Sneem

Sneem sits on the N70 roughly midway between Kenmare and the wilder western reaches of the peninsula, at the point where its little river gathers itself and slides down towards Kenmare Bay. The village grew up around a river crossing, and its unusual shape - two separate greens, North Square and South Square, facing each other across the water - is what gives Sneem its charm and, some say, its name. An tSnaidhm means "the knot": whether for the swirl of water below the bridge, the way the two squares are tied together, or Sneem's place as a knot in the great loop of the Ring of Kerry, nobody entirely agrees.

For such a small place it has drawn some large names. In May 1969, having just resigned the French presidency, Charles de Gaulle came to this corner of Kerry in search of quiet, and a modest monument in the North Square remembers the visit. The village also produced Steve "Crusher" Casey, world heavyweight wrestling champion in the years around the Second World War, one of a celebrated family of Sneem oarsmen and strongmen.

Much of the pleasure here is simply in the wandering. The cottages are painted in confident blues, reds and yellows - Sneem is a serial Tidy Towns winner, and it shows - and the squares are dotted with sculpture. Tucked near the river you'll find "The Way the Fairies Went," a cluster of small stone pyramids studded with stained glass, made by the Kerry artist James Scanlon to mark the village's 1987 national Tidy Towns victory. Down by the bridge the river runs over dark rock pools, a good place to watch the water and let the tour buses move on without you.

Two or three pubs and a few cafés line the greens, making Sneem an ideal lunch or coffee stop rather than a long halt; most visitors give it half an hour to an hour. It's an easy roadside pause with parking around the squares, and a natural staging post between the ancient ring fort at Staigue to the west and the mountain road east towards Kenmare.