Blogs from County Donegal, Ireland, Europe - page 2

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Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Donegal August 2nd 2022

TUE, 02 AUG 2022 – “Day 3: History of Londonderry and the mighty scenery of Donegal - After the Full Irish, (cooked breakfast) we’ll take on a walking tour of the city, its bog-side murals and its 6th century, monastic past. The Hills of Donegal are calling and after a jaw opening drive over the Glengesh Pass, we’ll visit the Assaranca Waterfall. Last stop for the day is Ardara in the Gaeltacht, (Irish speaking area) a cosy village which is home to the famous ‘Cup of Tea Festival’; a homage to the traditional Irish reel which alludes to the cheeky drop of Poitín added to your tea. Before we ‘lay our hat’, we might try the local Portnoo crab, before hitting Nancy’s on Front Street, to learn a "cúpla focal" (few words of Irish) and down ... read more
Walking Tour of Derry, Northern Ireland, UK
Walking Tour of Derry, Northern Ireland, UK
Walking Tour of Derry, Northern Ireland, UK

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Gweedore June 9th 2022

After leaving our Belfast Airbnb cleaner than when we arrived, we loaded Sherri’s boot / trunk and headed out of the city. We drove north along the Causeway Coastal Route. This hugs the coast up the east side of Northern Ireland from Belfast, and finishes in Derry, shortly before the road enters Eire again. It’s certainly a beautiful drive, meandering along the coast through small towns and villages. After a few days in the cities, we started to appreciate the dramatic natural beauty of the Irish countryside. We stopped in Large for a leg-stretch, coffee and cake. Now it was time for Susan to take the wheel! The first time she’d driven on the left-hand side of the road since New Zealand in 2018. The added stress this time is that Sherri has a manual gear ... read more
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Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Downings June 6th 2022

Ireland the North 1 Monday. Downings. Another great day with a sunny and warm start up the hill out of Ardara after a good breakfast at the Nesbitt Arms. Not quite as special yesterday but still a great day with great views of inlets and loughs with plenty of ups and downs to please the grimpers (climbers) amongst us. Either the sunny weather and more amenable wind are having an effect on me but I am now not arguing with myself and continually checking the kilometres left to go and hoping that there are defibrillators available ahead. We found a couple more unknown coffee stops but with limited food so we’d did right in buying sandwiches in Ardara. As we headed inland we climbed a long drag up to the Glenveagh gap, passing loads of scrap ... read more
Ready for restoring
Break time

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Donegal June 4th 2022

Ireland Saturday Donegal town. Great weather for our rest day, sunny and warm. The walk along the riverbank of the Eske is worth doing with a good view of the Friary across the river and the estuary and plentiful information of the trees and wildlife. I can also recommend the Tipperary boat which does a circuit around the estuary and islands with an excellent running commentary which is very clear and concise. We saw the old ticket office where people assembled for their trip to America in the times of the great famine. Only a third made it there, dying of hunger and disease. The Railway Museum is quite small but still worth a visit at 5 Euros. A good live Irish band was playing in the Diamond Square, which was a chance to soak up ... read more
River Eske walk
Donegal Friary
Fordson Major .

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Donegal June 2nd 2022

Ireland Friday Donegal Last night I had a walk along the Garavogue riverbank behind the hotel in amazing sunny conditions, a marked contrast to the weather when we arrived. I circled back along some quite run down streets with businesses and bars closed down. Having said that the city itself is very vibrant and full of people in the move. We got away under an overcast sky with occasional sun on pleasant roads to our first stop at the nice Jam Pot cafe in Grange. The scenery,whilst nice,was not as outstanding as previous days with green countryside of beef cows and sheep. The route was rolling and away from main roads as much as possible with occasional meanders around the coast. At one point there were three men fishing in a fast flowing estuary, one of ... read more
Sunset in Sligo
Street mural
The power of Guinness

