Day 5 - Ireland Adventure

Kenmare to Galway

Ring of Kerry is a wonderful drive, as we've said, but to see the real beauty, you have to get off the road,

and venture into places like Killarney National Park

to get an eyeful of wonderful sights like the Torc Waterfall.

We're getting better at taking Selfies. Kind of.

We left the Ring of Kerry and road to the small town of Listowel.

It isn't on many people's must see in Ireland lists, but Listowel is the Quinlan Ancestral Home, so we had to pay a visit.

The first thing you see in Listowel is St Mary's Church, which is the Quinlan Ancestral Church.

Even though it is almost 200 years old, it's still used every day and still holds all that great old energy.

Directly across the street from St. Mary's is another very big, old, grand church, that we were told was the Protestant church in town. I have no doubt there's quite a story on the two churches if we dig deep enough.

Listowel Castle was another of our favorite sight-seeing spots. The castle is a Anglo-Norman castle dating back to the 1400s that has been renovated by the Office of Public Works.

Probably what made it such a pleasure to visit (other than the fact that the tour was free) was our tour guide, Morgan,

who had story after story about the building, architecture and daily life at the castle.

After a quick lunch, we headed north towards the Cliffs of Moher. Right in the middle of our ride was a lovely fjord, that we opted to ferry across rather than ride around.

Back on land, we'd only ridden a little bit when Quilty Beach came into view.

Since it was still really hot, and the water looked inviting we stopped for ice cream and a little sea-side break.

Then made our way to the Cliffs of Moher.

We've mentioned many times that we get up and going very early...basically to avoid crowds of tourists...wherever we go. It works great 90% of the time. Today wasn't one of those times. Granted, we didn't expect to get this far north any earlier than mid-afternoon which is about when we arrived at the Cliffs of Moher.

Even though we mentally prepared for the onslaught, it was epic test of patience. I can't believe we got any pictures without 1000 people in the shot.

Apparently we aren't the only ones who don't thrive in crowds

There were seriously two rooms at the edge of the cliffs with big windows and a soothing water feature where people could just sit and contemplate not strangling other human beings.

It was worth it dealing with all the other tourists, though.

We tore ourselves away from the Cliffs and ended the day in Galway, where we did nothing but grab something to eat and call it a day.

Day 4 - Ireland Adventure

Kilkenny to Kenmare

I am familiar with really old European things (as opposed to really old American things) from my College-in-Europe days, but it never ceases to amaze us when we can see, and touch, really, really old stuff...Like old castles, such as Cahir Castle near Dunaske and built in 1142.

and super old castles, like the Rock of Cahsel dating back to 1097 in Country Tipperary.

These were just our first two stops on Day 4, both before 10 am. We had an action packed day waiting for us so we started with the sunrise.

Since this was prime tourist season, and we were in the middle of the most sought after places to see in Ireland, we were making our way from Kilkenny to Kenmare, in the southwest part of the island, via the most remote roads we could find.

Side note: we've spent 10 years using our trusty, very portable, tripod to take pictures of the two of us...and I'm thinking we should have broken it out more than once on this trip. Selfie taking is not our specialty.

We sidetracked a little and made our way to Tipperary. Just because, well, it's a long way to Tipperary.

Then stopped in Killarney for sweater shopping (which was pretty miserable in 90+ weather).

And had lunch at....

QUINLAN'S SEAFOOD BAR!

Yes, apparently the members of Sean's family that stayed in Ireland were very enterprising. There are several of these restaurants scattered around the country. The server wasn't overly impressed with Sean's last name ("Quinlans stop by here all the time") but the food was good and it was a fun stop for us.

With our stomachs full, and nice warm wool sweaters packed on the back of the bike, we road to the Ring of Kerry, a 111 mile long road, famous for its incredible views and stunning scenery.

And Irish traffic jams

We stopped several times during the day, but our favorite stop was a waterfall in the Gap of Dunloe that you could barely see from the road.

So we took advantage of the complete un-crowdedness, isolation and cool water on such a hot day with a little dip...

...of our feet in the cold mountain water. It felt SO good.

By the way, motorcycle boots are really hot and heavy.

Back on the bike, we headed to our stop for the night.

Side note: I took a lot of scenic pictures on this stretch of the Ring of Kerry, and they all have this odd streak of light in them

I figure it's either an Irish Angel blessing us as we rode

or a Leprechaun showing us his pot of gold.

or just some gunk on my camera lens that caught the sun.

Anyway, back on the bike, we headed to our stop for the night at Davitts Hotel in Kenmare.

We have a very enjoyable evening walking around town, listening to music,

and visiting the Irish Establishments. We ended up stay up much later than we'd planned, talking to the locals, which made getting up super early (again) the next morning kind of painful.

Day 3 Ireland Adventure

Dublin to Kilkenny

We woke up ready to roll, literally. This was the day we'd talked about, planned for and anxietied over for months...the day we started our motorcycle ride around Ireland.

We taxied down to the small suburb of Kill, to Celtic Rider, a family-owned company that organizes motorcycle tours of the island, and more importantly, rents motorbikes to Americans who are foolish/adventurous enough to take on the Irish roads.

We were fitted for our motorcycle gear and attended an orientation by Paul, Celtic Rider's owner. The orientation gave us  a lot of  great information and reminders. "Drive Left. Look Right" became our mantra.

Finally we were ready to take off. We both are willing to admit to being kind of nervous - driving on the 'wrong' side of the narrow, windy roads, road signs in Irish and English and mileage in kilometers, and navigating through very unfamiliar territory.

Sean took off first for a short ride with Paul to get a feel for the bike and roads.

We had originally planned on renting a Harley, since that's the bike we know, but over the course of our planning Paul convinced us that a BMW would handle the Irish roads much better. So that's what we were riding

Once Sean got his wheels under him, we took off, following Paul down the road for a while just to get used to the BMW, the narrow roads, the signs and the completely alien atmosphere.

We parted ways at Piper's Stones in County Wicklow, but not before Paul encouraged us to take a short hike across a field to an ancient stone circle - our first glimpse of structures that predated anything in the United States by thousands and thousands of years.

 The stone circle was fascinating, dating back to the Bronze Age - and no, there was no humming or accidental stumbling back two centuries - and we guessed this little jaunt was more designed to let us take a few deep breaths and relax before we ventured out on our own.

Side note: Let us talk for a moment about the weather in Ireland.

We'd done our research and packed for a cold and wet trip. Long sleeved and thermal shirts, long pants and boots. Our rain gear was packed at the on top of our luggage, so we could grab it quickly  in case of a sudden downpour.

Yeah. We packed completely wrong.

For the 12 days we were there, Ireland had the hottest, driest weather they'd had in 40 years. Record temperatures. No rain at all. We bought a lot of t-shirts while we were there.

The hot dry weather did afford us some incredible views as we rode through the (usually misty) Wicklow Mountains. We could see for kilometers and kilometers and navigated slightly better since we could tell what was down the road.

Irish roads are tricky though. You never know what's around the next curve.

Like some gorgeous views

Sheep

Quaint Cottages

More ancient stuff

More sheep

More gorgeous views

We managed to not get too lost and found our way to Kilkenny.

Stopped at Kilkenny Castle.

Found more ancient artifacts.

Then headed out for a few cold ones (OK, the beer was actually room temperature) before calling it a day.