Harry in Derry

We've exchanged € for £, kilometers for miles, and crossed the border into Northern Ireland. The picture above was the only real indication that we were leaving the Republic of Ireland's County Donegal and entering Northern Ireland's County Derry. Here in Derry, restaurants offer the "Ulster fry" rather than the "full Irish breakfast" we've gotten used to seeing the past few weeks. Tomorrow we'll do lots of historical stuff, but today we took it easy.

We stopped for our Sunday round of golf at a Pitch and Putt en route, and I can't say that I'm improving any, but it's still fun. Then, when we got here, we headed out to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which was also fun. (But listening to Jim Dale read it while we drove was even better). Derry is definitely one of those places where there doesn't seem to be another tourist in sight. The movie theater and the bar where we ate a quick dinner certainly testified to that - locals all around.

The Bog

Today we drove through counties Connemara and Mayo. Lots of peat bogs like the one above, some with turf neatly cut and sitting in stacks. A beautiful drive, even with all the rain, which stopped briefly at times but usually just slowed down to a drizzle.

We stopped for a while at Connemara National Park, and did a little hike, where I found this happy hiker:

We have been, believe me, especially in this weather!

View looking out toward the coast from our vantage point in the park.

Tomorrow we're off to Northern Ireland, which my friend Rick says is the second-safest tourist destination for Americans. (Japan = #1). More from Derry. Oh! And also, I've embraced my nerdiness fully and made a quiz for a future post! Study up on Irish history, folks! Prize will be given!

(Huff, Puff)

Last year, when I moved into Parker house, I lovingly brought my bike to its new home in the garage, hung it on the wall in there...and haven't ridden it since. I felt this lack of activity keenly today, my friends.

We're on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands, just off the northwest coast of Ireland. There's an amazing and very old ring fort about 5 miles inland from our hotel here in the main village on the island, and our options for getting there were:

Pony cart: €100
Minibus tour: €40
Rental bike: €8

Given my current traveling partner, there wasn't really a question about what we would do. And here's what it was like out there on the road, when the more expensive modes of transport passed us by as we huffed and puffed up the steep inland route.


But it was good exercise, after all the heavy Irish breakfasts and dinners we've had the pleasure of consuming, and we also got to see sights like these:

Traditional thatched roof home - apparently now that they treat the thatch with
fire-proof material, it's coming back into style

Beautiful wildflowers in all the meadows and pastures here - there's supposed to be a wild orchid that grows here, but I've yet to spot it.

The fort itself, Dun Aengus, is kind of mysterious. They don't know when it was built, but they know it's been there since at least 200 B.C. And it used to be a circle, but over the centuries it's crumbled off the cliff. Speaking of cliffs, here is our latest series of death-defying feats at the fort:



It always seems so very un-American to come to places like this and find no guard rails, not more than one or two warning signs, no disabled access, no outrageous entrance fees. (For unlimited access and to hang out as long as we liked, we each paid €3). So we camped out for a while, resting from the ride on the soft turf, companionably reading and people watching.


It was funny to watch people approach the edge of the cliff. A large group of German tourists all took a series of group pictures. A very nervous young Aussie dashed away from the edge and encouraged his two travel partners to leave the edge themselves as soon as possible. An Italian trio won the award for loudest group of the day, with the woman calling "Guiseppe! Guiseppe!" so loudly to her husband that we could here them from wherever they were. The few parents who did bring children up to the fort certainly didn't let them get anywhere within 10 meters of the cliff. After quite a while, we headed back down to the bikes and the coastal road home.

We biked back past endless stone walls, wildflowers waving in meadows, beautiful horses with their colts, small windswept beaches, a seal colony, and a tiny hut selling sweets and drinks with a baby donkey, its mum, and a goat tied up in front. I stopped in a little shop and bought a hooded Aran sweater for Lily from a lady who'd made it and was working on another when I walked in. We've just ended our day with an excellent dinner of local sea food and sticky toffee pudding. We think we earned it after that ride. :)

Cliffs of Insanity!

We set off from the Milestone house after breakfast (and a photo with the aforementioned milestone). We'd wrapped up little sandwiches with homemade bread and jam for the road, and we went through the scenic Connor's Pass on our way to the Cliffs of Moher.


