This May we took a trip to Ireland for some outdoor adventures -- cycling and hiking in the western part of the country, specifically the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. This trip was conceived of and then organized in equal parts by Amy and her friend Alyson (she and her husband Chris came along for the trip).
Wednesday May 6th, Thursday May 7th
Aer Lingus to Dublin -- a bit squeezy but tolerable, and the lines for customs and baggage were manageable. Cabbed it into the city our hotel, the Mespil. We had a decent experience there, it was comfy and the location was nice: quiet, not too far from the city center, located along an old canal. Rooms were reasonably spacious, adequate gym in the basement. Photo of the canal:
After dropping off our luggage at the hotel we had breakfast at a local place, High Nelly's, then wandered for a while in the central part of the town. Tour around noon of Trinity College plus a walk through the library there with a set of exhibits on the Book of Kells. You can't actually see much of the physical book itself (for obvious reasons) but the exhibits were interesting and the various reproductions of the more interested pages were cool.
The college tour was also fun; our tour guide was an enthusiastic student (senior) named Katie. It sounds as though the university is very international, they draw folks from all over the place.
Dinner at a restaurant called Mr Fox -- top notch meal, food was superb. Slightly odd space for a restaurant (it is all at basement level, and you have to get buzzed in, sort of like a speak-easy) but other than that everything was fantastic.
Dublin has no subway, so if you want to get from point A to point B you have to use the streets in some way or another (walk, bike, drive, take the bus). Double-decker buses are everywhere, it seems like an amazing number of them zooming around. For some reason the city if Dublin doesn't seem to make it easy to get transit payment cards, but for most rides you can pay cash, so you bring along your two euro coins and you are good to go. Navigation apps (e.g. Google Maps) make it very easy to find out just exactly which bus you need to catch to get to your destination.
Friday May 8th
Early-ish breakfast in the area, then onto the bus to head west for a tour at the Kilmainham Gaol, an old prison that's been rehabbed and turned into a museum. The tour was good, and featured an unflinching look at the brutal/rocky process the Irish went through in achieving independence (many false starts, lots of suffering and bloodshed, but finally success in the mid 1920s). This particular prison had some activity back in the era of the famine (mid nineteenth century) but then was used much more heavily to house various Irish revolutionaries and dissidents; there were numerous executions of the uprising ringleaders that took place there.
Various wanderings and explorings on foot after the museum, eventually winding up back at the central part of town closer to the university and to our hotel.
Lunch at Brother Hubbards -- sort of an earthy/crunchy place with fairly decent veggie meals (also very good patatas bravas). Dinner at Uno Mas -- miniscule bar-like place with lots of energy and a good menu of spanish-inspired small plates (this one was recommended by our dog park friend Stephanie). The vibe at Uno Mas:
Later that evening we made our way to the theater to see the play "Shirley Valentine", a 1-woman show featuring the actress Norma Sheahan, who played the part to perfection (we all enjoyed it). Shirley Valentine first debuted in the 80's as a film, but it seemed to work just fine forty years later as a play, as far as we could tell.
Saturday May 9th
A tour in the morning at the Little Museum of Dublin, an old house located on the edge of St Stephens Green. At one point a residence, it has been converted into a museum filled with artifacts from Irish life over the last few hundred years; the visit involves listening to a tour guide talk about the house contents and about Irish history for about 45 minutes. It was entertaining, and we learned a few more bits about the history of the country and the area.
After that we eventually made our way over to the Guinness Storehouse for a brewery tour. The Guinness place is located in an area of the city called "The Liberties"; we had lunch there at a small bakery that specialized in Argentinian cuisine (empanadas and such).
The Guinness tour was fun although astonishingly crowded; it had a very strong "Disneyland-visit" quality to it in terms of the numbers of folks pushing through (by all indications it is one of the most popular tourist sites in the city). The tour takes place in a large building that used to house brewery operations, but has now been converted into an ersatz museum; you start on the ground floor and wind your way up six floors (taking in exhibits along the way), finishing at a rooftop tap room where you enjoy a pint while looking out over the city (walls are all glass).
Dinner at Mulligan Grocer, a medium sized cafe / brasserie that had a sort of "comfort food" feel to it.
Sunday May 10th
Off to the train station, bright and early. Since we had all our bags we decided to cab it, successfully cramming all four people with bags into a Toyota Prius and zooming off to Euston station.
The train ride was nice, good views of the countryside and the myriad farms spread out all over the countryside. As the train progressed westward we began to see more and more folks clambering on wearing team uniforms, and then when we reached the town of Mallow (second to last stop before Killarney) the trickle became a flood; before we knew it the train was absolutely packed with football fans on their way to a big match. Unbeknowns to us, the national champions County Kerry were playing their rivals County Cork in a bi-annual game, and so the train was absolutely jammed with people of all ages (mostly younger folks and kids). Lots of energy! Getting off in Killarney took quite a while to allow the multitudes to make their way out.
