The next day we visited Killarney National Park (Irish: Páirc Náisiúnta Chill Airne), only a few miles from our cottage. We had perfect weather and were able to take some beautiful shots of Muckross house. This is a magnificent Victorian mansion completed in 1843 for Henry Arthur Herbert. It is the last in a series of large houses constructed by the Herbert family on their lands at Muckross. The location of the House is spectacular, close to the eastern shore of Muckross Lake and set beneath the impressive backdrop of Torc and Mangerton Mountains.



We also did a hike in the national part itself. Back at our cottage we treated ourselves to a hot chocolate near the fire place.

Ireland

I visited Ireland in October 2006. We had booked a fly and drive. We flew from Schiphol to Cork and picked up our car at the airport. Our package included an Irish cottage near Killarney Lake. (visit this website to get an idea of the beautiful scenery: http://homepage.eircom.net/~knp/ )Driving in our hired car, we were immediately impressed by the landscape; green meadows, green hills and blue skies (yes, no rain!).

We were welcomed in a friendly way by our Irish host. We did our best to understand him.

Welcome

Welcome to my English Plus blog for my HRO assignment.

This blog is a travel journal about my trips to Ireland and England in 2006 and 2007.

I will start by telling about my trip to Ireland.

First some general info about Ireland (source: Wikipedia.co.uk)

Ireland (Irish: Éire; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe,[1] and the twentieth-largest island in the world.[2] It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland (NI), part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.
The population of the island is slightly over six million (2007), with 4.34 million in the Republic[3] (1.7 million in Greater Dublin[4]) and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland[5] (0.6 million in Greater Belfast[6]). This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Irish potato famine.
The name Ireland derives from the name Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland derive from the same source, such as French Irlande, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Irlanda, German Irland and the Dutch Ierland.