All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 2" tag for photos added this week.
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 2" tag for photos added this week.
Our general travel route for this week...
Monday morning, after breakfast at the B&B, we headed down to the Doolin Pier where we caught the passenger ferry to Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands. What a crowd at the Pier. There are at least two companies offering Aran Island and/or Cliffs of Moher tours which run numerous times per day. We were surprised that the passenger ferry we were on was obviously oversold as at least a dozen people had to stand. Is this not a safety issue??? Two boats arrived on Inisheer at the same time thereby disgorging a lot of people onto the dock at the same time. A tad chaotic as tour group people were trying to find all their people, numerous horse and buggy companies were trying to cajole people into taking horse drawn tours, bicycle rental companies were trying to get people to rent "their bicycles", etc etc etc.
We moved away from the dock as quickly as possible and found a hut where a fellow was selling coffee and fudge (good combination!). We picked up a couple of lattes and sat and watched the crowds disperse. While sitting there it started to rain. We decided to walk around and explore the small village and look in craft stores etc to use the time until our scheduled return ferry departed - about 3 hours. Some interesting stores and scenery. Lots of rocks on these islands so lots of rock hedges/fences...
With about an hour to go, since it was still raining, we went into a pub, found a table we could share with another couple and ordered up some tea (too early for anything stronger). The other couple. from Ireland, were on a bit of a getaway for a few days and were staying on Inisheer. We chatted about Ireland, Canada and lots of other things but soon it was time for us to go. Nice visit with those folks.
Our boat back to Doolin Pier was reserved for people who had signed up for the dual tour, the second part being along the Cliffs of Moher. It looked like most of the crowd on the boat over had decided to stay longer as our return to Doolin Pier was only about 10% full. After stopping at Doolin Pier to pick up a few more people we were off to view the Cliffs of Moher, hoping that the views would still be good as the cloud cover appeared to be dropping. The ride was a bit bumpy but the views were fabulous...
Returning to Doolin Pier we picked up the car and decided to look around the stores in the wee village of Doolin itself. Not a whole lot there. Later, we went into Gus O'Connors bar for some dinner, beer and wine. For dinner this night Kris decided on the "traditional" boiled bacon and cabbage. Bacon was a bit of an understatement as the dish arrived with 3 rather large pork chops on top of a heap of creamed potato along side the boiled cabbage. Left overs for sure. Brian opted for a starter bowl of chowder and a starter size of crab claws. Both meals were actually excellent with Kris' going well with a glass of cab-sav and Brian's paired well with a pint of Guiness. The left-overs were indeed tasty later on back at the B&B.
Tuesday, we awoke to fairly heavy rain, so what to do for the day??? First things first so off downstairs for breakfast. The usual yogurt, scrambled egg, sausage and toast. Quite good but the way they make their scrambled eggs results in a rather lot of water on the plate. Don't really care for that. Anyway, at breakfast Brian mentions to the owner that there was a bright light left on outside our window last night which caused him to awake rather early thinking that it was light out - NOT, it was 2:00AM and hard to get back to sleep. She said she would look into it.
We decided to take a road trip to the southernmost point of County Clare which is the lighthouse at Loop Head...
With a stop for coffee it was a little over 2 hours to get there and, with a rest stop in Lahinch, about the same to get back to Doolin. Luckily, the rain mostly abated with the odd shower here and there so we were able to get out and see some of the scenery without getting soaked. Here is a pic of the lighthouse and another of nearby dramatic shoreline...
For dinner that night we decided to try a local small Doolin restaurant that advertised pizza. We opted for the pepperoni to share. Well, it was pizza but that's about all you can say about it. We might have had worse but definitely have had better! Afterwards we stopped in for a last visit to Gus O'Connor's pub for a pint of Guiness, glass of wine and a shared appy to finish off "dinner". We chose the open faced salmon sandwich... huge and yummy :-) :-)
Back at the guest house we noticed the light outside our window was on again. Brian called the owner and she said she was sorry but it was an emergency light that was required to be on all night! WTF!!!
Wednesday morning after the usual breakfast we packed up and departed for Galway. Later that day, Brian received an email from the Doolin guest house owner saying she was sorry for the bright light and to compensate she knocked one night's cost off of our bill. We thought that was actually quite generous but thought they should do something to rectify the brightness of the light shining right in the window.