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Donegal August 30th 2019

Up early because today we will cover a lot of ground. Buffet breakfast at the hotel and then on the coach, heading north. We drive through a sizeable town, Larne, then a series of smaller, extremely picturesque towns. Most of them have "bally" (town), "glen" (valley), "lough" (lake), or "castle" in their names. The weather is very changeable. Violent blasts of rain alternate with brief sunny periods. The force of the wind may be felt inside the coach. We take a detour to visit Glenariff Forest Park. This beautiful 1185-hectare park has several mountains and two small rivers that cascade through narrow gorges on their way to the sea. The coach climbs to the summit of a mountain where there are great views of the surrounding landscape. Walking trails lead off in several directions. And there's ... read more
Grey Squirrel hotline
House and rope bridge
Northern coast

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal May 2nd 2019

Day 03 It was a leisurely morning, the first thing on our agenda was the walking tour of Derry, which was at 10AM. We had to check out, but left our bags with the hotel to retrieve on the way out of town after the walking tour. The tour was led by a gentleman with his yellow tour guide rain jacket, shorts and sandals. We had coats on because the wind was very brisk and very chilly 48F. It did not rain on us, so big plus. The city built a wall around it to protect it from it’s enemies. It can claim to be the only walled city that has never been breached. The area inside the walls are 30 acres of land. The center of the city has a monument to those that have ... read more
Our guide John
Fanad Lighthouse
Family Keating

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Malin Head April 28th 2018

How are things in Glocca Morra this fine day? 28th April 2018 Continuing the Grey Haired Nomads’ 2,200 mile journey by motorhome, clockwise around Ireland Out of Co Mayo and into Co Sligo. A chilly wind was howling through the trees, but a window of blue sky had chosen to travel along with us for the rest of the day. It was nearly closing time when we arrived at the Visitor Centre at Carrowmore Megalithic Graves near our campsite on the rocky beach at Strandhill, Sligo. Time for a quick recce before tea. Dating back as far as 3,500BC - 3000 BC, these stone grave-sites, spread across the nearby fields, are truly fascinating. I could stand there for ages, just thinking about the lives of these people. There are numerous other similar sites across Ireland. What ... read more
Sligo
Classiebawn Castle
Gleniff Horsehoe

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Malin Head April 26th 2018

If there's a cleaner country on this earth we've yet to see it. No matter whether its a village, town, city, carpark, riverbank or National Park there is never, and I mean NEVER, a scrap of litter. I am fortunate that today actually happened. After completing the previous blog I developed severe dizziness/vertigo. I had spent a week in hospital a few years back when the crystals in my ears displaced so I knew the feeling. Our journey could have been in severe jeopardy, however by some miraculous occurrence I gradually recovered during the night. So I live to tell another tale. We headed to the most northerly point of Ireland, Malin Head, finding it to be a very cold, windswept rocky headland, with the Atlantic Ocean swells pounding the black rocks. We were dressed for ... read more
Looking landwards from summit of Malin Head.
Looking down from Malin Head summit.

Europe » Ireland » County Donegal » Killybegs September 3rd 2017

Eine kurze Fährüberfahrt, und schon ist man nicht mehr in Nordirland, sondern in der Republik Irland, und zwar auf der Halbinsel Inishowen. Dort sehen wir uns die beiden Kaps an: erst Inishowen Head mit Blick zurück nach Nordirland, dann Malin Head, den nördlichsten Punkt Irlands. Hier gibt es jede Menge schroffe Klippen, tiefe Einschnitte, tosenden Brandung - wirklich beeindruckend. Weiter geht an den höchsten Dünen Europas und einem alten Ringfort vorbei. So machen auch die Tagesetappen, an denen man vor allem Kilometer frisst, Spaß. Nächster Standort: Dunfanaghy. Kennt keine Sau - das gilt aber für viele unserer Standorte, und tatsächlich sind ja auch die kleinen Orte sehr nett. Zumal wir, wie auch hier, vom Fenster aus direkt auf das Meer blicken können. Hier machen wir eine schöne Küstenwanderung über viele idyllische kleine Sandstrände zwischen hohen Felsen, ... read more
Blick von unserem Balkon aus
Am Malin Head, einem der vielen Kaps
Und noch mal Malin Head




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