The Ring of Beara, and a bit of the Ring of Kerry
More travelogue:
So, when we last left our Intrepid Adventurers, they had made friends with an expatriate American couple, and driven one of the world's most gorgeous seacoasts (assuming that, like the spousal unit and myself, you prefer rocky coasts with crashing waves to smooth sand). Can it get better?
Yes, it can. On Wednesday, we set out relatively early (after the usual delicious breakfast at our hotel) to drive the "Ring of Beara". This is the drive around the Beara Peninsula, which is just east of the much more famous Ring of Kerry peninsula. We were told that it was just as gorgeous, but without the tour buses. It is quite apparent why there's a lack of tour buses; most of the roads are quite narrow and twisty. Despite this, they still have speed limits approaching insanity, but by then our new friends Graham and Sheila had explained that they always just looked for an opportunity to pull over any time anyone came up behind them, and let the other car(s) pass, so we did that too.
It was a beautiful, sunny day--still very cold, probably low 40s for the high, and pretty windy, but sun always makes everything better! We drove down one side of the peninsula, stopping about every 15 minutes for photo opportunities as one stunning mountains-and-ocean vista after another presented itself. At some point, we saw a signpost indicating the "Grave of the Children of Lir". Well, you just can't let a sign like that go unexplored, now can you? So--somewhat to our surprise, since a couple of other intriguing signposts had turned out to be wild goose chases--we did find this site. While it's not that impressive to look at--a large flat stone with a marker that tells the legend--what is impressive is that the stone is covered with coins. People still come there and leave offerings. There are actually three stones, and presumably used to be four as there were four children, but one may have been removed at some point. It was a cool little side trip.
We also found a standing stone circle--nowhere near the size of some, but still cool. Upon later examining a map the spousal unit downloaded of the Beara Peninsula, we discovered that there's some kind of ancient site about every half-mile or so. Definitely want to spend a lot more time there at some point in the future, preferably when the weather is just a tad warmer.
We had a goal of going over to a small island that's at the tip of the peninsula and is reached by gondola. Unfortunately when we got there the gondola was shut down for daily maintenance. They did, however, let us use the toilet which was very necessary. We also took pictures of the signposts, which told the distances to NYC and Moscow as well as "Tir na nOg, 20 km" with a picture of a person swimming.
The drive back, on the opposite side of the peninsula, featured fewer stops because, well, when you start out making many photo stops, you find you have less time to drive back up the other side and still make it back to town by dark. We passed a couple of historic sites we would have loved to explore further, but by then it was getting late-ish, and we had no desire to drive after dark on those roads. So we went back to the hotel, called Graham and Sheila as they had invited us to do, and met them and another American expatriate for dinner in the hotel bar, named McCarthy's. (I am not sure how many McCarthy's Bars there are in Ireland, but every town seems to have one.) We have learned very encouraging things about cost of living and health insurance/health care for this area.
On Thursday, we rather regretfully left Glengarriff and headed north and west toward our last destination: the village of Doolin, in Co. Clare. Doolin is known as a hotbed of Irish traditional music, which is why it made the cut. It was a day of driving, but the first bit of that drive was the top of the Ring of Kerry, which is utterly spectacular. We saw the "far-famed Kerry Mountains", and hiked a short distance to the Torc Waterfall, and stopped at two stunning views of lakes and mountains. Just when you think it can't get any prettier, it does. We also visited Castle Ross, in the town of Killarney. Unfortunately, the castle itself is tour-only and the next tour didn't leave for half an hour; we didn't think we had that much time to spare, so we took pictures of the outside, bought the guide, and went on our way (after using the toilets. Never pass up an opportunity to pee while traveling, I always say.)
We stopped for lunch at a wide spot in the road that had a hotel with a restaurant, rather than try to park in an Irish town. The restaurant had mushroom soup to die for, which was served with the ubiquitous and excellent Irish brown bread, and Erich got some kind of sandwich which was also tasty. The food in Ireland is very, very good, which I hadn't really expected--I'd figured it would be quite acceptable as we don't require anything sophisticated, but it bordered on actual cuisine nearly everywhere.
