living the package tour life. The scenery was lovely though marred by cheesy Celtic music piped too loudly through the bus speakers. We had a stop every 45 minutes to help the small bladder set. Each stop included an opportunity to pay for an exhibit and our bus pulled in alongside 5-10 others. By the end though, we had seen enough car/bus near misses that we were happy to have relaxed on the bus.
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