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Published: July 30th 2015
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Yeah... Isle of Man has cracked my top three... sorry Germany, you fall to #4.
Splendid weather today - I was going to go up Snaefell (their only real mountain), but the rail schedule is all funny today because of their "railway festival" so... hopefully there's another sunny day during my visit. Instead I went to Niarbyl and Peel. Bus ride was fun - it was basically a glorified mini van hahaha... but comfortable as anything you'd get on a real bus. Staying in Douglas is great because nothing is really more than 60-90min away. The driver was funny - it was his first time doing the route and didn't quite know where to drop us off. He asked if any of us had been on this route before - no, sadly the German family, the solo Canadian and the couple from England had not.
Niarbyl is hands down one of the most peaceful and picturesque places I've ever been along the coast. Absolutely loved it. I lost the Germans and Brits (since I take so many an photos) which is fantastic because I didn't see a soul for over an hour. My coastline. My peaceful paradise.
First
off, where you start the walk has these great big boulders/rock faces at sea where you just get perfect views of waves crashing ashore. And oh boy were they crashing today as it was very windy. That's where I spent forever taking photos from every which possible way and just listening to the waves.
There was a small inlet down the road - it had an old cottage and a tiny "beach" so you could go right down and really see the waves from straight on. Loved it.
From there I headed up on the "foot path" - ah, it's like Wales and it's perfect. I love nothing more than coastal walks where you a) need to pay attention or risk falling over the cliff, b) the path disappears every so often from overgrown plants, and c) not a fence or a person in sight - only birds. Words cannot describe how much I love these walks.
I made it to the beach (i.e. I managed to push my way through plants to find the damn stairs) and headed down to enjoy the serenity of once more being alone and hearing nothing but waves, birds and the
rocks shuffle under my feet.
I headed back to Peel after that. They have a castle, a cathedral and a great big Viking museum... what more could you want from a city? Even my lunch was great - I had to try some Manx Kippers - local smoked herring. (Honest to God, 5 hours later and I can still smell the Kipper on me. It's a wee bit strong of a smell 😉 )
Walking along the promenade to the Castle, I made myself a friend: a beautiful black cat. (He could probably smell the Kipper. Shhhh.) He came over to say hello, lots of leg rubbing and I pet him for a good 5 min before he continued on his way.
The Castle was interesting - I mean it's mrs remnants than anything else, but still interesting to poke around. To be honest, I was having more fun trying to find good angles for unique photos than I was interested in the history itself (the audio guide was just too long). The clouds were doing something spectacular today over Peel - it made for some great photos. From there I went to the House of Manaanan
which is basically the history of the IOM - talking about Vikings and Celts. It's a good find - good balance between history and videos and some odd figurines haha. I enjoyed it. I didn't really get to see inside the cathedral because they had some practice/prep going on for something, so that was pretty much that!
(I took 915 photos today. Granted many of them are speed burst of the waves... but my God, it took forever to go through them back at the hotel...)
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