So Sunday, I decided to go on a day trip out to the cliffs of Moher. The bus picked me up at the hostel (which was really nice) and we headed out around Galway bay.
This trip was so much fun, and I'm so glad I did it.
For one, the Irish countryside remains pretty spectacular.
and it looks
EXACTLY LIKE YOU THINK IT SHOULD.
But also, the tour guide was really funny and told lots of good stories and had lots of interesting commentary.
Including this dog, who some bus driver one day figured out that if you honk the horn as you drive past this dog, the dog will dance and spin and jump around. It was really funny.
But the guide also seemed to have a really good knowledge of local history and legends and even a bit of geography of the area.
Because Western Ireland is a bit different from Eastern Ireland
for several reasons.
First, it is very rural and very agricultural.
Which made it much harder for the English to control it as much.
So whereas the English initiative to snuff out the Irish language basically worked in the cities,
it took much longer out in the rural areas.
Because people were just too spread out to really catch 'em all.
But also, Western Ireland has a lot of ruins like the one above.
And that's actually because it's agricultural too.
Oh, but we stopped about 11:30 for a toilet break and a cup of tea, and to take pictures of this little harbor.
It was, as you might guess
a little chilly
but still pretty beautiful.
and there was a little stone dock that went out into the harbor
and we climbed to the end of that
and stood up on the wall to take pictures.
And then we got back on the bus.
So, the other thing that's different about Western Ireland.
This one you actually know, even if you don't know what it is.
So Western Ireland is more agricultural, right?
Well, for a while there the main crop was
potatoes.
Which means that the Potato Famine hit Western Ireland really hard.
Oh, we also stopped here, because there were good views out over...
everything.
Like, that's the bay out there in the distance.
But anyway, so the majority of the immigrants from Ireland during the Potato Famine
were Western Irish
so you drive through the countryside and there are just these ruined villages
because everybody either moved out or died.
Which is a morbid thought for such a pretty place.
So we drove throughout this town that has a name I can neither pronounce nor spell, but it started with an L, and every year it is home to the annual matchmaker festival.
including a pub run by the actual matchmaker.
But apparently this festival started back in the day, because the men tended to live and work up in the mountains, and they didn't really have many chances to meet women, so they would come down one year, all of them at the same time every year, and find somebody who could help them take care of their house.
I don't even have good commentary for the next pictures
it's just too pretty.
Oh! So, those, out in the distance,
are the cliffs of Moher.
But at this point we stopped for lunch in a little town called Doolin, and ate at the pub there, and it was very good.
There was also a chocolate shop in town, which had some really delicious raspberry white chocolate fudge bar thing. And that was a very good dessert.
Oh, and out there are the Arran Isles, which are famous for retaining a very Irish heritage, including, I believe, native speakers of Gaelic. Which basically don't exist anywhere else. Also, I think there are sheep.
But anyway, back to the pretty view.
and some nice ladies from the Pacific Northwest even took my picture for me.
And I showed them how to dim the brightness on their iPhones.
And you thought I was the technologically challenged one.
And that's the chocolate shop. So cute. So tasty.
Right, so after lunch we headed out to the actual cliffs themselves.
The highlight of our journey.
And also our longest stop.
We were out there for a full 2 hours.
It went by in a heartbeat.
Also, this is where most of my pictures from this day come from.
For a good reason.
It was SPECTACULAR
So I followed this path out by the cliff edge.
and I just kind of couldn't contain my excitement.
And, I mean, look at what a beautiful day it was.
The weather was PERFECT.
Look at me trying to look cool.
I was not being cool
I was being very dorky indeed.
One of my new favorite hobbies is taking pictures of the ways whatever I'm about to do could kill me.
Whoops!
So, despite the extreme danger
and unstable cliff edge.
I went on.
I wasn't the only one doing it.
and I actually stayed on the path for a while.
So you should be proud.
