Portmagee<\/em><\/h2>\nAs you make your way towards Portmagee, you’ll be veering off the Ring of Kerry onto a small country road called the Skellig Ring. An extension of the Ring of Kerry, this quiet coastal route with the ever-present Atlantic Ocean to the left, takes you through small villages and mountains of the Iveragh Peninsula.<\/p>\n
Along the way make a pitstop in the village of Ballinskelligs and walk in the footsteps of the Skellig Monks along the foreshore to the 12th century abbey. The abbey became the land base for the monks who came from Skellig Michael island. From the Abbey a short walk away is McCarthy M\u00f3r Tower, thought to be a 16th century tower house on a small isthmus that once belonged to the McCarthy’s, chieftains in Cork and Kerry at that time.<\/p>\n
As you continue on lookout for the 1000ft high Kerry Cliffs with uninterrupted views of Puffin Island, an uninhabited island home to numerous seabirds and puffins; Skellig Islands, two uninhabited islands of which the bigger one known as Skellig Michael, is the site of a 6th century Christian monastery; and the wild Atlantic waves crashing against the cliff-face.<\/p>\n
Arriving in Portmagee, the first stop for any chocolate enthusiast must be at the Skellig Chocolate Factory, Ireland’s only open-plan chocolate factory. Handmade onsite in an open-plan design, visitors are able to interact directly with the chocolatiers whilst tasting samples.<\/p>\n
From here, take a boat trip to Skellig Michael and climb the 618 medieval steps to the top. Rising to fame as the island sanctuary to Luke Skywalker in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Skellig Michael has a long history. A twin-pinnacle crag, it came into existence some 360+ million years ago. Originally part of a mountain range and connected to a continental landmass, it became separated with rising water levels. Around the 6th century an Augustinian monastery was built for monks who appreciated the island’s isolation and available rock for construction. Continuously occupied until the 12th century, it is estimated that only 12 monks and an abbot lived on the island at any one time. The island was eventually abandoned as a result of several factors such as colder and stormier climate, ongoing Viking raids and changing structure of the Irish Church. Skellig Michael entered the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996.<\/p>\n
Valentia Island is linked to Portmagee by a bridge. Valentia is better known for its first successful and commercially viable transatlantic telegraph cable. Connecting to Newfoundland, Canada the trans-Atlantic undersea cable opened up a faster and more reliable form of communication between Europe and North America. Prior to the telegraph cable, communication was undertaken via ship. Depending on weather, particularly during severe winter storms, communication by ship would take several weeks to reach their destination. With the telegraph cable installed, messages were received and responded to on the same day. The transatlantic cables in Valentia remained in operation for one hundred years when the owners, Western Union, terminated cable operations in 1966.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S\u00f6ndagen b\u00f6rjade med att ta det lugnt och ”titta p\u00e5” Vasaloppet p\u00e5 TV. Somnade ett par g\u00e5nger i soffan, f\u00f6r att jag var tr\u00f6tt!!! Frukosten intogs efter en stund och man funderade p\u00e5 om man skulle bege sig ut, eller inte. Var inte s\u00e4ker p\u00e5 hur det var med v\u00e4nster l\u00e5rs baksida, eller h\u00f6ger fots […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,153,122,116,159,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conquer-2021","category-conqueror-virtual-challenges","category-motion","category-promenader","category-ring-of-kerry","category-runkeeper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4317,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4314\/revisions\/4317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familjen.larsen.vc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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