Journal of Ireland Trip in May 2011

Old Jun 1st, 2011, 12:26 PM
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Journal of Ireland Trip in May 2011

I wrote up a long description of our trip and will be posting it over the next several days. I don't have much of a narrative talent, so I wrote out sections of information that may be helpful for future planners. We visited over the last 10 days of May 2011. We flew into Dublin, stayed one and a half days in Dublin, then drove eight days around the island staying in Cushendall, Bushmills, Ballybofey, Sligo, and Galway before returning to Dublin for our flight home. We are in our early 30s and focused on a lot of megalithic sites, ruins, and natural scenery. While I hope that one day we will return to Ireland, I can't be sure so we packed in as much as we could. Certainly we missed some things because of time, but I think we did a great job experiencing the northern half of Ireland. I hope this is helpful and feel free to ask questions. All information here is accurate to my memories as of May 2011. Thanks for reading!

Hotels and B&Bs:
Dublin: Hotel Isaacs, Carlton Dublin Airport
Cushendall: Cullentra House B&B
Bushmills: Rest A While B&B
Ballybofey: Villa Rose
Sligo: An Cruiscin Lan B&B
Galway: Clayton Hotel
Generally, our hotels and bed and breakfast spots were fine. They ranged from $100-$150 per night. Half included breakfast while the other half did not. Probably the worst hotel we stayed in was Hotel Isaacs in Dublin because of the loud street noises and the slightly off-smelling towels. The Villa Rose stood out because of its hard wood floors, though it had a rule against outside food which I thought was strange. The restaurant at the Villa Rose (Fara's) was our most expensive meal (E40) but was quite tasty. The Clayton in Galway was very difficult to find, because of all the roundabouts in Galway. It took us about 45 minutes once we reached Galway to find the hotel! We made the mistake of forgetting to look at the Hotel webpage's directions and used google maps alone. We also got lost in Sligo looking for the An Cruiscin Lan bed and breakfast for similar reasons. Sligo has many one way roads that make navigation difficult. The hotels and bed and breakfasts in smaller towns were well signed. An Cruiscin Lan was the most run down B&B of the three we stayed in, but was in the largest town for B&Bs. I liked the Rest A While in Bushmills because it was well signed, comfortable, and the owner was very nice. We had no problems with late check-ins. Beforehand, we let everyone know we'd be arriving around 8 pm. We usually arrived between 7 and 8 pm, except for Galway where we got so lost we didn't check in until 10 pm. Internet service varied from fee-only (Hotel Isaacs), spotty wireless (An Cruiscin Lan, Cullentra House), a single wired port (Villa Rose, Clayton), a computer (An Cruiscin Lan, Rest A While), or strong wireless (Carlton).

Food:
We were middle of the road when it came to spending money on food. We usually spent about 30-40 euros a day for the two of us, including a couple pints of beer. We accomplished this by splitting 1 appetizer and 1 main at our sit down meals. Half the days, we had a full breakfast included, the other half we ate granola bars or picked up some pastries. Almost all our lunches were late and on the go. We frequently had lunch around 3 or 4 pm because we just didn't find anywhere interesting to go earlier. Also, with our packed schedule, spending an hour eating lunch is a waste of precious open hours at sites. While there are pubs in virtually every town you pass through, finding a tasty take-away spot is much harder. Our lunches were eaten in the car and on the go. We had some great bakery items (mince pasty, mini chicken pot pie, pastries) in Ballycastle, a really tasty crepe from Ballyvaghan, and cheap simple sandwiches in Letterfrack at Connemara Bread. Once, we had some terrible Chinese take-away when we got desperate for food before Galway. Dinner, however, we always stopped by a pub or restaurant for a nice sit down meal. Our favorite meals were at the Smuggler's Inn (Bushmills), Fara's (Ballybofey), the Bull and Castle (Dublin), and The Porter House (Dublin). I still find the tipping system confusing, so we just chose to tip at each of our sit down meals, whether or not it was a pub.
Prices are much higher for food than in the US, because of the exchange rate (1 euro to 1.50 USD). Two six packs of Fanta orange were E4.50. A soda at a restaurant was E2.50. A bottle of soda at Dublin Airport ranged from 1.35-2 euros while in Charles De Gaulle it was 3 euros. A pint of beer was about E4. Appetizers ranged from 5-10 euros, main courses were 10-20 euros, and desserts were 5 euros. Many places have cheaper two or three course meals at early hours, like 5-7 pm. We never managed to get to one of the restaurants before 7, so no early specials for us. Restaurants almost always stop serving food at 9 pm, so beware.

Sites:
We were able to do most of the things on our itinerary. Certainly we didn't go to every interesting site on our way but we were very happy with what we accomplished. I'd say we spent the average amount of time at each site, or a little longer. We took plenty of pictures. One of the biggest disadvantages of visiting at the end of May in my opinion is that many of the sites don't open until 10 am. In June many of them start at 9. This cuts short an hour of your day, though certainly my bf enjoyed sleeping a little later! The extra daylight came in handy very often. We only drove at night a couple times in Galway after dinner. Several sites are basically always open so you can visit late in the evening after the other places have closed. The most useful ones I can recall are Giant's Causeway, Slieve League, Carrowkeel, and Hill of Tara. I think the Poulnabrone Dolmen and Cliffs of Moher are accessible after hours though the Cliffs parking lot is probably closed. Shops also seem to open around 10 am and close around 5 or 6, so it's a small window compared to the US shopping hours. There were definitely fewer shops open on Sundays.
Signs for sites... Most of the OPW sites are well signed with brown signs at major intersections. A couple times, however, the sign was missing (Poulawack Cairn) or pointing in the wrong direction (Knocknarea I think). Amusingly, a sign sometimes said 5 km in a direction, only to give you another sign at 5 km of 6 km down another road (Carrowkeel). Also, a couple times I noticed a sign that pointed down a road for a site with no distance mentioned, but was a good 20 kilometers away from the final spot.

