Trabern

After two days exploring the Causeway Coast and Glens we drove down to the city of Belfast. Straight down the A44 to the A26 then around Ballymena on the M2 before picking up the A26 continuing south. North of Antrim we connected with the M2 again heading west towards Belfast Lough. We drove along the lough into the Titanic Quarter of Belfast where we parked the cars under the Titanic Experience building. We had made excellent time arriving at about 10.15am. We purchased our tickets with a 10.40am time stamp but were allowed straight into the exhibitions. The Titanic Experience only opens at 10.00am and already it was busy! The Titanic Experience is located beside the Titanic Slipways, the Harland & Wolff Drawing Offices and Hamilton Graving Dock – the very places where Titanic was designed, ... read more

I forgot to record last night that our room had a surfeit of power points and … dried flower arrangements. No fewer than ten power points and four floral arrangements! We’ve had a few rooms on this holiday suffering from being filled with way too much stuff. Sometimes in a hotel room or B&B less is more. I’m sure I’m not the only traveller who would prefer fewer cushions and less bric-a-brac reflecting the taste (or lack thereof) of the owner? But the power points are good. We haven’t struggled for power points to charge all of or electrical devices at all on this holiday. Reflecting on our itinerary again over the last couple of days and wondering if we could have been more efficient? On the map the distances between our accommodation destinations seemed so ... read more

This morning we pulled out onto the N15 and inserted ourselves into a convoy of vintage Citroens beetling along the highway. We were in the middle of a group of four of them for a few kilometres before coming aside a layover where they started to pull in just as the leading members of their group, who we presume had been waiting for them, started to pull out. Aargh! Vintage Citroens going everywhere. Thank goodness that soon after they decided to pull out onto a local road. It’s always a bit awkward getting caught up in groups travelling together. That goes for caravan convoys crossing the Nullarbor and the 2CV6 Club on tour in Ireland! Today we are going over road already travelled again. We thought we were heading from Sligo to Letterkenny and we are ... read more

Phew, we had a few things listed on the itinerary today as potential sightseeing from/around Sligo. We knew there weren’t enough hours in the day for all of them so we had to choose what we would do. The short list consisted of the dramatic cliffs at Sliabh Liag (Slieve League), a Yeat’s Country Drive, Enniskillen, National Trust properties Castle Coole and Florence Court House. The decision was made to drive 242 kilometres to see MORE cliffs! We headed north out of Sligo on the N15. From Rathcormack the N15 ran concurrent with the Wild Atlantic Way. To drive ALL of the VVVV would take months as there are so many turn outs to heads and points and beaches. I’m sure that they are all points of exceptional beauty but … we can’t do them all. ... read more

On the road again today. We re-packed the cars in the car park of The Nest and synchronized our planned route to Kylemore Abbey and Garden. We turned left out of the gate and thought that Cathy and Steve were behind us but, no, they turned right and that was the last we saw of them for hours! We returned to the Wild Atlantic Way and made our way along the R336 on a wet and gloomy morning. We had Galway Bay on the left of us and the lake-filled landscape of Connemara on our right. We are quite sure it would have been beautiful on a sunny day! After passing the Connemara Airport we turned northwards towards Scriob (Screeb). Soon after we turned west again onto the R340 looping all the way around Kilkeiran Bay ... read more

Another day, another island. Today we caught the Aran Island Ferry from Galway Harbour to Kilronan Village on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. We drove down to the ferry terminal arriving at about 8.45am for our 9.30am sailing because we were asked to arrive that early in an email. Hmmn, we could have arrived later because Bernie had done all our paperwork online weeks ago when he booked the ferry. With rain falling and no shelter to queue under until they opened the gate for boarding, we decided to retreat to the car! When we could see the queue start to move at 9.00am we headed over to tag onto the end to board the ferry. Even though we were far from the first on board we managed to snag the front seats on ... read more

I recorded yesterday that our room is small but not HOW small. The room is so small that when we open the door it smacks into the end of the bed at one third open, and we have to walk through it sideways! The room is so small that there is literally nowhere to put two suitcases but being a resourceful couple, we have balanced one suitcase on top of the mini bar fridge and the other on the wide windowsill. Thank goodness for the deep/wide windowsill. The room is so small it has no room for bedside tables. On one side there is a desk which sort of doubles as a bedside table but on the other side there is nowhere to put the phone and the watch on the charger although Bernie has managed ... read more

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. When we were mapping out our itinerary and booking accommodation, sailing out to Skellig Michael was an activity high on our list, if not top of our list. To facilitate that we decided to book three nights in Portmagee so we would be really close to where the boat departs from and we booked three nights thinking that if we couldn’t sail on the day we booked for, our first full day in Portmagee, then we ‘might’ be able to re-book for the next day and switch Skellig Michael and the Dingle Peninsula on our itinerary if necessary. As things turned out we were able to sail to Skellig Michael on the day planned so we didn’t really need the spare day in Portmagee. BUT, having to do the Dingle Peninsula ... read more

Another day, another peninsula! Yesterday Brian told us that this south-western part of Ireland is like five fingers made up of the Mizen, Sheep’s Head, Beara, Iveragh (Ring of Kerry) and Dingle Peninsulas. We missed the Sheep’s Head Peninsula as we simply didn’t have time to do it on Sunday after exploring most of the coast between Cork and Mizen Head. After Mizen head we drove across the top of Sheep’s Head Peninsula and into Bantry. Today we headed off to explore the fourth of the five awe-inspiring southern peninsulas of Ireland, Dingle Peninsula. From Portmagee we drove the northern section of the Ring of Kerry along the N70 between Cahirsiveen and Killorglin. Along this section we sighted another 20 coaches taking their passengers on the cookie-cutter tour of the Ring of Kerry. And that’s only ... read more