We lugged our luggage to the B&N (Algrets House), a couple of kilometers so it was a bit of a slog, ugh. Weather was good, however. After that we walked back into town for a bite to eat. We chose "The Zone", a good pick: weird mix of very Irish-styled breakfast food and not-at-all-Irish Asian-styled rice and noodle dishes.
Later in the afternoon the tour folks turned up and ferried us over to the bike rental place, where we picked up bikes (e-bike for Alyson, regular bikes for the others) and did a nice short 10 mile-ish ride out into the national park and back. Bike paths for that ride were excellent, they've clearly put a lot of effort into establishing them. We also had nice views of the Muckross House (a huge 19th centry mansion house) and Muckross Abbey, a ruined abbey along the path.
Dinner at Quinlin's, a local fish place (super popular).
Monday May 11th
After breakfast at the B&B (Algret House) we cycled our way down to Ross Castle down on the shore of the lake, then embarked on a fairly small open-air boat ride that would deliver us to the start of our longer bike ride ("Gap of Dunloe"). The boat ride was mostly enjoyable but quite chilly/windy, and also seemed to involve intermediate stops of various sorts (including at a ruined monastery at an island), so it took a good deal longer than we had anticipated.
The route took us through all three of the lakes in the park, starting with the largest one, then threading our way under a small bridge into another more medium-sized lake, and then into a much smaller waterway that connected up with the final lake (this included a couple of places where we had to get off the boat to allow the boatman to wrangle the boats past some very narrow areas). We finally arrived at the south edge of the smallest lake around lunchtime, so we stopped at a cafe there and had some hot tea and some snacks.
From there it was onto our bikes (yay), which the boat guys had toted along the whole way, and off tot eh easst along Black Valley for our ride. The route then took us north and up steeply and over a sort of saddle, then into a narrow valley between two big mountains (this was the "Gap"). Very scenic, fun to ride (it was downhill through the gap after getting up to the saddle). From there it was a long winding route that took us north back into Killarney. Quite a nice outing overall, windy and cool but not freezing (especially since we were able to warm up on the big climb at the beginning). The final part of the ride was along smallish roads, then a segment on bike paths on the approach to Killarney, so we didn't have to contend with too much traffic.
Ross Castle:
Tuesday May 12th
Hiking day today; we had a transfer from our B&B off to a spot in the park called Galway's Bridge, then from there we hiked through the national park and all the way back to the inn in Killarney, around 16 km. The first half of the hike was great, we were on trails in the park up in the mountains, weather quite nice, lots of good views. We encountered a scattering of other hikers, then round the corner came a big group of what looked like high school seniors, around 60 or 70 of them, whew. They were a well behaved bunch though, so not a big deal.
We stopped for lunch at the Torc Mountain waterfall, then eventually connected up with the bike path on which we'd ridden during our first day in Killarney, and hoofed our way back into town. The section from Torc back to the B&B was a bit of a grind, I think if I had been given the opportunity to hop in a cab partway along I would have taken it.
Dinner at Hannigans restaurant (adequate but nothing to write home about).
Wednesday May 13th
Checked out of our B&B and hopped into a cab for a transfer to Dingle around 9:30 in the morning. Drive is a bit over an hour; the scenery was nice, some excellent ocean views to the south including Inch Beach, which looked spectacular. Cooler then the day before and quite windy, with intermittent bursts of rain. About 11km or so before Dingle the driver stopped to allow Chris and I to hop out; we opted to walk the last section into town while Amy and Alyson continued on.
Nice walk albeit a little soggy in parts; we had maybe a bit more than an hour or so of rain mixed in with wind and sun. The rain was light however, more like misting than bucketing, so it was an enjoyable hike overall. Lots and lots of sheep! The route took us along small roads and eventually agricultural paths running along fence borders, so lots of sheep poop and hiking across and along fields. This was along the official "Kerry Way", so the signage was very good. Nice views to the south of the ocean and the valley below. It took us a couple hours but we eventually rolled in around 12:45 or so.
After joining up with Amy and Alyson we had lunch at a seafood place ("The Fish Box"). Decent grub but nothing in comparison with what you can get in Dublin...
Dingle seems like a nice town; much smaller than Killarney however.
In the evening we went to hear a small concert of Irish music; Amy and Alyson had ferreted out the event bought tickets for a 7:30 performance. Two older guys played together for an hour or so, one with a guitar and the other alternating between the pipe and a set of Uilleann pipes; they were quite good. Then after a break a couple of younger women, one playing the violin and the pipe and the other playing the harp. We had a lovely time.
Thursday May 14th
We had originally hoped to do the big 40km Slea Head bike ride today, but the weather forecast really did not look great, so we decided to punt the bike ride to Friday and find other things to do. The Dingle Distillery tour that Chris and I booked was willing to move up our session a day (thanks to them) so we had that from 4-5, but we were at odds and ends starting out the day. Alyson and I walked down to drop off some laundry and on the way back we visited the tourist information center; the lady there took one look at us and in a very imperious voice told us that we should visit the Blasket Island center (out on the western tip), pointing out that we could just take the bus there. It was a good suggestion; the bus ride was simple and easy and the center itself was interesting. Lovely building and exhibition space, lots of skylights and perched out on a bluff overlooking the ocean and with views of the island itself.