We got to Doolin (which is on the west coast) and attempted to locate our bed and breakfast. After realizing we really had no idea where, in the small-but-spread-out village, it might be, we parked and went into Tourist Information. I said, "I know you are probably going to tell us it's right across the street, but we were hoping you could tell us where our bed and breakfast is." The nice lady said that, well, it wasn't exactly right across the street, but it was just cati-corner from the building next door. We went there, discovered nobody home, and went back to Tourist Information. The very nice lady called the proprietress' cell phone, and learned she'd gone to a larger town to do some shopping and was planning to be back in about an hour. We can live with that, we said, and promptly signed up to take the ferry to the Aran Islands (specifically, Inis Oirr) and the Cliffs of Moher cruise the next day. And the nice lady found out for us that, though the next day was Good Friday (read: one of two days of the year when alcohol can't be sold in Ireland, except in places where it can be--more on that later), the pub at the corner, Fitzpatrick's, being also a hotel, would be open and have live music, though she didn't know if we could drink there or not. We went to Fitzpatrick's to while away the time until we could get into our lodging. Fitzpatrick's has a couple of craft beers special to it, so the drink choices were a bit beyond the standard Guinness, Smithwick's, and lagers. We ate dinner there too--had an absolutely melt-in-your-mouth salmon, with potato (everything in Ireland comes with potato, usually mashed) and asparagus, for about 12.95 euros. This equates to roughly $17-18 in American money, which is on the reasonable end of what I'd pay for that kind of meal in St. Louis.
Later we walked down to McDermott's and listened to music for awhile, then went across the street to McGann's. McGann's was too crowded, so we went back to Fitzpatrick's, only to discover that on weeknights out of season, they're the early-music pub, as in, the music starts at about 7:00 and only goes till about 10:00. Decided we didn't want to walk back the couple of blocks in the wind to one of the other pubs, and really had no idea where O'Connell's was, so we drank a couple of the excellent craft beers and toddled off to our B&B and bed.
Next installment: Erich and Elasait's Excellent Seagoing Adventure
So, when we last left our Intrepid Adventurers, they had made friends with an expatriate American couple, and driven one of the world's most gorgeous seacoasts (assuming that, like the spousal unit and myself, you prefer rocky coasts with crashing waves to smooth sand). Can it get better?
Yes, it can. On Wednesday, we set out relatively early (after the usual delicious breakfast at our hotel) to drive the "Ring of Beara". This is the drive around the Beara Peninsula, which is just east of the much more famous Ring of Kerry peninsula. We were told that it was just as gorgeous, but without the tour buses. It is quite apparent why there's a lack of tour buses; most of the roads are quite narrow and twisty. Despite this, they still have speed limits approaching insanity, but by then our new friends Graham and Sheila had explained that they always just looked for an opportunity to pull over any time anyone came up behind them, and let the other car(s) pass, so we did that too.
It was a beautiful, sunny day--still very cold, probably low 40s for the high, and pretty windy, but sun always makes everything better! We drove down one side of the peninsula, stopping about every 15 minutes for photo opportunities as one stunning mountains-and-ocean vista after another presented itself. At some point, we saw a signpost indicating the "Grave of the Children of Lir". Well, you just can't let a sign like that go unexplored, now can you? So--somewhat to our surprise, since a couple of other intriguing signposts had turned out to be wild goose chases--we did find this site. While it's not that impressive to look at--a large flat stone with a marker that tells the legend--what is impressive is that the stone is covered with coins. People still come there and leave offerings. There are actually three stones, and presumably used to be four as there were four children, but one may have been removed at some point. It was a cool little side trip.
We also found a standing stone circle--nowhere near the size of some, but still cool. Upon later examining a map the spousal unit downloaded of the Beara Peninsula, we discovered that there's some kind of ancient site about every half-mile or so. Definitely want to spend a lot more time there at some point in the future, preferably when the weather is just a tad warmer.
