down the irish coast

We got up early Sunday morning and started driving south to Dunguaire Castle, our first stop of the day. Dunguaire is on the coast and is one of the smaller castles that I've visited. I always find castles interesting, but I would put this down as one of the least interesting I've visited. For old structures like castles, I actually prefer seeing them when they're in ruins--for me, ruins spark the imagination. Dunguaire was not in ruins, but it also didn't have a lot of interesting stuff inside, either. It was in a pretty cool area, though.





Our next stop would be Ailwee Cave, a cave that we encountered as we were looking for something else. Not knowing anything about it, we decided we'd go in for a tour, since it was heavily advertised on the road as one of the largest caves in Ireland. It turned out to be nothing special, especially in light of the fact that I had recently visited Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which is a very impressive cave with lots of structures like stalagmites and stalactites. Ailwee has almost none of that, so there isn't much to look at other than dark, empty space. Oh well--sometimes tourist attractions are hit and miss.

Our next stop was Poulnabrone Dolmen, which is an ancient burial structure on top of a mountain that reminds me a bit of Stonehenge, if on a much smaller scale. Still, I thought it was very interesting to look at, and I enjoyed walking around on the surrounding terrain.







This area of the country is known as The Burren. Stone is obviously plentiful, which means that few things will grow. Apparently this area has long been one of the poorest parts of Ireland as a result. Cool to see, though.

Our next stop was the Cliffs of Moher, which is miles of cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, on the west coast of the country. The weather was strangely sunny when we got there, but it was great to have and enjoy for a little while.











I really enjoyed the cliffs and this may have been my favorite thing we saw in Ireland. I'm big on beautiful landscapes and the cliffs did not disappoint.

Our next stop was Bunratty Castle, a fairly large medieval castle not far from the city of Limerick. I liked this castle far more than the other we visited that day, as it was big, had interesting things inside, and had decent views from the top.





Bunratty also had a kind of jive folk park around it, with "experiences" like rebuilt structures and old stuff for the kiddies to see. I've been in places like this before and never enjoy them, so I entertained myself by taking random photos with my 135mm portrait lens and walking around for a while with Becca. The weather was still decent, so it was nice to stretch our legs. Here's some of my 135mm handiwork.













Limerick must be a decent-sized town, as the highways were much straighter in the area than they had been in other places, and the speed limits were higher, too. It took us a while to actually get anywhere near the speed limit, though. One of the major differences between driving in the US and driving in Ireland and the UK is all the roundabouts. Once we got on this major highway (or motorway, as they're called over there), we hit 6-7 roundabouts, with one about every mile and a half. The vast majority of the roundabouts we encountered on this trip were multi-lane, which freaks me out. Still, I managed to figure them out and get through without messing up the car or the flow of traffic.

Our final stop was Killarney, where we would spend the next two nights. Killarney was my favorite of the towns we saw in Ireland. It had a decent-sized high street, with lots of different restaurants and shops. We walked the high street after we checked into the hotel, and we settled on a small restaurant with a few Irish items on the menu for dinner. We shared "Irish stew" and shepherd's pie for dinner, and both were quite good, if a bit expensive. Again, everything is expensive in Ireland.