It's been a busy few days! Patrick got a cold/flu, which certainly slowed us down a bit, but we still got to see some great things. We started out yesterday morning in Doolin, a little tiny town (even tinier than many of the other ones we've stayed in) right by the Cliffs of Moher. After a slow breakfast, we headed off for the cliffs.
We originally intended to do the full 2-3 hour hike from Doolin to the Cliffs, but between the rain and Patrick being sick, we drove to the visitor center and did a very slow hike a mile or so along each side. They are beautiful! The rain held off while we were there, and in spite of the clouds we got to enjoy some incredible, dramatic scenery.
After we finished the Cliffs, we took a quick jaunt over to Doolin Cave. While we were stuck on the road on our way to the B&B the day before (waiting for the poor other guest to have his rental car hauled up out of the ditch), we met a local who worked in the cave and recommended that we stop by. The cave itself is pretty small, but it houses one of the largest stalactites in the world (the third largest, if I remember correctly). The stalactite was massive and very impressive!
After the cave, we continued on to Galway, one of the largest cities in Ireland, where Patrick's cousin Dani lives. We spent the evening relaxing with dinner and a visit to a beer gardens in a pub, which had décor that seemed to cross Harry Potter with a German beer garden. The hot whiskeys that our morning B&B host had recommended seemed to help quite a bit, because Patrick woke up this morning feeling quite a bit better!
We went on another very quick tour of Galway, visiting the market, the harbor, and the beautiful cathedral in the morning, after an amazing breakfast. (In Galway we stayed in a beautiful tea house, which had some great old furniture, the most comfortable bed I've slept in in years, and amazing tea, coffee, scones and other breakfast items. I wish we had stayed another day or so, just for the B&B!)
We then started on our next driving tour, which unfortunately turned out to be more of a bust than most of our days so far. We drove to the first castle, which we'd been informed was a hotel but allowed people to walk around the grounds, see the outside and potentially see the inside if you went into the pub or restaurant. We parked in the nearby town and walked over in the pouring rain (our rain luck has definitely run out up here), to find a guard at the gate collecting $10 a person to enter the gate, who was very specific that we were under no circumstances to approach the front door or attempt to get into a restaurant, but was not terribly interested in telling us who we should give the money to if we wanted to even tour the grounds. We waited for him for around 10 minutes before we gave up and wandered back to the car for our next destination. The next castle (Also currently a hotel) was happy to invite us into their pub and let us dry out our clothes by their fireplaces, so we enjoyed a snack and a drink before taking some photos - but unfortunately it is a castle-like hotel and not really a castle. Finally, since the rain was continuing to pour, we skipped hiking in Connemara National Park and instead just drove the long way to our next B&B. The scenery was beautiful - we even saw the end of the rainbow landing squarely on one guy's house!
No photos today, unfortunately - our B&B's wifi is not strong enough to upload any. We'll share when we get back!
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