We had a goal of going over to a small island that's at the tip of the peninsula and is reached by gondola. Unfortunately when we got there the gondola was shut down for daily maintenance. They did, however, let us use the toilet which was very necessary. We also took pictures of the signposts, which told the distances to NYC and Moscow as well as "Tir na nOg, 20 km" with a picture of a person swimming.
The drive back, on the opposite side of the peninsula, featured fewer stops because, well, when you start out making many photo stops, you find you have less time to drive back up the other side and still make it back to town by dark. We passed a couple of historic sites we would have loved to explore further, but by then it was getting late-ish, and we had no desire to drive after dark on those roads. So we went back to the hotel, called Graham and Sheila as they had invited us to do, and met them and another American expatriate for dinner in the hotel bar, named McCarthy's. (I am not sure how many McCarthy's Bars there are in Ireland, but every town seems to have one.) We have learned very encouraging things about cost of living and health insurance/health care for this area.
On Thursday, we rather regretfully left Glengarriff and headed north and west toward our last destination: the village of Doolin, in Co. Clare. Doolin is known as a hotbed of Irish traditional music, which is why it made the cut. It was a day of driving, but the first bit of that drive was the top of the Ring of Kerry, which is utterly spectacular. We saw the "far-famed Kerry Mountains", and hiked a short distance to the Torc Waterfall, and stopped at two stunning views of lakes and mountains. Just when you think it can't get any prettier, it does. We also visited Castle Ross, in the town of Killarney. Unfortunately, the castle itself is tour-only and the next tour didn't leave for half an hour; we didn't think we had that much time to spare, so we took pictures of the outside, bought the guide, and went on our way (after using the toilets. Never pass up an opportunity to pee while traveling, I always say.)
We stopped for lunch at a wide spot in the road that had a hotel with a restaurant, rather than try to park in an Irish town. The restaurant had mushroom soup to die for, which was served with the ubiquitous and excellent Irish brown bread, and Erich got some kind of sandwich which was also tasty. The food in Ireland is very, very good, which I hadn't really expected--I'd figured it would be quite acceptable as we don't require anything sophisticated, but it bordered on actual cuisine nearly everywhere.
We got to Doolin (which is on the west coast) and attempted to locate our bed and breakfast. After realizing we really had no idea where, in the small-but-spread-out village, it might be, we parked and went into Tourist Information. I said, "I know you are probably going to tell us it's right across the street, but we were hoping you could tell us where our bed and breakfast is." The nice lady said that, well, it wasn't exactly right across the street, but it was just cati-corner from the building next door. We went there, discovered nobody home, and went back to Tourist Information. The very nice lady called the proprietress' cell phone, and learned she'd gone to a larger town to do some shopping and was planning to be back in about an hour. We can live with that, we said, and promptly signed up to take the ferry to the Aran Islands (specifically, Inis Oirr) and the Cliffs of Moher cruise the next day. And the nice lady found out for us that, though the next day was Good Friday (read: one of two days of the year when alcohol can't be sold in Ireland, except in places where it can be--more on that later), the pub at the corner, Fitzpatrick's, being also a hotel, would be open and have live music, though she didn't know if we could drink there or not. We went to Fitzpatrick's to while away the time until we could get into our lodging. Fitzpatrick's has a couple of craft beers special to it, so the drink choices were a bit beyond the standard Guinness, Smithwick's, and lagers. We ate dinner there too--had an absolutely melt-in-your-mouth salmon, with potato (everything in Ireland comes with potato, usually mashed) and asparagus, for about 12.95 euros. This equates to roughly $17-18 in American money, which is on the reasonable end of what I'd pay for that kind of meal in St. Louis.
Later we walked down to McDermott's and listened to music for awhile, then went across the street to McGann's. McGann's was too crowded, so we went back to Fitzpatrick's, only to discover that on weeknights out of season, they're the early-music pub, as in, the music starts at about 7:00 and only goes till about 10:00. Decided we didn't want to walk back the couple of blocks in the wind to one of the other pubs, and really had no idea where O'Connell's was, so we drank a couple of the excellent craft beers and toddled off to our B&B and bed.
Next installment: Erich and Elasait's Excellent Seagoing Adventure