Ireland was fun. Different enough that we knew beyond a doubt that we were in a different place but familiar enough that eating, sleeping, shopping, getting around and talking to people were enjoyable and manageable experiences. Well…almost. Driving was a challenge, especially when I chose routes that avoided toll roads. In such cases we were often on roads maybe just wide enough for two compact cars, but sometimes only wide enough for one car. Driving the narrow lanes involved backing up, pulling over, stopping and communicating with drivers coming from the opposite direction. While it was a bit nerve-racking, I am not sorry that we traveled some of these roads…beautiful farms, hills in many many shades of green, and tiny villages lie along them.
I took my Bike Friday with me, hoping for many hours of exploration by bike. On tv, the Irish countryside looks like a great place to explore by bike. However, when I saw the country roads and the narrow streets weaving through towns, I hesitated to set out on unfamiliar roads that could quickly become very narrow. Instead, I took just a few short rides and that occasionally included riding on sidewalks. Before the trip, I had read about some recommended bicycle adventures…all I can say is that you must have a high tolerance for riding in close proximity to cars to have fun on some of the suggested routes.
In Dublin, and after a day of walking all over the city, I discovered bike lanes along a canal as well as along the River Liffey and around St. Stephen’s Green…it took a while to familiarize myself with the city and figure out the logic of the routes. It’s that way in towns and cities with bike lanes…they are generally planned to serve particular functions; if you don’t understand their purposes, it will take a while to find them and work out where they run. And I had expected to walk a lot during our trip…so mostly we explored places together on foot.
Before our trip, we had watched so many travel shows about Ireland that I was not surprised by the narrow roads (although no one mentioned that drivers go just as fast on narrow roads as on main highways), but it was amazing to see a landscape actually as beautiful as it seems on tv. In County Clare, we saw the well-known Cliffs of Moher, but also other lesser known cliffs along this same stretch of coastline…almost as magnificent as the Cliffs of Moher but with far fewer visitors. (I think I took the photo below at the Cliffs of Kilkee.) The bits and pieces of Ireland’s west coast that we saw are all part of something called the Wild Atlantic Way, 1600 miles of scenic coastline that you could probably easily spend a couple of weeks exploring.
Generally, we kept time spent at the major tourist sites to a minimum. In Dublin we walked to the Guinness Factory, hoping to visit the Gift Shop, but discovered that there was a long line just to get in the building even if you only wanted to buy souvenirs, and you had to pay for the privilege of entering the building at all. The biggest ‘touristy’ thing we did in Dublin was the literary pub crawl. Of course, the tour began at a pub with stories and music by our two hosts, who then led us around the city center to three more pubs as well as through the grounds of Trinity College and to St. Andrews Church to see the Molly Malone statue outside it. Our hosts were genial and the rest of the folks on the tour were there to have a good time and had interesting travel stories to tell. I would do this tour again because it was an easy and relaxing way to have a bit of fun and learn a little of the history of Dublin.
From Dublin we drove to Ennis which was our home base for exploring County Clare. The distances aren’t great, and navigating with the aid of google takes most of the guess work out, but it still takes time, especially on the small roads and lanes, so most of a day was taken up with the drive between Dublin and Ennis. I found the driving tiring so we worked in a couple of days that did not include too much time in the car. Before we went, we had already decided that our goal wasn’t to see as much as possible in a week; rather, we wanted to enjoy our time as much as possible, no matter how little or how much we saw and did.
I would be remiss not to mention castle sightings during our trip because if you watch travel shows on Ireland, you see castles. On the first day of our trip, right after we landed and picked up our rental car, we drove to Trim and saw our first Irish castle just as we entered the town. And on our last night in Ireland, we stayed in Kilkenny, across a river from the castle in the center of that town. Somehow we weren’t really interested in touring castles, but we walked around the perimeters of these two and spent time just looking at them…they are so not contemporary (both were originally built in the 1100s to 1200s), and while I have no idea how well they are maintained inside, from the outside both are still imposing…seemingly part of a world very different from mine. I guess that is what makes them so interesting? How were they built? Why have they lasted for hundreds of years? What was it like to live in a castle? Many local folks, however, clearly did not have these questions in mind that morning in Trim. There is a hiking path along the river across from the castle that is much in use by morning walkers. While we strolled, trying to take in the castle and surrounding town, locals zipped by us at a purposeful pace indicating that they knew where they were and where they were going. They were not suffering the sense of disorientation that we were experiencing. I guess if you live next to a castle, it eventually becomes as familiar as the corn fields and farmhouses surrounding our home are to me.
Questions, curiosity, a bit of disorientation, are all part of travel, and ultimately make it satisfying. We returned home with memories of new sights, sounds, and tastes, as well as with a renewed appreciation of home.
Our trip was fun partly because we slowed down, asked questions, and let people around us help us make decisions. I’m glad that we did not sign up for additional organized tours. A few short tours might be ok…but I don’t think I’d enjoy spending whole days following pre-determined schedules. When we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher, and later at The Visitors’ Center in The Burren, we could see that folks on bus tours were obligated to try to do the same things at the same time as everyone else on their tours, creating congestion: in food lines, restrooms, gift shops, at the easily accessible points of the cliffs, anywhere they stopped. Despite the higher quotient of uncertainty, there is something to be said for planning your own travels…if that is an option.
My favorite part of our trip was the time spent wandering, not knowing exactly what we would see along the way. In Dublin, in Ennis, and along the lesser known parts of the County Clare coast, we did see some sights that we had anticipated visiting, but some of the best moments occurred when we experienced the unanticipated: small shops all along the main street in Ennis, the pedestrian walkway along the River Liffey in Dublin, the cozy pub in the Schoolhouse Hotel (where we stayed in Dublin), and the miles and miles of rugged coastline along the narrow lanes of County Clare. Travel shows offer some of the best tv programming, and I have my favorites. But traveling is very different, personal, and if you’re lucky, with lasting effects that remain long after you have unpacked your suitcase and returned to your daily routine.
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