We stayed in the town of Dingle on a sheep farm. We went out our first night there and the town was pretty dead since it is the off-season for tourists. So we just ate at the farmhouse and chatted with the friendly owners. The lady of the house, Jan, was from Missouri, but the man, Seamus, is Irish. The next morning Seamus took us out to help feed the sheep, then on a hike in the pasture hills overlooking the valley. We got to see his Border Collie, Kipper, in action as he rounded up sheep from way down a hill. That was the highlight of the day for me.
We stopped for a look at the nearby Gallarus Oratory, an early church. After that, we headed out and drove the Slea Head loop at the end of the peninsula, which is Europe’s westernmost point. Lots of big waves and nice beaches, although it was pretty cold. We saw two dead baby seals that had washed ashore. Sad… But on the plus side I found a sheep skull.
Also stopped to look at some old stone “beehive” huts dated to around 2000 BC that were guarded by some sheep.
Great views along the coast. Then we drove over some mountains via Copper Pass and made our way to spend the night in Adare. The pub we went to happened to have a wedding after party, so it was pretty lively. I took Stevi down in darts. Twice. Pretty bad.
The following day we went to the most visited sight in Ireland—the Cliffs of Moher. These were really stunning and were my favorite sight of all that we saw. We got a nice sunny day for this, and the wind was strong so there was an updraft along the walls--it would bring water from the crashing waves up and over the edge where we were so that it was raining upside down. That alone was pretty fun to watch. One wave below the cliffs has been recorded as Ireland’s largest and apparently has been surfed already by big wave hunters.
We then drove on along the coast and stopped to explore the coastline in Doolin, a small area known for its music. This coastline had some smaller cliffs and very rocky terrain—my favorite area to explore thus far. I spotted a bottlenose dolphin just off of shore. The crashing waves were huge and would spray up over the cliff edges, so I got soaked real good one time.
Then we continued driving the shore to Galway, one of Ireland’s larger cities. We grabbed some dinner and went to a highly rated pub for some live music and brews, walked some of the coastline the next morning and took off across the country for Dublin. We stopped on our way at the 5th century Clonmacnois Monastery which was interesting.
After arriving in Dublin, we first went on a tour of Kilmainham Gaol, a now closed prison. The tour actually provided a good history lesson on Ireland and its famous prisoners. The main doors were the site of many past public hangings. Quite a few movies have been filmed here.
We went for dinner at the highly rated O’Neills pub, which was a good time. Today we visited the oldest pub in Ireland, which is dated to around 1100. One last fish n’ chips meal (my favorite) and a Guiness and we’re heading out early tomorrow for Italy.
No comments:
Post a Comment