The Roads:
Hah. The roads. I talked to a few other tourists on the trip, who told me that Italy and Germany are worse. But I'm used to the roads in the US, which are wide with plenty of shoulders and appropriate speed limits. In Ireland, they come in several flavors. The M roads (M6, M2, M3, etc) are generally nice wide highways with normal highway exits. The speed limit is 120 km/hr and it seems totally reasonable. Then there are the N roads. These vary from highway-like roads, down to one lane each way with no shoulder. Then there are the R roads, which are almost entirely one lane each way with no shoulder. These will often have an 80 km/hr speed limit which seems way too fast given the number of curves. Really rough when you're on a curvy narrow 80 km/hr road and another car is headed toward you. Then you have the L roads like L2101 or the unnamed roads. The L and unnamed roads are often no more than a lane and a half wide (or just a lane wide). If you see someone coming the other way, one of you has to drop to the side of the road to let the other pass. This spot is usually the fenced entrance to a farm area. When you don't have a shoulder on the road, expect to see tall bushes, stone walls, or fences right against the road. One road we took when we were lost was a single lane with grass growing down the center. The L and smaller roads are not listed on the AAA map I bought, and only show up on google in very zoomed maps. It's important to know where they are to help you find yourself on the map. Almost always, these roads are signed with an intersection sign shortly before you get to them. Road names don't seem to exist outside of towns. Instead it's the number (R51, N6, L2101, etc) and the nearest moderately sized city in that direction. They can't give you a cardinal direction because these roads go every-which-way. A compass would be really really handy I think. Always be aware of the big towns around you, so you know which direction you want to avoid or head toward. When you see a road in parenthesis, it means that the route will take you to that road. There are so many roundabouts. The worst was our travel from Bushmills to the Grianan an Alieach: 21 roundabouts in 75 minutes.
But, all in all, we made it out with no accidents to the car. I think the left rear view mirror is the most likely one to get dinged or destroyed because you're constantly trying not to hit oncoming traffic on the right but not drive into the wall on your left. Fortunately, most of the roads have those little reflectors on the edge and center lines, giving you a "bumpity bump" if you get too close. Gas was terribly pricey of course. Filling up a tank was probably about 65 euros, though we tried to fill up when we reached a quarter tank. Prices didn't seem significantly different from Ireland to the UK, but definitely cheaper on the Ireland side. Probably you'd pay about 10% more in the UK but not like the 100% more it is from the US to Ireland.

The Weather:
I bought a T-shirt that shows the four seasons in Ireland. A sheep is getting rained on in each panel, the only difference is that she has shades in on the summer. Our impression from this week in Ireland is that it rains a lot. We've been told that we had a particularly wet and windy week, though. The nice part is that the rain never seemed to last very long. If it started drizzling, it stopped after about 10 minutes. Of course, it often started again 10 minutes later, but at least it never poured on us. It rained harder during our travel between sites, so we lucked out on that. Carrying an umbrella appeared to be an exercise in futility. The wind flipped the umbrella, or made it challenging to hold, or
just chose to rain sideways and underneath the umbrella. A water resistant wind breaker was key for me. The only time we got soaked was in Carrowkeel, where we basically walking through heavy fog with wind blowing the wetness onto us. If you look at our pictures, there are some lovely photos with blue skies, but the majority of our pictures have ominous clouds in the horizon, a fog on the landscape, or droplets on the camera lens. A beautiful view of the landscape at all the sites would have been nice, but the gloomy and moody fog was fun and interesting too. It did make it tough to find some of the interesting features at a few of the sites (Carrowkeel in particular). I found it cold during the week, and wore several layers to keep comfortable. A hat and gloves were very helpful, as are comfortable water-tight boots. Your hat should tie or otherwise stay firmly in place or you'll lose it to the wind rapidly.

Money:
For 8 days in the Republic of Ireland, I brought 310 euros and for 2 days in Northern Ireland I brought 60 pounds. I ended up needing another 60 pounds in Northern Ireland because the second B&B only took cash (Rest A While). We had more euros than we needed. We charged all our sit down meals and many of our admissions. We charged our Heritage Cards at Newgrange, admission to Carrick-A-Rede, Dunluce, and many others. We had to pay cash at Locke's Museum (Kilbeggan distillery tour) and Glenariff Forest Park. We chose to pay for one of our B&Bs in cash in Ireland to reduce the cash we had on hand. We ended up with 7 pounds and 2 euros leftover. Not bad. My bf was actually happy about the leftover pounds because the 5 pound Irish note has the Bushmills distillery on the back. Nice memento.

Post tomorrow will include the first half of the trip!
suneun is offline  
Old Jun 2nd, 2011, 08:02 AM
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Lots of useful info. Looking forward to hearing the specifics of the trip.
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Old Jun 2nd, 2011, 03:31 PM
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Here's the first half of the day-by-day trip! Tomorrow I'll post the last 4 days of the trip and my closing thoughts. Enjoy!