The roads have been pretty easy to navigate, as long as one is patient - for big trucks, tour buses, other cars, and the occasional herd of cows w/cycling farmer and farm dog running back and forth:


A few hours later, we arrived at the Cliffs of Moher, aka the Cliffs of Insanity from a certain cult movie favorite. There's a very fancy visitors' center, which we didn't pay to go in, but rather headed straight for the cliffs. They've put up a safety wall along most of the viewing area, but we followed the crowds past that, to this sign:


And these (the green one indicates that the cliffs must be the Irish version of the Golden Gate Bridge):


Now, I don't have a fear of heights, neither does Lo. And there were many, many people walking blithely pass these signs. But we were both very, very careful, as walked - the sheer drop just a few inches away was very, very far down.


The cliffs are memorable, and I'm glad we saw them...and I also felt kind of relieved as we headed back to more solid ground. :) Our stop for the night was a little town named Doolin, but we had a few more things on the agenda first. Doolin is right near the extremely unique geographic area of The Burren - it's kind of like the arctic tundra and the regular Irish landscape all mixed together, with a couple of prehistoric monuments thrown in. (I'm trying to de-nerdify the blog a bit, you're welcome, folks)



After a quick dinner at a pub (Irish stew and fish and chips, two pints of Guinness), we headed out to the local Pitch and Putt for an early evening round. The Doolin course felt like the big leagues, to me, at least compared to the little Dingle one. It was hilly, with lots of hazards, including actual sand traps (!) and times when you couldn't see the green from the tee. (I know - any golfing types reading this are certainly snickering). I did mostly terrible, but the scenery more than made up for it. At one point, teeing off on a hill, we could look out and see the Cliffs of Moher to the south, the Aran Islands directly off the coast, and a field of placidly-chewing cows just a few yards away. Peaceful sigh.

Lo was tired after golf - she's been staying up late reading and then doing a lot of the driving during the day - so she headed to bed and I went back to the pub where we'd had dinner to hear some music. Unfortunately, it was rather overrun by a German tourist bus group, but a gentleman who I'd met earlier there made room for me at the bar and ordered me a half pint of Guinness, which was nice. We chatted, I listened to the music played by musicians I couldn't see, and Michael (who seems to be a fixture at the bar there) introduced me to the local folks he knew. There was one moment in particular that made me smile - I was drinking my Guinness, sitting with new acquaintances Michael and Paddy, listening to a rousing traditional Irish tune, and I looked up and saw a painting above the bar of John and Jackie Kennedy. So cliche, I know.

Final Dingle Day

Today was a very mellow day, partly because I wasn't feeling so well, kind of fluish. I feel better tonight - not ready to run a marathon or anything, but since I'm never ready for that, I guess it's not so bad.

I did rally in the late morning and we went for a drive to a little beach that we hadn't been able to find yesterday. On the way, we had a good view of Dingle's own Sleeping Giant:


We were able to enjoy the beach for at least 30 minutes until the rain came and we scurried back to our car along with everyone else. I did manage to walk in the surf a little bit...so so cold!


Finally, there was a plaque on the beach commemorating another Far and Away location. Funny, do you remember the movie being primarily about the contrast between Ireland's scenery vs. the USA? :)


After more resting, a delicious late lunch in town where we saw our B&B owners (good to know they really do believe in their recommendations!), we went back to the Pitch and Putt for round 2. While I only did one point better than last time, I did manage a hole-in-two. (Lo tells me there is no golf word for this, which is surprising, since there seems to be a golf word for nearly everything else.)

Tomorrow we head north, to a little town called Doolin, which will be our jumping off point for the Aran islands later this week. Cheers!

The Dingle Loop

The forecast yesterday was for rain - quite a lot of it. We geared up and headed out for the 35 km Dingle Loop, which would take us around the peninsula with lots of stops and interesting things to see along the way. Our first stop was Dunbeg, an ring fort built on the cliffs above the sea in the 8th and 9th centuries. It was pouring, but the sheep didn't seem to mind. I'm not sure what it would take to get them to stop eating, actually.


Loretta ducked under the entrance to the fort to wait out the worst sprinkles. I tired to share my cheapie umbrella from Edinburgh with her, but it's too small.


We had a debate over whether these donkeys minded the rain - I thought they looked miserable, huddled together against the wall during the worst of it, but Loretta says if they get miserable because of a bit of rain they'd have a pretty rough life indeed.


A few km past Dunbeg were some beehive huts, built and lived in about the same time as the fort. As instructed by our B&B host, Barbara, we pulled past the first set of huts and stopped at the second, with our few euros in hand to give to Mary, who owns the land. Sure enough, as we walked up her driveway, she appeared out of the door of her old white house - "Hello girls, nice day girls!" - in a quiet voice made quieter by the absence of most of her teeth, and wearing big, bright red sweater. We handed her our €4, she thanked us kindly many times, and told us to watch our heads going in and out of the huts.


