Ireland Behind Us

We left Ireland today after a week's stay. Let me start out by saying I love Ireland and the Irish are some of the most charming and pleasant people I've ever met. A really wonderful country. I've been lucky to have spent about two months here this spring and my thought is "Why did it take me so long?" 

It's cold in Ireland, though. The entire island is further north than the continental US, even north of New Fundland and the same North Atlantic currents that keep it from getting overly cold in the winter also keep it from getting very warm in summer. Typical high temps were in the 50s F. Much like a Texas winter day. 

I first came in April for about seven weeks of hiking and hiked the Wicklow Way, the Kerry Way, and roughly half of the Dingle Way. About 260 miles total. I went home to take care of some issues there and returned in June with Sherry. We spent several days in Dublin before going west to the town of Sligo. While there we visited Coney Island and hiked the Queen Maeve trail and we're treated very well by the locals. What a great time! Thank you Ireland.

Sherry and I arrived in Dublin on the morning of the 17th, after an all-day flight, leaving Austin about noon local time and arriving in Ireland 10 AM local. We were able to leave our luggage at the hostel and went out in the town. That set the pace for the next four days. We would leave in the morning and not return until the end of the day. Of course, there is the day we slept until noon, but that's a detail. We went to some museums and several pubs. Neither of us is a fan of the standard touristy paid events but we did two we both enjoyed.

A couple days in we took a day trip on a guided tour of the Cliffs of Moher. They are on the Burren Way, one of the hikes I had planned to do, but I had already decided to skip it in order to do the Cliffs with Sherry. That was before I went home early. It was a good trip with a nice drive through the Irish interior, an area I pretty much skipped when hiking. The Cliffs are impressive and the scenery is impressive. Plus, we got to do a short section hike on the Burren Way.

The other paid event we did was to a show featuring traditional Irish music and dancing. This is the kind of show tourists flock to and locals avoid. They probably shouldn't because it was a good time. It even included a good meal.

After Sligo, we went back to Dublin to catch an overnight ferry to France for the next leg of our adventure.