Sat:
2 pm: Flight arrived in Dublin. Passport check was pretty quick. We took the airlink, the public bus, on a round trip ticket (10 Euros) to the Central Bus Station for hotel. You can buy the "return ticket" at a terminal in the airport, then pick up the green double decker right outside. As you walk into the bus, there's a machine to your right to insert your card. It'll give the card back for you to use for the return trip. The airlink is close to the Aircoach bus, a private line, which is the other common transport into downtown Dublin. I think it really depends on which one drops closer to your hotel. The airlink only has two stops. My hotel suggested the airlink specifically.
3:30 pm: Arrived at Isaacs Hotel
4 pm: Walked around Dublin (Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green, Grafton St). Grafton St was fun to walk through, though we didn't really shop. Nice pedestrian streets with plenty of upscale clothing shops. We only briefly stopped by Trinity College and did not go to see the Book of Kells. The Green is a lovely park and worth walking through.
6 pm: Dinner at the Porter House, got some soda and snacks at a Tesco's. The Porter House is one of the microbrews we went to. My bf enjoyed their beer samplers, especially the Oyster Beer! He found it surprisingly good given his dislike of seafood.
8 pm: Back at the hotel and fell asleep quickly!

Sun:
10:30 am: Headed out of the hotel. We walked down Talbot St, O'Connell St, and Henry St (more shopping areas) but most of the shops were closed.
11:30 am: The inside of Christchurch was closed to tourists due to service, so we walked around it.
12:30 pm: St. Andouen's Church. Free and interesting, quick to stop by if you're in the area.
1 pm: Guinness Storehouse. Not a working brewery, but several floors of walking with displays and audiovisual pieces. Interesting but expensive (E13.50 online ticket). Each person gets a 1/4 pint taster halfway through, then a full pint in one of several bars near the top (the Gravity Bar is the top bar with an excellent view of the city). We saw people standing in line at the first bar, but if you pass it the Gravity Bar had fewer people waiting in line. All in all, we spent two hours there.
3:30 pm: Saw a small ruined church (St. Kevin's Church) on the way to dinner which was open to the public on Camden Row. The church was completely overgrown in ivy.
4 pm: Late lunch at the Bull and Castle. The pub has a lot of microbrews, so my bf tried the Galway Hooker beer and liked it. I particularly liked my spicy onion rings!
5:30: Stopped by 30 Kildare St to see Bram Stoker's once home.
6 pm: Had some beers and dessert at Messrs Maguire, another microbrew. This pub has some lovely woodwork and ambiance.
8 pm: Back at the hotel.

Mon:
7 am: Airlink back to Dublin airport, arriving at 7:45
8:15 am: Off on the road with the Dan Dooley car. The Dan Dooley terminal is in Terminal 1 on the far left as you walk in front the outdoors. The car is a shuttle ride away, which they provide once you check in. We were asked if we wanted to upgrade to the super CDW for approximately USD 200, which we declined. Our car rental was USD 606 for 8 days, automatic, with second driver, and regular CDW. They place a 1500 euro hold on your credit card, and also charge you a refundable 75 euros for gas (if you return the car with the tank full). And no, no accidents for us!
8:55 am: Arrived at Newgrange/Knowth/Dowth, first visitors through the doors! To see both Newgrange and Knowth, they gave us stickers for a 9:45 bus to Knowth and an 11:15 bus to Newgrange. This was the order they suggested for most efficiency. That means we had 35 minutes to spend in the exhibit (plenty) before walking the ~5 minutes to the shuttle stop. Our Knowth tour only had four of us, but Newgrange was full with two busses (about 40 people). At Knowth you can walk into the entrance of the passage tomb, but you can't walk into the passage itself. It's behind a gate and apparently gets pretty narrow. You can walk on top of Knowth, which was VERY windy on our visit. As in, the wind would push you a step or two when it gusted. At Newgrange, we were split into two groups to enter the tomb. It's a large passage tomb though it takes a bit of squeezing if you're on the larger side. I'm 5 feet tall so it was a breeze for me. You spend about 10 minutes inside, taking a look at the three side rooms. They turn off all the lights and shine a flashlight toward the entrance so you can get a sense of the solstice light. Definitely a lovely place to visit, though a shame on the crowds. This is the biggest passage tomb to visit inside. Sadly, no photographs allowed inside the tomb.
12:30 pm: Left Newgrange and arrived at Slane Abbey about 15 minutes later. Free, open site. Very nice Abbey and interesting places to walk around. The Slane, Mellifont, Monasterboice route is popular with tour busses so you may see a tour bus follow your trek.
2 pm: Mellifont Abbey: Bigger but seems more ruinous than Slane. One section was closed for restoration/excavation
3 pm: Monasterboice: Nice tower and high crosses, though you can't go in the tower. Since all four sites (Newgrange, Slane, Mellifont, Monasterboice) are all so close, it's really easy to see them all.
4 pm: Started driving toward Northern Ireland and the Antrim Coast.
6 pm: Got to the scenic section of the A2 past Lorne. There are several parking spots along the A2 for a lovely look at the water. Worth if it's already on your way, but not worth a detour.
7 pm: Arrived in Cushendall for Cullentra B&B
8 pm: Dinner at Upstairs at Joe's (average quality and price)

