E,E, and Little E Stringfellow: Ireland Day 5-7

In case you have not noticed, the posts are long with lots of pictures. My apologies.

Day 5 - We visited the Beleek pottery plant to see how they make the pottery that Ireland is known for. It was pretty cool to see how it was all made by hand. Not mass produced. Pottery is not really my thing, but the craftsmanship behind it all was very cool to see.

Ladies and gentlemen sitting at tables sculpting away

This lady was making the hand woven pottery pieces...cutting each individual weave by hand

The flowers shown above were made by hand by this guy. How we didn't annoy these people watching over them and taking pictures is beyond me.

The process of firing the pottery - gets smaller and shinier with each fire

Hand painting the pottery

Later that night we went to a banquet at a REAL castle. I emailed this picture to Elaina and told her that Cinderella wouldn't be caught dead in this castle, lol. It's not near as spacious and new. In fact, I was surprised at how small each room was. Just not what you would expect - but still cool.

Live entertainment

The castle at night

Day 6 - we headed around the Conamara Peninsula to the Kylemore Abbey. One the way we stopped for a scenic view and saw this fairy tree...or as Nell called it, an underwear tree. She makes me laugh. Apparently you can make a wish as you hang a piece of ribbon or material to it. I did not, as I didn't come prepared.

If I would have known you could have hung trash and make a wish, I would have been set. Really??

Next stop was Kylemore Abbey. This, to me, was probably the prettiest architectural building I saw when I was over there. So, pretty....and nestled in the perfect location surrounded by water and mountains. Breath taking.

It was a castle built by a family (Henry family). It was later bought by nuns and turned into an Abbey and school. The school was active until the 90s. Now it is just an Abbey. The nuns there make the most delicious food, pastries, preserves, everything that you can buy. We ate lunch there and it was delish!

The grounds around this Abbey were amazing!

There is a church on the grounds as well that the original owner built as a memorial to his late wife and where she is buried. It, too, is pretty.

I took this picture because it is Conamara marble that is mined in this region of Ireland. It was all over this church. We went to a place where they prepare it and I bought some pretty jewelry pieces in this marble. It's comes in all these colors

Day 7 - we headed towards the Cliffs of Moher this morning on our way to Killarney

This was a stop at a scenic view

This is what we named as the "selfie gone awry" What is going on with my hair, lol?

And here we are at the Cliffs of Moher. Just like all these pictures, these pictures don't do it justice. It was so pretty here.

My sister :)

We stopped for lunch in Adare and ate at this great pub - the Pat Collins Bar. I love the outside of this pub. Sadly, I took no pictures of the inside. Dad had delicious authentic Bacon and Cabbage. He said it was his favorite meal he had there.

They had some great thatch roofed houses.

We stumbled into this wedding....we took pictures of some of the hats. Literally every lady had a neat one on. It's so cool! Very British/European. We need to wear more hats to weddings in America.

When we got to Killarney - my favorite city by far....we stopped at this beautiful overlook for a photo op.

Nell wanted pictures of her doing cartwheels....so that is what we did. Her cartwheels weren't the prettiest but the background sure is.

Later that night we visited the Muckross Farm where they showed us around the farm and fed us the most unbelievable food. We also got entertained with some traditional Irish songs

Beautiful! Like I said, Killarney was my favorite. Nell said it is because we are mountain and lake people (being from Tennessee) so that made sense. Killarney is very mountainous and lots of lakes