The Island
KNIGHTSTOWN is the focal village on the island and, facing Cahersiveen across the Portmagee Channel, affords fine panoramic views of the Kerry Mountains. A pretty harbour front with sprucely painted fishers' cottages is dominated by the Victorian Royal and Pier Hotel ; now rather dilapidated and something of a white elephant, it's currently being run as an independent hostel. Tolerating rather than encouraging tourists, Knightstown is deeply old-fashioned, and if there are more than three in your group, you could feel something of an intruder. About a thousand houses cluster around a slate church hidden within a dark rookery. The main street has a few well-stocked shops, a post office offering a good selection of Irish literature and free maps of the island, and a couple of bars - one of which, The Boston Bar , serves bar food . From Knightstown, take the Kilmore Road down towards the lighthouse, where there's a fine view of Valentia's empty harbour, the Beginish Islands and tiny Church Island . This mere rock supports the ruins of an eighth-century cell, once inhabited by a solitary monk, a soulmate of the brotherhood on the nearby Skellig Islands, whose only company was the seabirds. On a clear day you can also make out the sheer cliffs of the Blasket Islands west of the Dingle Peninsula. Continuing west, the foreshore is an imposing clutter of megalithic slabs hurled together by the waves, with deep, limpid pools left by the winter storms. A couple of miles further on, a cove, great for swimming, combines intimacy with the grandiose, sheltered by lush, deciduous woods, with the whole of Kerry as its scenic backdrop. This adjoins the incongruously exotic gardens of Glanleam House (May-Oct daily 11am-5pm; GBP2.50/3.17), former seat of the local magnate, the Knight of Kerry. The fervour with which locals urge you to visit the Grotto , at the north end of the island, is misplaced. A gaping slate cavern, it boasts a crude, municipal bath-blue statue of the Virgin (erected 1954) perched 200ft up, amidst monotonously dripping icy water. Nevertheless, this is the highest point on the island and a good walk for a clear day. But more exciting by far is the cliff scenery to the northwest, some of the most spectacular of the Kerry coast.
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