Tues:
8 am: B&B breakfast
9 am: Layd Church, near Cushendall. A bit hard to find because the sign at the church isn't visible from the Cushendall direction. The church is a short walk from the parking lot and is a free site with no one around. Overgrown small church with the usual gravestones placed within the church. There is apparently a nice walk around the coast here, but it was a few kilometers in length so we chose not to do the whole thing. You can walk a couple minutes down it and see some lovely views though. Worth going if you're nearby but not for a long detour.
10:15 am: Left Layd Church to Glenariff Forest Park. On the way to the park is a gorgeous and long waterfall off the side of the road you can see on the way. There's some parking ahead on the right which is a few minutes walk back to the waterfall. Careful because there are no sidewalks!
10:45 am: Arrived at Glenariff. It supposedly opens at 10 am, but signs at the site suggest that it's open at 8. Parking is 4.40 pounds in coins only! This almost caused a bit of trouble, but we were able to get some change at the park coffee shop next to the parking.
11 am: Started Waterfall Walk. We did the Rainbow Walk detour which was a short (20 minutes?) loop with some more picturesque foliage and moss. No rainbows when we went. The end of the loop had several small trees downed across the path (probably from the major winds from the night before, up to 90 km/hr in Scotland I think I saw) that we climbed over. The Waterfall Walk had a minor diversion shortly after the rainbow walk. We were worried about missing the waterfall, but soon discovered it was only a short section of path that was closed off (and apparently since 2008). We still got to the waterfalls which were lovely. All in all a really nice walk, of medium difficulty (some tiring slopes but even terrain).
1 pm: Left Glenariff for the Torr Rd scenic route. The Torr Rd is a bit scary on the driver given the sharp turns and narrow roads, but offers further lovely views of the coast. The parking for pictures is pretty tough: little patches of dirt or grass on the side of the road that you notice at the last moment. We went down toward Murlough Bay. There is 1 car park, then a road past it. The road past it is a bit steep but manageable for the car. After that is a second car park and another road past it. The road had a sign suggesting that it might be rough going. You should probably walk down that road to the Bay. We weren't feeling adventurous at this point in our trip and stayed near the 2nd car park. We weren't used to the pacing of the trip and had to keep guessing on how long things would take. We saw in the distance in the opposite direction a group of people walking around. It almost seemed like they had gone cave exploring because our zoomed camera showed helmets. We definitely would have explored this area more if we had visited later in our trip and been more comfortable wandering around. There was only 1 other car in both lots, and it was an OPW van.
4 pm: Arrived at Dark Hedges. This is a little spot suggested by another fodors poster. It's a short distance of road with distinctive trees lining it. Worth a short detour but not a long one. (B147 or Ballinlea Rd and Bregagh Rd west of Armoy in Northern Ireland)
5:30 pm; Early arrival at Rest A While. On the owner's suggestion, we went to Giant's Causeway.
6 pm: Giant's Causeway: I don't know if this is due to the construction of the new visitor's center, but the causeway is always open and has free parking after the normal visiting hours. The shuttle isn't running, so it's a 10 minute walk down to the stones but it's a lovely walk. There were about 15 other people at the stones, which is probably a hundred less than during the daytime. Daylight is still strong until 9:30 so it's a great time to visit. We also walked to the Pipe Organ, another 10 minutes away. Just a few hundred meters later is the Ampitheater View which is definitely worth going to. The rest of that walk was shut down years ago due to avalanches, but the amphitheater is awesome. You can see where the trail got destroyed and where it picks up later. I really wanted to do the Cliff Walk above the causeway, but there were two signs indicating that you could not get back to the car park using the cliff walk. This is due to the construction of the new visitor's center I am sure. We were glad when we got back and saw how totally cut off the cliff walk is from the car park. You'd probably have to take a half hour detour through private lands to get back from the end of the walk to the car park, or walk the cliff walk back around.
9 pm: Got to the Smuggler's Inn right at 9, and they graciously seated us even though they were about to close up food for the night.
10:15 pm: Back to the B&B. We wanted to watch a nice sunset but were thwarted by too many clouds. The only clear night for a sunset was our last night, where we saw a lovely pink sky over the Dublin Airport. A shame.

