Blogs from Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland, Europe - page 4

Got up around 8 so we could get our stuff together, eat and get to coach station on time for today's tour which we are both pretty excited about. We also decided to change hostels for tonight and move to the Galway Hostel House which will save us about 15 dollars. Plus pretty much all hostels are the same so it's not too big a loss to leave Barnacles even though we did enjoy it. Our tour guide was an odd Irish fellow named Desmond who we estimated to be around 120-130 years old and spoke with an accent that I doubt even an Irishman could understand. I wasn't phased by this as I decided to just listen to music for the majority of the time on the bus and gaze out the window at the ... read more

Took the ferry across the River Shannon over to County Clare. Stopped at the Cliffs of Moher and at O'Brien Tower which over looks the Cliffs which was pretty exciting for Colleen. She hasn't stopped telling us that she is an O'Brien and has relatives here and has connections. Went to a medival dinner with singing lords and ladies at Bunratty Castle. We drank Mead which is a wine with honey mixed in it. It was outlawed until about 10 years ago, pretty potent. Typically, it was given to people who were just married and they would drink it for 30 days after their wedding hence honeymoon wine. It was supposed to make them fertile. After dinner, we came back to the hotel bar and watched the volcano explode again. Who knows when we'll get home. ... read more

We actually spent a good couple of months in Ireland, but only did a little bit of touristing (new word, thanks Garry!). We rented a car for a few days and headed south west to Co Clare and Limerick. We spent a few nights in a small town called Doolin, and while there we checked out the Cliffs of Moher. We got our first glimpse of the cliffs which are pretty impressive. By the time we got to the next lookout platform, in typical irish fashion, the fog had come in pretty thick and fast and we could barely see 1m in front of us, as you can see from the pic's the cliffs had totally disappeared. But at least we saw them, a lot of people arrived just after us and didn't see a thing. ... read more

Wednesday, July 1 Last night, even though we were tired after our flight and drive from the airport, we stayed up to watch the sunset at 10:00 over the Atlantic. Ireland’s not the land of the midnight sun, but I’d never experienced a day as long as this before. Today is the best weather until the weekend (rain and showers only PART of the day, clouds otherwise), so we drove up to the Cliffs of Moher, over to Kilfenora, through the Burren, and then circled north from Ballyvaughan through Doolin before arriving back home at 9:30. Dean is getting used to hedgerow branches scraping his window as I drive, knowing it’s a choice between that and losing the right side of the car to an oncoming truck, van or tour bus! I thought driving on ... read more

Today we left Galway and toured the Southwest of Ireland. We visited the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren in County Clare. We visited the Burren first which is so weird. It's like a lunar landscape of limestone. The rocks were left after the last ice age and when the glaciers melted away they left seeds from all over the world. So, there are plants growing there from the arctic and the Mediterranean. Then, we saw the legendary Cliffs of Moher. I have to say that I enjoyed the cliffs on the Aran Islands more. The Cliffs or Moher were much more touristy and had man-made steps to climb. At the Dun Aungess on the Aran Islands, you had to climb the original steps in the fort. It was still an impressive view, nevertheless. Plus, my ... read more