To be honest, four weeks ago no one was planning to travel; more than that, Ireland wouldn't be my #1 choice as a travel destination. Nevertheless, four weeks ago I was paying my monthly bills, sitting in PJ's with a cup of coffee in front of a laptop. Once I finished transferring money to my internet provider, credit cards, and insurance, I realized that the situation didn't look too pessimistic. So to treat myself with something positive, I opened a website with air tickets. What a surprise! Tickets to Dublin were cheap and pretty attractive. So here it started. The next two weeks were extremely busy with work and home, but time after time I was checking the options as to what to do and where to stay in Ireland.
I will write about our travel in more detail, but my first post is going to be about Day 3 of our journey.
I had a few goals for my trip:
- To see puffins
- To visit Galway and see if it's suitable for moving there
- To try real Irish Whiskey in a truly Irish Pub
- To visit a real Christmas Market
- To buy my favorite chocolate bars, Nuts, which we do not have in Canada.
Should I say that most of those goals were not achieved?
Anyway, on day three we had a trip to the Cliffs of Moher and the city of Galway. Ireland is a very popular tourist destination, and therefore multiple companies offer a big variety of tours around the island. My idea was to sit in the bus less and see more. Therefore, the companies that offered just Cliffs or 1 hour at the Cliffs and 30 minutes in Galway were out of the question even if their prices were attractive. Actually, as a Canadian I'd say that most of the prices are very reasonable. So I selected Finn McCool's Tours, which is a relatively new company with a good selection of activities. As a bonus to any of their bus tours, they also offered a free walking tour in the centre of Dublin.
The biggest challenge with the tour wasn't the long ride or long distance between sources of food. The tour was starting at 6-45 AM on the north side of the city centre. To get there on time we had to wake up at 5 AM, which was exactly midnight back home! To help us survive the early morning joy of public transit, it was raining like crazy that morning! By the time we reached our white tour bus we got soaked on the transferring stops.
Nevertheless, we found the bus and didn't arrive late for the tour.
If you've been in the mountains or on islands before you probably noticed that most of the time there the sun slowly goes down and all of a sudden the sky turns dark. You won't see dramatic sunsets, long -winded extinction of the daylight. The night starts all of a sudden when the Sun disappears somewhere on the West. Same in the morning - do not expect a bright sunrise that sets the sky on fire, the day will start by its schedule almost like someone opens the door into the dark room.
So first two hours of our tour we didn't see anything but a dark highway and the black sky. When we got to our first coffee stop, the sky turned into gray, but there were no sign of the sun in the sky. Later someone turned on the switch and the day started. Our tour, except Irish history and legends on the way to the West coast, started from the Kilmacduagh monastery. It was founded in 7th century, ruined in 13th century and nowadays serves as a graveyard for a local village.
The rain almost stopped when we were leaving the monastery, so I really hoped for a nice weather at the Cliffs.
Unfortunately, a thick fog was waiting for us at the Cliffs of Moher. Knowledge of the Cliffs height together with the fog was giving a surrealistic feeling of being lost on the other planet. On the trails, we could see the end of the earth and nothing else - the world was hidden behind a white blanket.
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