Weds
8:30: Breakfast at the B&B
9:40 am: Headed out finally.
10 am: Carrick A Rede rope bridge, we were the third and fourth people in. They take credit card here, so we charged the admission (E5 per person) to save our pounds. The walk to the rope bridge is a good 10 minutes with some pretty views. The rope was not too bad, though it was moderately windy. They had closed two days before because of the strong winds. You had to hold onto the ropes on both sides as you made your way across. There's a plank about a foot wide in the center, and netting for another 6" on each side. That way you can look down! They tell you a maximum of 8, but I went over it alone so that my bf could take photos of my journey across. There were only four of us on the island for the first 10 minutes, then gradually more people arrived. Once we left the little island, there was a line of 10 people waiting to come across as each side took turns. I thought it was a nice bit of adrenaline with some pretty views. Pretty smooth walk and can be done in tennis shoes.
11:15 am: Reached the car park again, but this time headed down the low quarry road to see the small caves and limestone. The caves are pretty shallow, but there are a lot of interesting flint layers in the rocks. Probably not worth the trip down and back up. Definitely need boots for this kind of walking: lots of limestone rocks to hop along.
12:30 pm: Finished up and headed to Bushmill's Distillery
1:10 pm: Arrived at the Distillery after doing a bit of shopping in the town. Received a 1:40 tour time, so we went back out to bring the car around (we had left it several blocks away). I don't drink whiskey but I enjoyed the tour. It is strong smelling, especially the first room of the distillery. Our tour guide was entertaining and friendly. It's great seeing all the machines processing the wheat, wort, and spirits. What's amazing is that this Bushmills distillery is The Distillery. All of Bushmills come from the machines you watch on the tour. Sadly, no photography allowed because of the high alcohol fumes in the building (avoid any chance of fire). The tour guide told us that fires happen at the distillery and even the day before there was a small fire that caused everyone to evacuate. At the end of the tour you get a choice of their 5, 8, 10, 12, or 1608 anniversary whiskey to taste. The 12 year is exclusive to the distillery and was 34 pounds for 750 ml. The gift shop also happened to be giving out tastes of the 12 year. There are postcards at some of the restaurants and B&Bs in Bushmills for the distillery that give you a 5 pound discount per bottle per postcard. We used two postcards for the two bottles we got. We also got a VAT form, which after rebate makes the bottles about 45 dollars apiece.
3:40 pm: Left the distillery.
4 pm: Dunluce Castle (E4 per person, raised from the E2 I saw online). Elaborate and nice castle to visit with great views. Especially stunning as the castle is right on the edge of a short cliff. You can walk below the castle on a path to go under the bridge. There's a cute small cave that leads to water, here.
5 pm: Left Dunluce
6:30 pm: Arrived at Grianan an Alieach (Ring Fort) back in Ireland. It closes at 7:30 pm, making it one of the later sites. Free. We were the only people there most of the time, with 1 other visitor at times. Got a bit drizzly here. It's a bit of a shame that so much of it is reconstruction, but it's really neat looking. A woman from the OPW arrived promptly at 7:30 to lock up the site. This is one of the many sites that have a long road to the site off of one of the R roads. These roads into the site are single lane and I always felt fortunate that there was rarely anyone coming the other way.
8:30 pm: Arrived at the Villa Rose Hotel in Ballybofey, ate at Fara's.

Thurs:
8 am: Breakfast at the hotel (included in our reservation)
9 am: Left for Kilclooney Dolmen, out in the west.
10:30 am: Found the Kilclooney Dolmen. There is a Dolmen Center and a Church. If you walk from the Dolmen Center toward the church, you cross over a small footbridge. Ahead of the bridge is a path that goes between a house and the church. This is the path you want. Go through the gate, leaving it as you find it (a common theme in Ireland where there are thousands of pastures and thousands of gates). It's maybe 5 minutes down the path, and you'll see the dolmen on your right. It's a good size dolmen with a steep angle on the top stone. Only worth visiting if Dolmens are a focus of your trip, because it seems a bit out of the way location-wise.
11 am: Left Kilclooney Dolmen for the Slieve League (free). We did drive through what I believe is the Glengesh Pass on the way to the Slieve League (look up Glengesh, Ireland in maps google, it's just SW of Ardara). It's a lovely valley with a viewing site at the end of it.
12:30 pm: Arrived at the Slieve League. As you've probably read many other places, there are two parking lots for the slieve league. There are plenty of cars parked in the first lot, and a closed gate that informs you to leave it as you see it. So we opened the gate and drove on through, closing it behind us. The road is windy in one section, with probably only a foot off the road before dropping off partway (not all the way to the ocean). You miss a few interesting views by driving, but it seems like an awfully long and steep walk otherwise. We parked at the upper lot, where there were only about 2-5 cars while we were there. Probably only parking for about 10. It was so windy that the car sways while you're parked. Now, the whole walk to the 595 meter high peak and back is probably a good 7 hours. We went approximately halfway (only about 450 meters high), to where you can see the triple peak next. We stopped a lot to take photos, and did that section in 3 hours round trip. It was tiring and we'd be hard pressed to do the whole thing. Besides the strong winds (generally pointing inland, thank goodness), there was a section of moderately steep rock scramble where the shorter of the two (me) had to grab onto some rocks for safe ascent. There are some great views along the way of course, both of the valley on the inland side and the sea/mountains on your left. The view is probably better on the edge, but that way madness lies. There's a different road with a different parking lot that also converges on the top peak called Pilgrim's Path. If we ever go again, we'd probably try Pilgrim's Path for different views. Part of me wishes that we had skipped Kilclooney Dolmen and only done Slieve League for the day (my original plan), but I think it may have been too tiring and hard for us later on in the path. I'm not an experienced hiker, I just do the occasional moderate hike. And the edge scares me. Probably our toughest hike and we didn't get to the roughest section.
4:30 pm: Left the Slieve League
6 pm?: Saw a sign for Creevykeel Cairn court tomb and dropped in. It's right on the road to Sligo so it was a very easy detour. It's also a big court tomb and very worth the stop. Seems open all the time, free, and empty.
7 pm: Arrived in Sligo
7:30 pm: Dinner at Garavogue (average quality and price)


Tomorrow we will continue with Sligo, Galway, then back to Dublin!
suneun is offline  
Old Jun 3rd, 2011, 05:14 AM
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Very informative. Please continue.
irishface is offline  
Old Jun 3rd, 2011, 04:38 PM
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Here is the last section of my travel journal! It covers the last four days, concluding thoughts, and a selection of links. It even includes my brand new photo album! I'm doing a trial of smugmug.com and will likely purchase an ongoing account. However, if I forget or decide against, the album may not be accessible in two weeks. We shall see.

