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Ireland, part 2

Caves are kind of another one of those Irish attractions that is somewhat a must.  We choose Aillwee cave - partially because its location worked with our planned path, partially because it sounded pretty cool.  Guided tour is a the only way to see it and it was our family and another couple – so semi-private.  The tour guide was super kid friendly and answered about 100 questions that Andrei had.  The cave itself is about buzzilion years old going back to Ice Age, it was discovered in 1940s, but nothing done with it until 1970s.  The stalactites and stalagmites are over 100 years old that we were able to see and even touch and an underground river and the waterfall at the end of the of the path were absolutely worth the experience.  



Corcomboe Abbey sounded really cool when I read about it - it was 13th century monastery that was built out of local limestone and located in the beautiful scenic mountains.  The beautiful scenery also makes it a bit hard to get to and it's also a bit out of the way so honestly speaking - it's ok to pass on seeing this particular attraction.
The road to the Abbey
 



Another off the beaten path attraction is Hook Head Lighthouse. The tower actually goes back to 12th century and was initially controlled by monks.  The walls are over 4 meters (13 feet) thick, it's about 4 stories high and it's pretty dark inside so it was hard to take the pictures.  On top of the lighthouse it's really cold and windy so we had to really bundle up even though it was October.  At the end of the tour all the kids got to ring the horn which was awesome but also oh so loud!  There were a lot of kids too :)

 



 

Irish story, part 1


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