We went down to Cork, to the Blarney castle, home of the blarney stone.

It was rainy all the way down, worrying us about being too wet to spend the time out side.

Just inside the park, I saw a sign stating that they were employing anti-drone technology. Strangely, I haven’t yet heard of any, barring that of shooting a net over it as it flies low enough.

You have to walk over a short bridge that crosses two rivers at once. More remarkable, the rivers cross themselves, one goes through a tunnel under the other.

After entering the castle and starting the 100 step climb, I noticed that the walls are around 8 feet thick. The inner walls weren’t that thick, but you wouldn’t have to worry about noisy people in the next room.

There were small rooms off the spiral stairway, so we could make short breaks from the long climb. None of the rooms in the castle had privacy (or windows to close). Even the lord and lady would have slept in a communal room.

There were two “garderobes”, small rooms where you did your “business.” Yes, in front of whoever also happened to be there. It was the place where you would “guard your robes.” The ammonia flumes would kill fleas.

We made it up to the tippy top of the castle, wind blowing strong. there are slots running the battlements, where you would drop stones or shoot arrows down upon invaders at the bottom. Even with steel bars running across, you feel as if you’d fall through. I managed to crawl up and stand on the battlement to take a photo. It was only knee high, but extremely hard to do, without anything to help you balance, and a very long view of the ground below. I tell myself I was mostly scared to drop my ipad, even with the best case, it wouldn’t make it.

Watching others get out and kiss the stone, we realized that our backs really wouldn’t bend that well. Especially after all the walking we’ve been doing.

Plus, who wants to put their lips on something that thousands have already put theirs on. Eww.

The park is large, with plenty of flowers and trees. What caught my attention was the Poison Garden. There are lots of poisonous plants like hemlock, wisteria, and poison ivy, but many I didn’y know that were poisonous, like rhubarb and rosemary… wait, we just ate both of those things this week. Ah, good bye sweet world.

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