Kissin' Rocks and Seein' Titanic Docks

This is a story of how I got to first base with a castle. Say what? Kissing the Blarney Stone, of course. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone or not. It's pretty much an ultra-touristy thing, but then I figured I spend most of my job pandering to tourists so why not go and be super touristy sometimes? So I took a journey down to Cork!

These are some photos from the city center that I took as I aimlessly wandered around, going down streets that looked interesting and wherever my feet decided to take me.

The Blarney Castle is just outside the city center, a short bus ride away! 

See those three small windows that lead up the flat side of the wall? The Blarney Stone is just above the top window.

I was totally a princess in another life.

The Blarney Stone is at the very top of the castle, so you have to climb a lot of winding stone stairs to get there.

Not for the claustrophobic!

Once you get to the to top you are treated to spectacular views of the grounds beyond the castle.

You can see Blarney House peeking out.

When it's your turn to kiss the stone they have a person there to hold onto you because to actually reach the stone to kiss it you have to lay down and scooch out real far  and hold onto bars while bending backwards.

Down I go!

You can't tell from here, but I totally kissed it.

For those of you wondering "You kissed something that hundreds of other people did before you?" well I tried to have at least some cleanliness about it. I coated my lips in a healthy layer of lip balm right before the deed and immediately wiped it off after. If anything else remained after that, oh well.

I also explored the caves underneath the castle, which is thought to be where the dungeons were kept.

Just go through this creepy stairway...

...Stoop through some narrow passageways...

                                               

And find the place where others have left their mark.

After exploring the Blarney Castle I walked over to the Poison Garden. A cool spot that was interesting to learn about deadly plants. Plus, I found that J.K. Rowling used several of these plants in the Harry Potter series, so Potter fans read on to find out info about the plant use in the muggle world!

Yew is the wood that Harry and Tom Riddle's (Voldemort) wands are made out of.

The Yew tree

Remus Lupin's saving grace.

The Wolfsbane

Make sure you have your earmuffs on!

Bonus for all my ganja loving friends out there ;)

In the grounds of the Blarney castle they also have the Rock Close, which has mystical things like the Fairy Glade and Witch's Stone and others!

In the Fairy Glade people can leaves coins as offerings to the fairies. That is what is on the wooden pedestal.

Fairy Glade

Witch Stone. See the nose, mouth and eyes?

Wishing steps! Walk up them backwards and forwards with your eyes closed and think of your wish! 

Pretty waterfall 

I took a trip to the town of Cobh (formerly known as Queenstown) where the Titanic had it's last port of call before setting out towards New York and to it's doom. In Cobh is a small Titanic experience museum which is in the actual building that used to be part of the White Star Line.

Square by the sea in Cobh

Beautiful church

Modern day Cobh is very cute!

White star line logo

The old White Star Line building

Current building where you can see the windows on the right are the same.

The passengers boarding at Cobh had to take tenders or smaller boats to take them to the Tianic because it was too big to moor in front of the pier.

The remnants of the actual pier that the passengers used to get on the tenders.

The pier was called "Heartbreak pier" because many people said goodbye to their loved ones here. Many of which were moving on to the U.S. and they knew they wouldn't see their families anymore. Little did they know that many would never make it to New York.

Model of the Titanic

Artifacts from passengers

Many photos were not allowed but the Titanic experience was cool because it gave new perspective to what itwas like to be a passenger on the ship.

I must've gained the gift of gab from the Blarney stone because I think this is my longest blog yet! Hopefully soon I'll finish up Ireland and move on to other parts of Europe!