Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Emerald Isle

Ahhhh, Ireland. So beautiful. Green and lush, and the people are SO welcoming and friendly. One person said that you never really get lost in Ireland (at least for long) because you just stop and ask someone. I guess whoever said that didn't mean in the bar district at 2am haha! No but really, people have been very helpful. 

We did a ton of walking around in Dublin when we were there. We saw the Famine Memorial, the Ha'penny Bridge, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and more. The pedestrian walkways are excellent. All cobblestones and shops and pubs. Many, many pubs. B&B's are my favourite type of accommodation (although I think S prefers hotels) because I like meeting the people and I like the home cookin'!  Dragging your bags up and down stairs is a bit of a chore, though. 

Our first driving destination was to visit Newgrange in the Boyne Valley. It's a huge stone-age tomb that is older than the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt! Pretty cool. Then we were off to Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. It's quite a sight! Hexagonal columns all around the bay. Not sure the science behind it, but the interpretive centre has a whole giant-fable to go with your exploration of the area. I posted photos of both Newgrange and Giant's Causeway on FB if you want a look.

The next day we drove from Bundoran (a cute little coastal town) to Galway (a cute large coastal town).  Our B&B was right on the water: Galway Bay/Atlantic Ocean! Just a short swim and we'd hit the Maritimes. ;)  Another great pedestrian area in Galway with wonderful buskers, shops, pubs, and ice cream parlours. S and I enjoyed people-watching and drinking from the outdoor patio and walking around the city square. Nice!

The landscape reminds me quite a bit of when I visited Scotland in 2008 with C. Rocky areas, fields, hills and small mountains are all over the place. We've been lucky to have fairly cooperative weather. The mildness has been a welcome change from the hot & sticky, and the occasional rain shower is, dare I say, pleasant!

After leaving Galway, the next stop would be at The Cliffs of Moher. Ireland certainly has impressive natural formations! I was dismayed to see that people could walk right along the edge of the cliffs with no railing or anything to keep them from plummeting.  We didn't try it. From where we were, the view was fantastic and we had the pleasure of listening to a harpist.  Excellent. 

After a quick stop in Shannon, we headed to Limerick for the night. It was a pleasant enough city, although for us it was pretty much a stopover. S walked around a little and saw the local cathedral and castle, and I opted for a massage at the spa! It was pretty decadent. In fact, the best food I'd had in Ireland so far was at the restaurant adjoining our hotel. SO GOOD. Of course that may be partially due to the fact that we have been eating a lot of the same food, over and over.  We are both looking forward to peanut butter when we get home!

From Limerick, we headed to Killarney.  What's the difference between a "twinned city" and a "sister city"? Whatever it is, Killarney has plenty of both.  It also has a National Park, and it is the starting point for the Ring of Kerry, which is an all-day drive around a southwest peninsula (kind of like the Road to Hana in Maui).  We didn't have time to do it all, but we did see Killarney, Ladies' View, Ross Castle, Torc Waterfall and the town of Kenmare. Next time we'll plan our time better and do more!

Our last night in Ireland would be spent in Cork.  We drove around and saw much of the city while locating our B&B, and we walked down the street to have dinner at the aptly named Serendipity Cafe. Electric guitar serenaded us while we had yet another fantastic meal; we listened to Clapton, Metallica, Cash, and others. It was pretty cool, gotta say. 

Before leaving the Cork area the next day, we had to go to Blarney Castle and kiss the stone. I was convinced it was an overpriced gimmick but when we got there, there was actually quite a lot to do there, which made it more worth it. We walked through the beautiful gardens, and even one called "poison garden" which had all poisonous plants, including the marijuana plant, which had a cage all around it as to discourage samplers. There was a waterfall, and lovely trails all over. Oh yeah, and the castle too. And the stone. 

Last bit of Ireland was spent driving back to Dublin for a short flight to London, and then we'd have two separate flights back to Vancouver (I had a direct flight and S was via Amsterdam).  

Random bits about driving in Ireland:
- we rented a Toyota Auris at first. It was a standard transmission and it actually indicated when you were supposed to shift up or down. I thought that was cute!
- driving with a stick shift was fine and all, but I soon realized that my fine manual dexterity isn't as good with my left hand.
- the rural roads in Ireland are crazy. They are super narrow, there's usually no shoulder whatsoever, and the speed limits are unbelievably high. For example, the posted limit of 100km/hr was two feet in front of another sign that said, "Be careful of walkers on the road."  There are regularly trucks and semis coming the other way, and let's just say it gets hairy. 
- the roundabouts here are excellent, but I'm not a fan of the double-lane. Makes it confusing for where you think someone beside you is exiting and I don't like guessing about where other cars are going. So, I pretty much stayed in the outside lane in the roundabouts.
- no passing while in the slow lane. I knew this and was respecting it, but somehow without my even realizing it, I messed up. Right in front of a cop. Just my luck, eh? He made sure I was clear about that particular rule. 
- we changed over to a Skoda Octavia with automatic transmission after three days, so that S could drive too. I needed a break.
- they have "traffic calming areas" here. At home this would mean speed bumps, but here it means no passing and narrower lanes (as if they aren't narrow enough!)

Random bits about travel/this trip:
- a suitcase with four wheels on the bottom is awesome!!
- I think I need to be a little less efficient with my packing. I had tons of space in my suitcase, and about a week before the end, I got thoroughly sick of wearing all the same clothes. 
- if we could do it over, I'd plan the Ireland portion of this trip differently. Definitely less driving and more time spent enjoying locations. As it was, we were pretty go-go-go, which was like our tour (except we didn't have someone else doing all the "work" for us!).
- maybe I'm getting old, but a month is a long time to be away from home.  I think I'll prefer to do shorter trips in the future. Maybe. 

Our big adventure has come to an end!  Thanks for reading along and travelling with us!
xo
E!

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