So,

We took off from Gallway for what we thought was Cork, and found ourselves in Blarney, county Cork…….which is a STARK difference from Cork. Future hotel bookings, please make the distinction. Cork is a larger town with nightlife and PEOPLE. Blarney, County Cork (close by a few miles but cheaper per hotel search) is the sticks. Our hotel was above a bar, with no elevator and our room key was an actually house key with a huge keychain on it like a fast station. Hahaha Also, the road to Blarney has no lights whatsoever, it’s truly a countryside area with the most narrow roadways. There was 1 other restaurant besides where we stayed, which was a Chinese place across from the bar…questionable. Lol Merhawit and I had a moment of panic arriving and realizing where we were going to stay, but it ended up being fine and the people were nice.

The upside to staying in Blarney county cork is you are literally steps from Blarney Castle! The next morning we walked there and explored Blarney castle and the gardens which are BEAUTIFUL! I kissed the stone and got my tourist photo like a good American tourist. Walking through the castle was fascinating. The stairs in the castle are tiny and winding up, but also very narrow hallways so be prepared for that, I def almost tripped down the stairs at least twice making my way up. Haha

Next was a 30 min drive to Middleton for the Jameson Distillery! I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this, even if you don’t care much for Whisky. The tours are not a huge size of people and you get a personal guide who walks you through the old distillery. It isn’t cheesy at all, and very informative. You get a free tasting at the end, and they pick 9 people during the tour to compare 3 different whisky’s (which we were picked for Jameson was the best, by design I feel. Lol). We paid for this ahead of time via Victor.com and it was cheaper and very easy to check-in. The other highlight was we ended up purchasing a bottle of their black label cask strength, which we got to bottle ourselves directly from the cask and because of that it’s 60 proof! (They dilute the whisky with water to make it 40 proof in the bottling process). The history associated with the Jameson brand is interesting as well, it was well worth the time!

From there we drove to Kinsale which is the cutest little waterfront town! I wish we had stayed a night there. The shopping was great, it was just as cute and colorful as Gallway, but the restaurant scene is fantastic. We ate dinner at adorable vegan friendly (still serve meat tho lol) place called The Black Pig. I would go again for sure, we both loved our meals and the wine list was stellar. The town has a harbor full of adorable boats and we saw people kayaking and enjoying the water access. Cute parks for kids and just an adorable little town. Then we drove back to Blarney (It was storming and the lack of street lights was stellar) and decided we deserved a drink. One pint of Guiness turned into a few as they do in Ireland. Also, Merhawit actually can tolerate Guiness–which was an amazing discovery. Haha Sleep needs to happen eventually… I haven’t had more than 5 hours a night and anyone who knows me understands the solid 8 is my minimum threshold. #TheStruggleIsReal Also wifi is down at the hotel which is sad bc I miss P and can’t communicate with him. Boo