From Dublin to the Connemara- on the wrong side of the road....

As I mentioned yesterday, we ended up flying to Dublin - on a Spanish airline that had been chartered by Norwegian Airlines, because their own planes were grounded.  The charter company in question "Evelop" could be used to define "low cost airline" -  Really tightly packed plane, with very little service.
BUT:  I had reserved the bulkhead so we had some leg room, it left from delightfully easy Stewart airport, it was on time and our luggage made it - so not complaining.
We in fact landed a bit early, and were on the road by 9:00am, which unfortunately was still rush hour around Dublin...  Joe managed to get us out of there, only having to go around a round-about ( the wrong way of course) twice, and only going through one red light - and then on to the highway, through Galway and then on the last 60km to Clifden, which is a narrow two lanes road, with A LOT of tour buses on it!!!!!  In between fearing for my life (not Joe's fault, but those buses are scary), I did manage to admire the countryside.
We stopped in Athlone, about half way between Dublin and Galway, because we (particularly Joe) needed a break, and a lot of coffee.  Athlone is a very pretty little town, on the Shannon river.  It's "raison d'etre" is indeed it's location about 1/2 way up the river from Limerick, and it's history - and castle- are all about defending or attacking at different times the Normans, the Brits, and others from each other.  It made me realize that I know very little about Ireland's history and the conflicts, and invaders that defined it - I'll try to study a bit while I'm here.

Anyway, we had our first taste of the local salmon and brown bread (with eggs - it was still early enough for breakfast, particularly since Evelop had not found it necessary to feed us anything - not even coffee....),

  and a nice stroll by the old castle and the banks of the river.

 And the prettily redone "west bank.

 The little cottages along the banks are all being redone and are just lovely!

From Dublin to Galway, it is mostly bucolic farmland, with a lot of cows and adorable little lambs (did not manage to get a picture of the lambs, but I'm sure I'll get a chance tomorrow ),

and then it runs much wilder and grander as one approaches Connemara National park.  By that time though, both Joe and I were just too tired to stop, but more than once, I caught myself just going "wow!  did you see this?"  (generally due to the exquisite mix of blooming rhododendron, rocks, water, lambs and greenery).  Joe did not - he was concentrating on us not dying in a head on collision with tour buses - for which we are very grateful.

We arrived in Clifden - at the very western most part of Europe, and at the edge of Connemara National Park early enough to enjoy a walk along the channel where our inn sits (this is our view). 

The walk leads along the channel (which empties out as the tide goes out) to the very westernmost edge of Europe (Can you spot Montauk in the distance?),

 and along pretty beaches - which seemed too cold to swim in right now....  at least, no one was......

And then had well deserved Irish drinks and food with a view (the mussels were awesome!  but even I can't eat that many mussels....).

 Tomorrow is a busy day - hoping the weather holds, as it was really lovely today.

















In the mean time, here are a few of the flowers I saw on my walk this afternoon:  EVERYTHING is in bloom - flowers are growing out of every rock, nook, cranny, fissure.... the hills are literally covered with rhododendrons, every tree is in bloom!