Ireland - Doolin

OBS with awkward suitcase

Before I could commence my travels in Ireland I had to catch a 4:55AM train to Bristol Temple Meads and then a bus to Bristol Airport. Paranoia is the word that comes to mind when I think back to that pre-dawn walk along the Taff Trail, but it's my own fault. I've started watching too many horror shows and I'm too cheap for a taxi. Anyways, I made it to the train station, however, and I feel as though this is a solid piece of advice, I hadn't collected my tickets the day before and I recommend that if you know your old-fashioned swipe card isn't accepted by the quick-track ticket machines and you pre-purchased your tickets and need an actual human to print them for you, get them printed the day before your pre-dawn train because no one is at the ticket counter at 4:40AM. But if you don't do this then simply feign a catatonic state on the train and the ticket-collectors should leave you alone :) So, not having my tickets did not deter me from boarding my train, and I eventually made it to the airport and hopped on the shamrock decorated Aer Lingus plane to Dublin. Smooth flight, arrived in Dublin, found OBS, and then we boarded a bus for Galway. Relevant.

Ascent to the Cliffs

It was raining in Galway and we had four hours before our bus to Doolin. So we walked around, but the weight of our giant backpacks and the rain eventually got to us and we took refuge in the bus station café. At 6PM we boarded the bus to Doolin and the driver actually said, "Are you sure this is where you want to go?" Needless to say I was a tad nervous about my choice of towns. This nervousness increased ten-fold when me and OBS were the only people left on the bus, everyone else having gotten off at Lisdoonvarna. The bus ride there though was great as we drove around the Burren, which is just a really interesting rocky (karst) and flowery landscape. Another piece of advice learnt from this leg of the trip: always have food with you and, (bonus tip!) always ask for student discounts (if you are a student of course). So we got to Doolin and were pretty much passed out by 9PM.

The Burren

Living on the edge

The next day we walked to the Cliffs of Moher and it was a really nice day with blue sky and sun! We actually had fantastic weather for the most part on the entire trip. On our way to the Cliffs we walked along the road, not the trail - partly because we didn't realize you could walk on the trail and partly because we wanted to walk towards the tower on the hill. This way we were able to see the Doolin "suburbs," and I use that term loosely. I thought it was pretty cool that the fences were stone walls and this was done in the past to clean up the landscape (we learned this on Inis Mór thanks to our friendly bus driver). I feel like when visiting the west coast of Ireland it's impossible to take a bad picture. That's how scenic it is. We made it to the Cliffs and they were pretty amazing with the straight 700 foot drop down into the ocean. Pictures don't really do them justice. We hiked to the southern most point to the Hag's Head where Moher tower is located and if you do that I recommend bringing sandwiches with you because it's a nice place for a picnic after a long walk on a narrow trail with rocks/cliffs on one side and an electric fence on the other with three feet of space in between at the narrowest. Going back we didn't walk along the road, but rather we took the trail where we met a friendly donkey that we called Ted. We climbed down some rocks so we are now able to claim we have touched the eastern Atlantic waters. We made it back to Doolin around 5PM and wandered around town for a bit, exploring the shops. Can you believe we got sunburned? In Ireland!

On Monday we took a ferry to the Aran Islands - we went to Inis Mór, which is the biggest of the three and also where a portion of the movie Leap Year with Amy Adams was filmed. In all honesty I was reminded of a rockier/cliffier version of Anegada. The ferry ride there though... Our ferry was called Tranquility and all I can say is that our ride there was anything but tranquil! We were sideways in the water at some points, I'm pretty sure. But we made it. The only hitch in this trip was the ferry to go back was at 2PM so that only gave us two hours, unfortunately. We took an abbreviated bus tour - me and OBS were the only ones on the bus because everyone else was on Inis Mór longer than us and they got the full tour, but that's just how accommodating the people there are. So we saw churches, a lighthouse, Gaelic schools, the house where the bus driver was born, baby swans, seals, horses, and our one stop was to a Late Bronze Age fort called Dun Aonghasa. Incredible stonework, incredible ocean views. The tour ended and we had a little time before the ferry left so we went to the grocery store and ATM (both of which are lacking in Doolin) and got some money, peanut butter and crackers. Maybe I've been in the UK too long, but OBS said the peanut butter tasted different and here I was thinking it was fine. This raises the question: have I forgotten the taste of JIF????!!

We took Tranquility back to Doolin, and I saw a dolphin! Then we just walked along the coast and eventually we hit the Burren and it's just such a dramatic landscape. We did go to a pub for dinner that night because that's the thing to do in Doolin: go to one of the three pubs, drink Guinness, and listen to traditional Irish music. It was nice, and I tried Guinness and personally, I thought it was gross. Such was our time in Doolin, and I have to say this was probably my favorite place to visit out of everywhere else we went in Ireland.