Staying in a Castle in Kenmare

The county of Kerry and the village of Kenmare were completely different from the Bantry and Ballylickey area where I had spent my first few days. With Ireland’s largest mountain dominating the horizon, the scenery of the area was stunning and the towns were even more quaint and picturesque.

My hotel in Kenmare, the Park Kenmare Hotel, was also stunning.

Built in 1897, the place looked a bit like a castle which is one of the reasons I wanted to stay there. Plus, each of the 46 rooms in the hotel is unique. They all have a spacious sitting area furnished with antiques and have either a full water view or private veranda. I had a view of the lake. Yay!

The hotel was charming and luxurious, but had all the fun of being authentically old such as nooks and crannies in the hallway.

Some of the rooms were tucked down little side hallways or you had to climb a three or four stairs to get there. It was definitely not wheelchair accessible and if you had heavy luggage, good luck rolling it to your room. But it was these inconsistencies that made it quaint.

Everywhere you looked there were pieces of art or old knick knacks like sets of china, old books and quills and paintings. There was even a suit of armor.

 I also loved the old style key they gave you for your room on the giant leather keychain. It took me a little while to figure out how it worked, but I loved it.

In addition to looking like a castle, I had specifically chosen this hotel because they boasted having numerous bike routes in the area, a scenic walking path and walking distance to the shopping and pub areas of Kenmare.

They also had a world class spa, but after my car accident on Monday, I was curving my spending to help cover that expense. There would be no shopping for me. Thankfully, my daily bike rentals were cheap and ranged between €10 and €20 a day depending on where I was.

But even without the spa treatment, I was in heaven.  My tub was gigantic and they even had a heated towel rack.  I had never seen one before and quickly learned they are hotter than they look.

Word of warning -- don't grab the rail. It hurts.

Kenmare is exactly like you imagine an Irish town to be. It's made up of narrow streets lined with stores and pubs. But there were no American chain shops here. No Starbucks, no McDonald’s and no big grocery stores.

It was all small shops. You got your bread from the bakery, your meat from the butcher and your cheese from the cheese shop. Everything was fresh and when they ran out, it was gone.

LARGEST SELECTION OF WHISKEY

There was one other reason why I picked this hotel and that was because of the Whiskey Bar. The bar is small but they apparently have the largest selection of whiskey available in all of Ireland. They have 155 different types.

While I’m not a big whiskey drinker, the thought of so many to choose from was intriguing. Would they have one for me?

The answer was “yes”. The Bushmill’s Black Bush whiskey turned out to be the perfect bedtime drink.