Day 13: Dingle to Limerick

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Saturday, October 16: Happy Birthday Ed!! We woke up this morning at the O'Neill B&B in Dingle with a beautiful view out a picture window from our room to the bay and the mountains beyond. It was a fabulous start to our last day in the Emerald Isle. We had a tasty breakfast--still not the 'full Irish breakfast'--but enough brown bread to last a lifetime. We packed up and took off to tour the Dingle Peninsula on Slea Head Drive. It was prettier and more scenic than the Ring of Kerry. We skipped by some tourist stops at ring forts and famine cottages and passed by Ventry Beach where people were surfing the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. We stopped at the Blasket Island Visitor Centre to learn more about this population of island dwellers that finally dwindled until moving off the island in 1953. It was another glorious fall Irish day. The trip took longer than planned because we had to stop several times for photo opportunities. The landscape, coastal views and mountains were overwhelmingly gorgeous. One stop was at Slea Head itself, the western-most point of Europe, and is marked by a crucifix and a superb view of the Blasket Islands. All along this area were sites used in the movie, 'Ryan's Daughter' and in the movie 'Far and Away' with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. We had a great stop and a pint at Tig Ui Murcu in Ballyferriter where we met Morris, the owner. We had a lovely discussion about the economy and the local housing market (mostly summer homes owned by non-residents that are vacant for the majority of the year). We returned to Dingle and had a lunch of Cottage Pie at the Marine Inn on the harbor before leaving for our final destination, a country home south of Limerick. We headed east through the Connor Pass, along with about a dozen bikers on a road outing. Again, fabulous views on a crystal clear day. The descent from the pass was dicey in a single lane road with narrow pullouts to allow oncoming traffic to pass but we had good Irish luck and made it through with no problems. Once in the valley, we cruised smoothly northeast towards Tralee and stopped at a BBQ/Pub in Camp called Seven Hogs. The barman, Tim, had moved to Ireland from Liverpool in 1995 when he was 17. He was a talker and very entertaining. Later we stopped at a nice pub in Tralee called Sean O and again had the pub to ourselves with Chris, the barman. Chris is hoping to save enough to come to the U.S. and has connections to Chicago and Colorado--we wish him the best. He gave us excellent directions out of town and soon we were on our way to Adare where we stopped for dinner and directions to our B&B. We had heard so much all trip about how picturesque Adare was, however we were unnerved by the traffic flowing into the village from the north. We don't know what was going on in Adare on this Saturday evening but crossing the street was hazardous and the traffic was backed up for at least two miles to the north of the village. After sharing a quick burger and chips (and meeting a couple from western Massachusetts), we were on our way to Limerick to our last B&B, the Avondoyle Country House. We easily found the Country House and settled in. Our hostess, Evelyn, drove us to the Collins Bar (her local favorite) where we watched the rugby match with a lively local crowd. We called a taxi to return to the Country House early and spent a last night in the backyard looking at the beautiful Irish night sky. It's hard to believe that our two weeks was over already. We had to be at the Shannon Airport by 9:00 the next morning. We had a fabulous vacation and would do it over and over again...and over and over again.

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