The weather had cleared already, and we hiked up her hill, in and out of the huts, and past her horses, including a very brand new foal.




The views from up on her hillside were amazing - I don't think I could even imagine living here and seeing that all the time.


Oh - and movie trivia fact: right down the hill from Mary's place was a location for the filming of Far and Away.

Back in the car, our next major stop was a look out point (and cafe for a snack) over the beach and Blasket Islands, which were inhabited until 1953, and have a very significant place in Irish culture and history. Everyone spoke Gaelic there, and in fact this whole peninsula is still a Gaeltacht, which means that most people speak the language - the street signs can certainly attest to that. People from the big cities send their kids here for the summer to properly learn the language, and indeed we've seen packs of teenagers roaming around town.

The view of Great Blasket island: (there were several big basking sharks in the water, but unfortunately they don't show up in the photo)


And, looking across to the right, the hillside, which still has several abandoned and ruined "Famine Cottages", as this area was hit particularly hard during the Great Hunger - many people here were completely dependent on the potato as a food source and emmigrated, leaving everything behind.


View through a ruined cottage looking out to the sea:


After our snack, we headed down to the beach. By then it was a really nice day - hot even! Some of you may remember the Greece beach picture...here's an Irish version:


Continuing on, we stopped at the Blasket Island Heritage center, an amazingly well done little museum about this small corner of the world. But look who I found amidst all the books of Irish history, poetry, and culture:


Outside the museum, Lo perfected her digital macro skills even further. This is her favorite flower here on the Emerald Isle:


After a final few stops we headed home for the day and some mundane tasks like picking up laundry, dinner at the supermarket (can't go out every night!), and a little TV before bed. Here are a few things that struck us as quirky from the local news: A major report is out: 8,500 9 year-olds were interviewed by researchers from Trinity College, and there were three major findings: Irish children get on well with their mums, are partial to sweets, and show evidence of a growing problem with childhood obesity. Also, big sports news yesterday - there is to be an all-Irish sports event in Dublin's Croke Park in a few weeks, after the big U2 concert. Because of the concert, they're digging up all the sod, and they're planning to replace it with sod imported from England for the sporting event, thus creating the terrible situation of an Irish game not being played on Irish soil. Texts and phone calls expressing outrage were encouraged.

Hitting the Links

Today we drove west from Kinsale until we were as west as we could possibly be and not fall into the Atlantic Ocean - the Dingle peninsula, where we'll be for the next few days. It feels good to unpack a bit and stay a while. Driving has gotten into a regular rhythm - we find that we can each drive for about 2 hours or so before getting tired from all the concentrating, so we switch. We also bought batteries for Loretta's little iPod speakers and are enjoying Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in the car - fun. Also fun: views like this one, taken while we were driving in to Dingle Town.


After our arrival at Milestone Guesthouse (so named for a standing stone in their front yard that dates back to 2000 B.C.), we settled in and got an orientation from Barbara, who with her husband Michael runs the place. The orientation regarded both the little town here, and the famouse Dingle peninsula driving loop, which we'll do tomorrow. It included a hand-drawn map by Michael and comments like: "Pull into the second car pull-out, go see the stone huts, and a woman named Mary will come down to talk to you. It's her land, so give her a few euros before you walk around. You'll like her, she's a hoot".

After a nap, we wandered back down the road to the local Pitch and Putt, which was a new thing for me - brand new, since my former experience with golfing was at the Golden Tee in Castro Valley. A nice young woman took our €7 each, and her little brother came running in with a big smile and gave us each a putter and another club - wedge? chipper? Haha, I don't know (and Loretta's asleep, or I'd ask). We headed out to an incredibly scenic set of 18 little holes, and my golf education began. Good thing I was learning from a master:


Actually, our first shots off the tee on hole 1 were both so hilariously awful that the little boy, who was hanging out with a few friends and watching, said "Ach, ladies!" and gave us a bit of hard time. Then a few seconds later he came running up urgently with our score card, which he'd forgotten to give us, flashed a peace sign, and ran away. Funny kid.


We wound our way through the little course, as the weather went from delightfully sunny to cloudy with fat drops of rain, this being Ireland after all. Final score: Lo: 82 Erin: 92.