Fri:
8:30 Breakfast at An Cruiscin Lan
10 am: Sligo Abbey. Really nice Abbey in good condition with some interesting stonework.
11:30: Headed out to Carrowmore
Noon: Arrived at Carrowmore Cairns. Medium sized site with two walking paths to see most of the cairns. The central cairn is the largest, with the stones cleared away so you can see the Listoghil (the name of this central tomb) in the center. There are two dolmen in the other path. This is a nice and easy walk to see each of the stone circles and cairns. You can also drive around the edge of the field (east from the visitor center then right at the next intersection) to see some of the other cairns.
1:30 pm: Arrived at Knocknarea (Queen Maeve's Tomb). This is a steep walk to get to the site, and would benefit from some good boots. When you follow the path up, eventually the fence to your left ends. We accidentally followed the field around to the left though the actual path to the top is straight ahead. Looks a bit steep there. Amazingly, the stone mound has never been explored and they don't know if there's a central chamber. There are some smaller cairns around it, but we didn't have a map to show us where to go. There are some paths off the mound that we chose not to experiment with. Overall this is a tough walk to the site and has a good amount of exploration available on top.
4 pm: Left Knocknarea
5 pm: Arrived at Carrowkeel. Carrowkeel was off the main road by probably 15 kilometers, but had several helpful signs showing the way. Once you get in, there's a small parking area with a gate. Sound familiar? Through the gate is a second parking area with a sign that informs you that the rest of the road is not car safe. There is a dirt road path along the right side, no idea where that goes. The road to the left of the sign is the one to walk on. It goes up the side of the hill quite a ways (maybe a kilometer) to a third parking area which must have been the old parking lot before the road became unusable. There's a sign here for the cairns, with a faint path to the right of the sign. Someone helpfully scrawled "Tombs" on the sign with an arrow pointing right. Climb up, and you will find some awesome cairns. It became foggy and drizzling at this point, due to the height we were at. This made it difficult to see any distance, so we definitely missed seeing some things. However, we crawled into three different passage tombs here. One of them was a small passage whose central chamber appeared to have collapsed. The other two were large enough to allow you to stand in the central chamber. Don't forget your flashlight! These are ungated, open tombs with the ability to really spend time looking looking at the amazing corbelled roofs. We were the only people in Carrowkeel at the time, exploring ancient tombs. They can be a bit tough to get into, requiring a bit of squeeze and crawl. Definitely an awesome site. We wish we had a good map of the area and better visibility. It's a long walk to the site, which keeps many away but it felt quite worth it to us.
7 pm: Left, because of the low visibility fog, wetness, and the worry about the long drive ahead of us. We changed our jeans in the car because they were very damp/wet.
9 pm: Arrived in Galway, promptly getting lost for an hour until we finally found our hotel. We asked directions twice, which were a little helpful but not quite enough.

Sat
9:30 am: Drove to the Galway Market. Parked in the school parking lot next to Galway Market, which is E2 an hour. Galway Market is small, but had some delightful handiwork, especially some silver jewelry at a stall by the jeweler, and a wooden carving jewelry stall by the carver. Also shopped in the neighborhood here, leaving at 11.
12:45 am; Arrived at Kylemore Abbey next to Connemara National Park in Letterfrack. Kylemore wasn't on our list, but we decided to stop by and check it out. It was E12 per person (!) so we chose not to go.
1:30 pm: Started our hike at Connemara, doing a clockwise walk to the top of the mountain and back along the bog road. This was another moderately strenuous walk. Harder than Glenariff, easier than Slieve League. The views on the way up are okay, but the view of the valley behind the mountain is particularly lovely.
4:30 pm: Finished the hike, headed back to Galway along the other road (N59). Seems like the first way (R344) was less curvy and just as picturesque. There were many pretty lakes along the way back. There's a large gift shop along the road here called Joyce's, which basically has every souvenir and tchochke we'd already seen. It does have a funny statue of the "Conn Son of the Sea" that was "built for no apparent reason."
7 pm: Arrived back in Galway at the Oslo for dinner in Salt Hill. Good food and they serve their own Bay ale and lager as well as the regular drought beer selection.