But, I mean, yeah, I did eventually go off the path.
So, remember Waking Ned Devine? I mentioned it last blog. So, the iconic image from that movie is from the final scene, where they are all gathered on the cliffs after staying up all night drinking and partying out with the whole town, and this group of guys go out to the cliffs, and they all bring their drinks, and they stand out on the edge of the cliffs, and they raise their glasses to toast Ned Devine.
And the line is, "Raise your spirits to the sky."
And so when I told my dad that I was not going to have a pint in a pub while I was here, the compromise was that I had to take "A Ned Devine picture"
and so I did.
So the cliffs are 700 feet above sea level
aka very tall.
And I was trying not to ACTUALLY die.
But I'll go ahead and tell you which side of that path I was on.
Hint, it was not the one behind the wall.
Sorry!
*shakes head*
not sorry.
It was truly spectacular.
on all sides.
So this trail actually connects two villages on either side of the cliffs
and you can walk for hours in either direction.
I kept trying to take a picture off the side of the cliff. But I also didn't want to die.
So yeah, there was a lot of cliff to walk.
but we only had 2 hours.
so, unfortunately, I couldn't walk all of it.
I would like to one day.
I think it'd be fun.
I mean, it's not the Appalachian trail.
But it's pretty.
and really, not bad terrain to walk on.
But anyway, due to time restraints,
I walked BACK towards the visitors center where the bus had dropped us off.
The road goes ever on and on.
Come on,
just because I'm not on a ferry,
doesn't mean I'm not still Bilbo. I mean, that could be Shire grass behind me.
Though I don't think that the giant cliffs are a feature of the Shire.
Hence the adventure.
It was a good place to be.
I mean, physically stunning
and windy
of course.
But also just relaxing
and open.
PANO!
Like, that's the thing about Ireland,
they have room in a way a lot of countries don't.
I mean, it's not a big island,
but it has SPACE.
I thought these rocks were really strange. Also, slightly dangerous, because they chipped really easily.
and they were all stepped.
But I actually made it out pretty far,
considering how much time we had.
and I never got tired of looking out at the cliffs.
Ok, this landscape was crazy
but, ya know
really pretty.
Very dramatic
even the less-cliffy parts.
However, I was definitely there for the cliffs.
Oh, so if you look VERY closely in that picture, right on the horizon, you can see a strip of land. That's the Arran islands.
Selfies!
So, I had the song from Ned Devine stuck in my head
ALL DAY.
Actually,
it's been in there the whole time I've been in Ireland.
BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF NED DEVINE!
That's about as close to the edge as I got.
I didn't lay down on my stomach and lean over
like some people did
because I don't ACTUALLY have a death wish
unlike some people.
I've kind of run out of things to say
if we're being totally honest.
Because I just sort of ran around for 2 hours
and took pictures from lots of different angles.
Because it was really impressive.
and really gorgeous,
just the whole thing.
So, I wanted to get a foot picture on the edge
but that is as close as I got.
because ti's a kind of dangerous picture to take.
It doesn't look dangerous from that angle.
But then you change the angle.
Oh, so at this point I was passing back by the visitor's center
and heading over the cliffs in the other direction.
Not that it was any less dangerous.
Mwahahaha.
Except it feels too pretty to be evil.
It's like a postcard.
Except I have yet to appear on a postcard.
I should fix that.
Maybe not in this background though.
Oh! There was a tower. Not sure why. But it was there.
Oh the sun!
But in all honestly, I'm really glad it was sunny.
Because then you could see the Arran Isles!
It's so stereotypically Irish!
But I'm OK with that.
I'm a fan of most Irish stereotypes.
Except the drunkeness I suppose.
But I haven't encountered a lot of that.
So I'm good!
So yeah, at this point it was getting towards time to meet back at the bus
so I headed back to the visitors station.
Because our bus driver had threatened that the person who came back late would have to sing a song.
