An Irish Vacation!

"This isn’t a vacation; this is traveling” – Jeremy

We have been sightseeing non-stop for the last 5.5 weeks. We haven’t been staying in the nicest places, we have had to use way too many public restrooms, and we have been eating way too many peanut butter sandwiches. But Ireland has truly been a vacation! At last! We stayed in a nice place, had real food, and weren’t pressured to do everything we could possibly cram into one day!

View from our hotel out onto Dingle Bay:

The morning after our Halloween fest we took a flight to Ireland, the final stop on our trip! The flight was pretty short, but the airline we flew with ripped us off big time and charged us almost $120 to check in at the airport because we didn’t check in online. What the heck kind of fine is that! Not everyone has internet access! Anyways, we flew to the Kerry airport which is on the western coast of Ireland. We planned on taking 2 buses to get to the Dingle Peninsula where we were staying, but after standing at the bus stop in the rain for an hour, the bus never showed up! We decided to call a cab and luckily he was able to give us a ride all the way to Dingle. The cabbie ended up being super nice and gave us tips on what to do in the area and just some general info about Ireland. It was dark when we got to our hotel and by the time we made it into the town to get some dinner we found out that they don’t serve food past 8pm. So we ended up eating some ramen noodle type things and chips. Very healthy! The next morning however we were greeted with a full course breakfast in our B & B. The breakfast room had large windows throughout looking down to the Dingle Bay and out to the surrounding mountains and hills. It was beautiful. Everything was so green and picturesque.

After a nice Irish breakfast we went into town to try to rent some bikes to cruise around the Dingle Peninsula. We went to the first bike shop we were sent to and found out it was closed. The nice lady in the convenient store gave them a ring at home, but they weren’t able to rent us bikes, so we tried 2 other places she suggested and finally found a place. The bike rental shop also served as a hardware store and a bar. Quite an interesting site to see 10 people at the bar at 10am and hardware being sold in the same place! Once we got our bikes and helmets we set out along Slea Head Drive which goes for about 29km along the Dingle Peninsula. The ride started along the marina in the town and then out past some farms in the town.

We made our way to the coast line which was absolutely breathtaking. The green grass, the blue sky, and the cliffs along the ocean made for some of the best scenery I have ever seen. We stopped along the way at an old prehistoric fort where we met a very friendly donkey!

 

 

Our new friend!

 

  We also stopped at some prehistoric beehive huts. The coastline was so dramatic with the cliffs, the grazing sheep and cows, and the waves crashing below.

 

 

 

Sheep Grazing along the cliffs:

Beehive hut:



As we biked along we came to an area where you could see the Great Blasket Island off to our left along with some other islands. The clouds and rain started moving in however, so our views weren’t the greatest, but you could still appreciate how beautiful the landscape is. As we started biking inland a bit, it really started raining on us, but luckily we had some rain gear with us. 

 

 

Great Blasket Island:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually the rain let up and we were able to make it back to Dingle without being completely drenched. We took some afternoon tea at the guesthouse and then went into town for some traditional pub food. Jeremy got some traditional lamb stew and I got a seafood pie that was excellent. After dinner we stopped in one of the local pubs where there was some live music. The nice thing about visiting Ireland in November is that the pubs are full of locals instead of tourists, so we were able to get a real feel for the place.

 

 

The next day we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do, so we decided to go on one of the local hikes in Dingle (After our amazing breakfast of course!). We walked along Dingle Bay by one of the beaches up to an old prehistoric castle and then by the lighthouse.

Prehistoric Castle:

 

Dingle Lighthouse:

 

 Since it was a bit drizzly and sunny we saw several rainbows along the way! After the lighthouse we walked along some cliffs for a bit, made our way down to another beach, and then ascended up to some more cliffs. The views were absolutely amazing along the way. Again, the green grass, the blue sky, and the ocean made for amazing scenery.

 

 

 

 

We walked for a couple hours and then made our way back to Dingle where we did some souvenir shopping since we could finally start to throw some of our things away to fit souvenirs in! We ate some more local pub food that night and got ready to leave early for Dublin.

 

 We took a bus and then a train to Dublin. It was pretty easy and we weren’t hit with any crazy fees, so that was good. We got into Dublin after dark so we only had time to get dinner the first night. The next morning though we went to the Guinness Storehouse. The storehouse is at St. James gate in Dublin, the same place they have been producing Guinness since the 1700’s. The tour was quite commercialize, but we learned about how the beer is made, how to properly taste Guinness, and of course how to pour the perfect Guinness! The rest of the day we wandered around a bit and basically just got ready to come back to the states after our long 6 week journey!