Sun
9:40 am: Left hotel
10:15 am: Arrived at Athenry Castle. Nicely done reconstructed castle, giving a good sense of what the space looks like (when it's not a ruin). No furniture, though. Nearby was a ruined church which we also stopped into. It was locked because it was Sunday, but the grounds were pretty. We also walked around the Athenry visitor centre, which is built attached to another ruined church building.
11:30 am: Left Athenry town
12:30 pm: Stopped by Dunguiare Castle but decided against going in for E6 per person, as it seemed much more commercialized than Athenry. It was also a guided tour, which I tend to like less than self-guided exploration. We did stop by Bishop's Alley, where there was a small ruined church you could walk through. Of note: Bishop's Alley is actually after Corcomroe abbey, but we missed the abbey the first time down the road and had to turn around.
1 pm: Corcomroe Abbey. This was a bit harder to find than it should have been, because the sign leading off the main road only was labeled for a Perfumery. However it's a really great abbey to wander through. It has an intact roof on part of the abbey that is beautiful. Another bonus is that there were only a few other people there.
3 pm: Arrived at the Cliffs of Moher. This had the most people of any of the sites we went to, hands down. There were probably a hundred people wandering around, and I'm sure that was light compared to the summer. Parking was E6 per person, and that includes entrance to the visitor's center though there was no one checking at the center. We breezed through the center and I thought it was a waste of time. I like the design of the center, as it's built underground. I think that's what the Giant's Causeway one will look like, too. There appeared to be some off-road parking people were using about half a kilometer before the parking lot, which would have saved us 12 euros. However, we didn't know if the parking was okay, or whether we'd be asked for tickets later. The frugal could probably walk from there. It's still a bit of a walk to the cliffs, but on well paved road. The cliffs are very pretty, even though they're much shorter than the Slieve League (~200 meters versus 600 meters). Their dropoffs are much more dramatic, making for some beautiful views. There's a section that's well fenced, but then you can walk to the right or left. To the left is a clearly marked sign that it is private property and not to trespass, but dozens of people were on that path. To the right is a narrow dirt path along cliffs that we followed for a little while to get away from the crowds. There were some beautiful views along this walk. So, even though we had already done Slieve League, the Cliffs of Moher proved to be lovely in an entirely different way. Much less scary, too, I might add. This is an easy walk and can be done in regular tennis shoes.
4:30 pm: Left the Cliffs and headed to The Burren. Now, there's The Burren National Park which we did not go to, but also a whole region called The Burren. It has very distinctive rock hills and ground which make it a great area to visit. We went to search for megalithic sites. I had a hard time finding accurate maps for the Burren sites. We were able to find a few of the sites. We found Cahermacnaghten Stone Fort which was labeled with an OPW brown sign. We found Baur North Wedge Tomb which is next to a small road next to a blue barn. We also liked the abandoned farm house near the wedge tomb that has decades of trees and ivy growing on it. The Poulnabrone Dolmen was easy to find, with good OPW signs and a parking lot. There were a surprising number of people here, since it's only the one dolmen. There were about 10 other people during our visit to the dolmen. It has a small rope marker with a sign telling you not to touch the mound or dolmen. None of the other dolmen previously seen on the trip were roped off or signed, but I guess they don't want to risk accidentally toppling the dolmen or injuring the mound it's on. It's a quick walk from the parking lot, includes the wacky Burren landscape, and is a distinctive dolmen. Worth the trip when you're in the Cliffs of Moher area. We could not find the Poulawack Cairn or Poulawack souterrain. There was an OPW brown sign for the cairn, but none on the road of the cairn. We believe that the post for the second sign is there, but the sign is lost. We walked along that area for half an hour and eventually gave up. Apparently it's inward quite a bit, and requires climbing over a rock wall or a fence. Given the very wobbly nature of the rock walls in that area, it seems like a tough journey.
7 pm: Left the Burren with moderate success. There are dozens of ring forts in the area, and you can almost happen upon them accidentally. We found two other ring forts before the Cahermacnaghten (we were on the wrong road), and we saw the Caherconnell Stone Fort from afar but it was closed behind a locked gate after hours. On the way back to Galway, we stopped by a ruined castle along the water. It looked like half a tower, but was really quite neat to see up close. It was on the edge of a private condominium area, so we only had a brief look.
9 pm: Arrived at The Front Door pub just in time to order before the kitchens closed. Good chicken pot pie and great sticky toffee pudding dessert.

