Blarney Castle

The walk into town wasn’t as nice as our camping guide suggested so we made the decision to drive in this morning. Thankfully the parking was abundant and free. It was €20 for the two of us to view the castle and kiss the stone. The castle itself is mainly in ruins and isn’t all that impressive of a sight. But you don’t come to Blarney for it’s castle, you come to kiss the Blarney Stone and gain the “gift of gab”. The staircase leading to the top of the castle, where the stone is located, is extremely steep and narrow. Near the top I almost had trouble squeezing through with the backpack on. Julie was just starting to climb the last 3 steps to the top of the castle when her pedometer fell from her waist. It bounced three times before it finally plunged through a large hole in the floor. The pedometer fell nearly 5 stories to the ground. We both thought instantly that it was broken. It has fallen many times from Julie’s hip and occasionally needs encouragement to start counting again. The entire time we were standing in line for the Blarney Stone, Julie watched through more floor openings, hoping no one would steal her pedometer (that’s probably why we never found the old one after loosing it in Pompeii).
The Blarney stone was not quite what we thought (picture a hole in the floor where it meets the wall, the Blarney stone is the piece of wall). The stone itself looked “moist” and it’s rumored that the locals urinate on it. If the stone was more like a large boulder, we probably would have kissed it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to kiss the wall of a ruined castle. We both laughed later at the thought of me getting the gift of gab, don’t I already talk too much? When we made our way down the narrow stairs of the castle, Julie was being as patient as she could while we followed a rather large woman down. Fortunately she ducked into a doorway for us to pass by. To Julie’s relief and our total surprise the pedometer was still there and it is working just fine.