In between jobs (I’ve moved from Thismoment to Bigcommerce), I visited Ireland with my mom. It was a whirlwind tour that involved lots of wrong-side-of-the-road driving (with mom-screaming), some rain, and lots of beautiful scenery.
Some highlights:
Seeing how cute Galway is and going for a run along the water there. Mom had her first Spanish tapas and hard cider there.
Driving through County Clare, seeing the Burren and visiting the Burren Centre in Kilfenora. We visited a pub for lunch thanks to my gluten issue, where I ate a decent bacon-and-cabbage meal during someone’s 50th birthday party. For the party there was music, live accordion, singing, and bodhran. It was wonderful, and mom bought the singer a pint. “Those American girls wanted to get you a pint.”
Seeing the Cliffs of Moher, which are awesome in a literal sense of the word. We hiked around a bit and got a decent view- surprising with the foggy weather.
Staying in a former convent at the Bunratty Mews Guest House, run by the lovely Dolores. Yummy food, festive room 🙂
Driving over the Conor Pass to the Dingle Peninsula. Mom was a bit nervous since it was a scary one lane road, and you could see approximately 10 feet in the fog. Seeing Dingle in its riot of green was amazing.
Going around the Ring of Kerry (if you can only do Dingle or Ring of Kerry, I’d say do Dingle Peninsula) and seeing a ring fort was also quite nice, and the drive not nearly as harrowing as on Dingle.
Driving 3 hours through the fog on narrow winding roads to Kinsale, where we stayed at the Anchor Lodge. Richard, our host, even drove us into town to Fishy Fishy, where I had the best fish I’ve eaten in my life. Fresh, a little bit sweet, and well prepared. Yum!
Then back to Dublin where we ate, somehow found our hotel, saw the Book of Kells and Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced “jail”), and went on a pub music crawl on Halloween night. We visited several pubs and enjoyed learning about and hearing Irish traditional music from two professional musicians. Highly recommended!
I’d love to see more of that lovely country some day 🙂