Mon
8:45 am: Left, went briefly to a Dunnes Stores for some goodies to bring home then headed to Clonmacnoise
10:15 am: Arrived at Clonmacnoise, where there were already several cars. There were about 25 other people on the site. The high crosses are kept indoors to protect them, with replicas outdoors. This makes sense, given the significant weathering of crosses we had seen before. The crosses are still very detailed and nice. Sadly, you can't go into either tower at Clonmacnoise. The surrounding area of the Shannon River is lovely.
11:15 am: Headed out
Noon: Arrived at Kilbeggan Distillery/Locke's Museum. This is a self-guided whiskey tour. They only do a small batch of kilbeggan on site, but the real draw is the old machinery. The distillery closed in the 1950s, but a few years back they decided to reopen the distillery as a museum. They refurbished and restarted many of the old components, so you can see what distilling used to be like. There's a working water wheel, many connected gears spinning, and their old vats. All the old machinery is just for show, since it's no longer producing any whiskey, but it's still neat. I think it made a good combination with Bushmills, where you can see the mash going with the newer equipment and shiny copper pots. Only about four other people while we were there, at various other points along the tour. You can take as many photos as you like, and you can even see where they keep their boutique barrels waiting to age. The area where you drink the whiskey is set up like an old pub, but you're basically alone to drink the whiskey. Even the person who works there leaves the room after she hands you the glass.
1:30 pm: Left Kilbeggan
2:15 pm: Stopped by Delvin, which has Delvin Castle (OPW owned, but didn't appear open to the public) and a ruined church. The ruined church was neat because it was totally overgrown but unlocked. You could only safely go up the first few steps of the tower (though if you were adventurous you could get further up by scaling part of the wall to the next set of stairs).
3 pm: Arrived at Loughcrew. We knew we had to stop by the Gardens for the key to Cairn T, but when we got to the gardens we were told that the key had already been picked up 10 minutes prior. It's actually fortunate for us that that happened, since it's a 50 euro deposit for the key (which we didn't have at that point) and we'd have to travel back to the gardens to drop it off. The gardens are a couple kilometers from Loughcrew. Once you arrive at Loughcrew, it's still a 10 minute walk up the side of a hill to the site. Nothing too steep or rocky, at least. The Loughcrew passage tomb is really excellent. They have added root bars so daylight streams into the tomb (handy since we forgot our flashlight in the car). What makes it excellent are the intricate artwork on most of the interior chamber stones. Even the ceiling of the back room has designs on it. Great cairn to see. Sadly, many of the other cairns nearby have been previously pillaged and left open. You can see the passages opened up, but they aren't as cool as the closed up cairns. Apparently there's a great passage tomb (Cairn L) on the hill to the west, but it's on private property and gated shut. We considered walking to the Patrickstown hill to look for other cairns, but it's heavily wooded. The drizzling also helped us make up our minds. Plus, I don't think there are any passage tombs on that hill. So, we headed back to try to make the Hill of Tara.
5 pm: Arrived at the Hill of Tara. This is the site of all the kings of Ireland gathering to decide on the High King. The stone of destiny (at least, this stone of destiny) is here. There is a small cairn with a short straight passage tomb (gated, inaccessible). There is a holy well down the road a short walk which has some very clear water. In fact, when we got to the well there was a local man filling up a couple dozen bottles with the water. We chatted with him and he told us that the water tasted better than the main water from town. He was really nice and gave us one of the bottles for us to take some well water home with us. My bf was thrilled because he's fond of holy water.
6 pm: Left the Hill of Tara. We chose to drive straight back to the hotel to give us time to pack and turn in the car.
6:45 pm: Arrived at the Carlton Dublin Airport hotel. This is Dan Dooley's after hours drop off hotel, and is right next to the dan dooley site. We debated eating at the expensive hotel (15-20 euro main dishes) or going somewhere else. We chose to walk 15 minutes to the Kealy's Restaurant near the airport. Good burger, though my thai chicken dish was not thai at all. On the walk back, we saw a lovely sunset with pinks and purples. A shame it wasn't over a more scenic view than the airport, but it was a great sunset nonetheless. The next morning we headed back to the US. We flew through Paris, and I found the Charles de Gaulle airport pretty stressful. The Dublin to Paris plane uses a shuttle (CityJet) to get back to the terminal which adds quite a bit of time. Both layovers we had to go through security a second time, which was stressful given our short layover (1.5 hours). They have a faster queue for people with short layovers but it can move slowly. Both times we arrived to our terminal just as boarding was scheduled to start. Closer than I like.

In Closing:
We loved our trip to Ireland. It was packed full and tiring, but it was tiring primarily because of the frequent hikes we took. It's hard to say what we should have left out or should have added. I think I would have spent more time at Layd Church, Murlough Bay, Carrowkeel, Slieve League, and the Burren. I wish we could have gotten to Ciede Fields and the Kesh Caves but the Ciede fields were pretty far from us and I only read about Kesh Caves after we got home. I always think we should take more photos and buy more gifts (even though we had about 2000 photos from the trip!). "Hidden gem" highlights of the trip were Sligo Abbey, Corcomroe Abbey, Carrowkeel, and the Ampitheatre view at Giant's Causeway. I would have looked for a more detailed map that shows the L roads and all the minor OPW sites. I might have skipped the Connemara National Park and Kilclooney Dolmen in favor of more time elsewhere. Connemara National Park was lovely but not drastically different from the other beautiful scenes we had already enjoyed and was quite a drive from Galway. The Kilclooney Dolmen was not too out of the way but did cut into our Slieve League time. I would have searched more specifically for which destinations are still open after regular hours. I wish we had had sunnier weather but the fog and drizzle and wind offered their own entertaining and delightful scenes. Thank you for reading and feel free to ask any questions.

Helpful Websites
For Carrowkeel, Loughcrew and many other megalithic sites, http://www.carrowkeel.com/ has great descriptions and maps.
For exact map destinations, http://www.travelmania-ireland.com/ was invaluable. It also shows hundreds of interesting places to visit.
To keep an ongoing list of destinations, try using maps.google.com saved maps function. It isn't as versatile as I like, but it was very helpful to keep all our locations centralized.
To see our maps.google saved map (we didn't go everywhere listed), use this link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...ff1c693cdf&z=7
To see the Burren megaliths map made by Megalithic Ireland, use this link: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...4,2.304382&z=9
To see my photo album of Ireland, see http://clarakim.smugmug.com/Travel/I...7370325_jcCnn5
suneun is offline  
Old Jun 5th, 2011, 11:25 AM
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Very nice report. I love your photos too!
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Old Jun 5th, 2011, 05:12 PM
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Thorough report and interesting photos. Thanks for sharing.
irishface is offline  
Old Jun 6th, 2011, 07:29 PM
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I just uploaded all the photos of maps and information boards from our trip. They're not labelled yet, but they're fairly obvious.

http://clarakim.smugmug.com/Travel/I...7425107_v22Qw4

I hope these are helpful!
suneun is offline  
Old Jun 6th, 2011, 07:31 PM
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Sorry, also wanted to add: these maps were uploaded at original size, so if you can't read the text in the images, please click on the image then click on the "O" for original size. It's very very large (10 megapixels).
suneun is offline  
Old Jun 13th, 2011, 04:48 AM
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Quite informative. Sure it will be useful.
greatdiscovery is offline  
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