Blasket Island is the absolute westernmost part of Ireland, and functioned as a sort of primitive enclave for many centuries; folks there eked out a living in the traditional ancient ways ways right up until the start of the 20th century. At that point the draw of civilization became too strong and the population trickled away, finally emptying out completely in the 1950s. We had a bowl of soup at the center cafe afterwards, which worked out just fine, then took the bus back to Dingle.
The whiskey tour was also interesting. The Dingle Distillery got started around 2010 or so, when a couple of local guys decided that they should be able to carry over their knowledge of brewing beer into the whiskey business. Post-financial-meltdown it was virtually impossible for them to get a bank loan, so they self-financed the whole thing "McGuyver" style, convincing people do buy casks of whiskey in advance (they must have been excellent salesmen). The whiskey we had was quite good, lots of interesting flavors, plus numerous intriguing smells from the ongoing potions and concoctions being brewed up on site while we were there. Chris and I enjoyed it; we were definitely more than a bit wobbly on the walk home after trying almost a half dozen different glasses of the stuff.
Friday May 14th
Today was a bit over-scheduled, since we had to pick up our rental bikes and then immediately zoom off for an archeology tour from 10 to 1:30. We arrived at the bike place at 9am on the dot, then had to wait for a half hour (grumble) since the guy running it was out delivering bikes in his van. We collected our bikes, looked them over quickly, then headed back off to the B&B to drop them off before the tour. It did not take long (couple of hundred yards ride) to realize that the bikes were complete junkers -- the one I was riding had a rear wheel that was heavily out of true, the gears were making really unpleasant noises on the climb up the hill, and the brakes were soft. We had no time to go back and correct the situation though, so we stashed the bikes and went to hop on the bus for the archeology tour.
The tour itself was good, lots of detailed material about the early history of folks living in Ireland starting at 4000 bc and working all the way up into the 19th century. We saw a good number of interesting ruins and artifacts and buildings: "Ogham" stones, bee-hive stone huts, ring forts, a sacred spring (apparently they have these all over county Kerry), ruins of one sort or another, and couple of ancient churches. Good stuff.
Admiring one of the sacred wells:
Bowl of chowder for lunch, and then at that point we went back to the bike shop to renegotiate our rides. I had sent a message to tour folks (IrelandWalkBikeHike) and when we got there the bike guy was willing to exchange our bikes for something different; Chris and I wound up with a couple of e-bikes (they looked much more modern than the ones we'd been given earlier); these proved to be acceptable if not exemplary rides. The 40km bike tour around Slea Head was nice -- lovely views of the ocean out to the west, roads very narrow and mountainous but traffic reasonably well behaved (I did not feel in any danger). The weather also cooperated, we were sprinkled just a couple of times for a few minutes (that's about the best you can hope for in this area).
Final dinner at Land to Sea, a nice restaurant in Dingle.
Saturday May 16th
We packed our bags and said goodbye to the Devanes B&B, hopped in a van and did drive over to do another big hike. This one was from Cloghane to Annascaul, around 15km, 500 meters of elevation gain. Weather was decent, it was a mix of sun and clouds and light rain, just a bit of the latter. Windy and cool, 50's overall with cooler temps up at the higher elevations. The terrain was very reminiscent of Iceland -- everything green, lots of grass growing, sheep dotted all over the hillsides. Quite steep in places but nothing too scary, and clearly the sheep had been all over every part of the territory.
This particular route was clearly not a super-popular hike (unlike the various Kerry Way segments), but in fact that made it all the better -- it was great to have the route almost entirely to ourselves, and get a chance to soak in a bit more remote part of the country. We saw one farmer guy in the hike in, then one walker a couple of hours later closer to Annascaul, but that was it. The path was easy to follow in most parts although there were a few confusing bits on the hike up.
Transfer from Annascaul back to Killarney, then dinner in Killarney town at an Indian restaurant. New B&B, "Asheville" house, a nice joint.
Sunday May 17th
A travel day for us -- we had our breakfast, did some minimal shopping for lunch supplies, then cabbed it over to the train station to head back to Dublin. Lots of folks getting onto the train, definitely the sort of ride where you absolutely need a reservation. Dark clouds threatening-- for a while it looked like we were going to get dumped on just while we were standing on the platform waiting for the train to pull in, but it held off for the most part.
We stayed at the Hyatt in the "Liberties" section of town, it had a bit of the "big American chain hotel" vibe to it but the rooms were nice. Dinner at "Proof" trattoria, decent grub overall.
Monday May 18th
Off to the USA once again. The Dublin airport has the admirable quality of having a US customs office embedded into it, so you can actually go through customs there instead of having to tackle the giant scrum in Logan when you get back. We had no problems on the return, it was a decent flight.
All in all a very enjoyable visit!