Our route to Galway hugged the coast as much as possible...
... where just north of Doolin we passed by some pretty views of the Burren...
We arrived at the Glenariff B&B in Salthill, a suburb of Galway, early afternoon and received a very warm welcome from Margaret and Seamus our hosts for the next couple of nights. Margaret was even nice enough to drive us around the neighbourhood showing various eating establishments etc before dropping us off at the Latin Quarter and showing us where to catch a bus back to the town village area near her house. Very nice!!
For the next couple of hours we wandered along the very popular pedestrian mall leading from the Spanish Arch to Eyre Square. Amid the great mix of pubs, chemists, department stores and tourist shops we found a Starbucks where a couple of iced lattes were welcome refreshers. Afterwards we came upon a Freshii fast food outlet where we stopped in for a couple of excellent salad bowls that we thought would do us for a while. Late afternoon we returned to the bus stop which Margaret had pointed out to us as the place to catch a bus back to the B&B. There were quite a few people at the stop. We waited for about a half hour before a bus came but it was packed and the driver just kept going. We chatted with a local woman who said she has seen this before. Numerous people abandoned the line, some walked, some hailed a cab, we waited and waited and waited. Finally we asked the woman where she lived. Her place was close to our B&B so Brian told her that if we grab a cab she could come with us. As Brian started to hail a cab, our bus came around the corner. Go figure. The buses are scheduled for every 20 minutes. This one was over 40 minutes after the full one went by without stopping. Oh well, on our way.
Back in Salthill, we went to O'Connor's pub (no relation to the O'Connors pub we frequented in Doolin) but a sign on the door indicated they were closed until 7:30 and it was just past 6:30... hmmm... down the street to another pub for a glass of Guiness and a glass of wine while we waited. Turns out O'Connors does not serve food so the wait was a bit of a waste. We ended up in Oslo, the home of Galway Bay Brewery where we settled on some chicken strips (a bit too soaked in BBQ sauce for our tastes) and tasty crispy halloumi cheese strips to finish off our food requirements for the day. Went down reasonably well with a glass of their own lager and glass of wine. Then it was back to the B&B for the night.
That evening we had a great chat with Seamus, our host. He told us of his time as a pub owner in Belfast and how it was bombed during "The Troubles". He also told us we should visit Brennan's Bar in Belfast, run by his brother. We looked it up on Google maps only to find that it is practically right across the road from where we will be staying. Sweet!
Thursday, we awoke to yet another wet, windy, blustery day. Definitely not a "wander around town" kind of day. We opted for a drive in the country out to Athlone (they say it is pretty much in the dead centre of Ireland)...
... where we found Sean's Bar...
... a place claiming to the be the oldest pub in Ireland established 900AD. Interesting place. Inside they have a display showing a fragment of the original wattle and daub walls where numerous coins etc were found that validated it's age. Most of the original wall and artifacts are apparently in the national museum in Dublin. Back in Galway/Salthill for the evening we decided to try Da Roberto's Ristorante & Pizzeria where we shared a fruiti di mare pizza. Very good. Afterwards we walked down to Oslo where Brian decided to try a fleet of beer (4 random samples making up a pint). The fleet consisted of 2 different pale ales (not bad, a bit hoppy), a lager (pretty good) and a stout (terrible, tasted like really burnt coffee - Guiness has nothing to worry about).
Friday, at breakfast, our host Margaret surprised Brian with a jar of peanut butter and told him to take it with him. Nice :-). It was another very wet, windy and blustery Ireland west coast day as we departed Galway on our way north to Londonderry. Pretty heavy rain almost all the way. For a bit of a break we stopped for a coffee and scone at The Hatter Express in Ballybofey...
... where the young man running the place had such a heavy accent about the only thing we understood was when he motioned towards a table and said something that sounded like "take a wee seat" indicating he would bring our coffees out to us. Lattes and scones were very good.
We were somewhat surprised that, on the road we were on, the only indication that we had crossed over into Northern Ireland was a small sign indicating that speed was now in mph. Nothing more.