Oh, and the visitor's center.
looks like a hobbit hole.
I was so excited. So I walked around the visitor's center for a while, checked out what there was to see.
I also found this picture, which is EXACTLY what I've been looking like basically this whole trip. So now you get a picture of that.
So then I headed back to the bus
Past more signs showing how dangerous what I did was. Yay!
And back through the lovely Irish countryside.
It's so green!
Yeah, man
The cliffs were awesome,
but I loved just driving through the countryside.
That was its own kind of wonderful.
And really, getting to look out the window
and see all this go by
was part of what made my day awesome.
I mean, the cliffs were dramatic,
but half the fun of the trip was getting there.
This is a little Irish cottage abandoned during the Famine.
And these are fields.
Oh! So these are some little cliffs,
and that's solid rock. Apparently it's the closest thing we have on Earth to what the surface of the moon looks like.
And it was just pretty.
So we stopped and got off
and took pictures.
And because of limited time, I did not climb out there.
Unforunately.
Because I totally would have.
It looked like fun.
But then again,
I was having a pretty good time.
It was just a great view.
And you could still see the Arran Islands.
Way off in the distance.
But more importantly, you can see me.
Oh! and I did wear sunscreen. Because I learned my lesson.
There were flowers growing on the rock, which I thought was lovely.
But really,
the whole thing was very nice.
So, it's not the clearest in these pictures,
but in order to get to the Cliffs of Moher
You had to go through the Burren.
Which is a very important geographical area.
It's all these limestone mountains
that formed at the end of the last Ice Age
when the ice melted, it stepped the ground.
and left a lot of rocks.
which are scattered everywhere
and people use them to build walls and houses
and such.
And it is very pretty
and very impressive.
And that is an example of what they built with the limestone.
That was somebody's house before the famine.
You can kind of see the mountains in the distance on the right.
I think that one is slightly different, though.
Anyway, the burden is geographically important. Also, there's a tower house.
And that's a limestone mountain behind the foliage.
See, that one.
It's not quite solid limestone up close.
unlike that, which was, again, built with the rocks they had.
and they had a lot, because they had to clear the land before they could farm it.
Which I find really impressive.
So we stopped at this VERY old abbey.
Like, it was abandoned in the 1200s.
Not built,
abandoned.
And now it's just standing out in the middle of nowhere
in Western Ireland.
And people on busses can come visit it
because really,
a remarkable amount of it is still standing.
Considering how old it is.
and they have done some stuff in recent years to protect it
like put a roof over the main altar.
But otherwise, it's just kind of out there for the elements.
and there's another stone wall.
and a much bigger stone building.
But, I dunno,
it's incredible to be in a building that old.
Even if it's dilapidated.
There's also a cemetery, which people can still be buried in.
But you have to be from the area.
So I couldn't be buried there.
Such a shame.
So yeah, we got back on the bus,
and continued back the way we came.
Headed back to Galway.
Through the still-lovely countryside.
Though it was a bit rainy
kind of stormy looking at this point.
Still pretty!
I like that picture.
So this roof is the largest thatched roof in the world that is all in one piece.
Like, no breaks. It's impressive.
But so is Ireland.
So our final stop of the day was at a castle.
I like castles.
and this one had a great location.
I mean,
it's all castle-y looking
and out in the middle of the harbor
Like,
it just looks like it should.
It's a little dilapidated too
but it's got a nice ambiance.
and it's not too ruined.
And seriously
the bay or harbor or whatever
that the castle is on
is very pretty to look at.
Especially at this time of day.
Since this was a short stop
I headed back to the bus
Only to find that it was a shorter stop than anticipated, and therefore I got threatened with singing. I offered to take requests.
But anyway, we made it safely back to the Galway bus station, and I went off in search of food. I had a nice lamb burger at a pub in the city, and then headed back to the hostel. I arranged my stuff, and showered, and then headed to bed.
In the morning, it was back to Dublin.