As we approached Derry (or Londonderry) the rain abated. We found the Phoenix B&B and met our host Lorraine. After getting checked in we asked if she had a tourist map of central Derry. Her response was wonderful. "Yes, but I have to go across town so why don't I drive you into the centre and show you around". How nice is that; 2 places in a row where that happened. Lorraine dropped us off on the Bogside, where the large scale Derry Murals, depicting scenes and events of "The Troubles" some 50 years ago, are located. The murals were painted by the Bogside Artists. Here are a few pics (more on our photo album)...
... (if you zoom in on the pic with the British soldier you can see that the soldier has been splattered with dog sh*t). Sad times and we can only hope that Brexit does not make it all happen again.
After walking the length of the Bogside, we headed into the centre of the walled city (began to rain again so we passed on walking the wall itself). Outside of Badger's pub, where we had a couple of decent hamburgers for dinner, we snapped a shot of the very popular Derry Girls mural showing the main characters of the Derry Girls TV serial...
On our walk back to the B&B we stopped in at the Bishops Gate Hotel...
... where the rather posh bar/lounge is a world apart from the average Irish pub we have been in over the last week or so. Kris can attest that the quality of wine was a bit more upscale as well. The Guiness was just fine as usual :-)
Saturday morning, as we left Derry, we drove past the Hands Across the Divide monument...
... a life-sized bronze statue of two men reaching out to each other symbolizing a spirit of reconciliation and hope for the future. It was unveiled in 1992, twenty years after Bloody Sunday.
Fairly easy drive across Northern Ireland to Belfast with a bit of rain on and off. Scenic drive with green rolling hills; quite a lot more hilly and more tracts of forests than the other parts of Ireland we have driven through on this trip. We found the Jurys Inn in a very busy central Belfast, got checked in and headed to the car rental place to return the car. It was a bit weird as the rental place was just a locked yard with no office. Apparently since our rental agreement was for a return at 2:00 PM, someone from their regular rental office would just show up and we would hand off the car.... and that is exactly what happened. At least we presume the two young men were from the rental car company :-(
After a rest, back at the hotel, we went down the street to Brennan's Bar which Seamus had recommended to us. It was very busy with the after work crowd but also bolstered by the Liverpool football game on the big screen TV so a tad noisy all in all. We shared a table with two local women, about our age, and had a real nice time chatting with them. After the football game ended the bar turned into a type of disco (yes with the disco ball and everything) and got real noisy so we decided to head off to get something to eat elsewhere. We settled on Nora's Palace, a busy mediterranean restaurant which, after a wait of about half an hour, definitely did not disappoint. Excellent meal.
Sunday morning was our first real sleep in morning of this trip, mostly because all the B&B's included breakfast but this place didn't. Late morning we headed down the street to Cafe Nero probably our favourite coffee place in the UK for a nice leisurely latte whilst perusing the Sunday Times newspaper. A little after noon we walked across the downtown area to St George's Market ...
...one of Belfast oldest attractions having been built in the 1890s. Easy to find and a fine place to visit and wander around in for a few hours. For brunch, in the food booth section, Brian picked up a sausage and egg bap and Kris chose a breakfast crepe. Both were absolutely excellent. Along with the large crowd, out for their own Sunday brunch and market visit, we enjoyed the busker provided music. The guy was very good; here's a brief sample albeit somewhat hampered by the crowd noise...
After eating we wandered around the market some more before heading back to the hotel for a rest. Both of us have developed sore hips so the eight block or so walk was a bit more of a haul than we are used to :-( so we stopped in at the Crown Bar for a couple of very refreshing lime sodas, which we guess the bartender must have thought we really needed because she waved us off when we tried to pay and said they were on the house. This historic bar was purchased by the National Trust in 1978 who, over the next 30 years spent nearly a million GBPs to restore the bar to its original Victorian state. The etched and stained glass are absolutely exquisite...
... and, for seating, the Crown has ten small booths, or snugs, so diners have a little more privacy. You can see the intricately made door to one snug a little more in this pic...
For the evening we walked down the street to Brennan's where, after a pint and glass of wine while we chatted with a young couple from Liverpool, we decided to share the Beef and Mushroom pie for dinner. Quite good. On the way back to our hotel we stopped in at the bar/lounge at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, for a nightcap, where after checking his phone for an internet connection, Brian pulled up the Houston Astros at Toronto Blue Jays baseball game and we watched the last two innings of Justin Verlander's no-hitter over the Jays.
Nice way to end the week.
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