Bogs, castles, and a lot of rhododendrons and sheep!

 I was raining when we go up this morning, but that was OK, because it gave us the opportunity to enjoy our first true Irish breakfast in our lovely inn.

  We even ordered one with fresh mackerel (instead of the traditional blood pudding and sausages), because we saw the fisherman bring the fish from the boat yesterday evening, and fish that fresh should be enjoyed - even for breakfast.  It was delicious!

 By the time we were done, the rain had stopped, and although the day remained grey, it was nice enough to enjoy everything we had planned.  The tide was very low when we left, completely changing the view in front of the hotel.

We started with Connemara National Park welcome center, and took short walks around:  this does not do justice to the vast park.  To do that, we would have to stay a week, pack a tent and really go hiking.  Which does sound lovely.....  but not this time.

Still, we did take in some glorious sights, enjoyed foals frolicking in meadows, and admired a wide array of almost tropical flowers and mosses in the bog. (see end of blog for flowers).

 We then went on to Kylemore Abbey, one of the most famous castles in Ireland (and now an abbey, run by Benedictine nuns).  It was build relatively recently for something so decadent - 1874.  A rich dude, who really liked his wife and 9 children  (REALLY liked the wife apparently) bought the land and had the castle built because she like Connemara.

 It ended rather sadly when she died early while traveling in Egypt.  So he built a mini gothic cathedral on the property in her memory and a lovely mausoleum.










 The entire property is just beautiful, but I particularly enjoyed the walled Victorian gardens,

  including a vegetable patch to drool over....

Also, the rhododendrons, covering entire hills, where magnificent (but apparently a bit of a problem: there can be too much of a good thing and the are in the process of cutting down a lot of them). I was surprised by  how busy the Abbey was, on a random Thursday in May- in fact, I have been surprised by the amount of tourists everywhere:  there are significantly more German and French people then Irish people around here (and a not insignificant number of Americans too).  It must get completely crazy in the high season- particularly on these narrow roads...

Speaking of which, we continued north, to the little town of Westport, and the Westport House - another extravagant castle built relatively recently on a pretty pond.  The property is now a county park, and many local people are there walking their dogs, and enjoying the sights.
What made the trip to Westport really worth it though was the drive back on the scenic route (that follows the ocean and then cuts across the hills to the Killary Fjord (the only true fjord in Ireland).
That road is even narrower than the one we took on the way up, which is honestly hard to believe.  On most of the road, the speed limit is 100km/hr - which is just UNBELIEVABLE!  Joe and I figured that it can only be either:
1)  a joke
2) a challenge
3) a way to get rid of the surplus of tourists
I don't think we ever went faster then 75km/hr and only for very small stretches of road.  It's not just narrow, it has all kind of other features that make it.... let's call it interesting....

 The most obvious one is of course that you have to drive on the wrong side...  but then, there are the tour buses that careen straight at you on roads just wide enough for them, the bicyclists that you have to pass, the sheep that wander on the road and seem particularly fond of blind curves - and of course, the blind curves themselves.

 If this is a game (maybe it is?), Joe suggested he should get extra points for narrow bridges with walls on each side, and blind curves right before and after.  And also for not having killed the many adorable lambs that wandered on our path......

 But, as I said, the scenery was just magnificent, the little lambs adorable (and tasty looking....), and we made it back!

Another nice dinner in town (at Michael's sea food, whose fish pie indeed was great), and we are packing up and heading to the Aran islands tomorrow.


More pictures of flowers, sheep and a nice bird too.......

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!

Trading rainy Westchester County for (hopefully less) rainy Ireland!

So far, Stewart Airport wins!
One of the reasons (obviously not the main one, but still an important one) for us to go to Ireland is that you can fly there direct from Stewart Airport!  22 miles of bucolic Hudson River drive, a tiny airport where you can park for next to nothing literally across from the terminal....  sounded like heaven compared to either JFK or LGA.....  and indeed, so far it has been!
An annoying complication, and not the fault of either Stewart Airport, nor Norwegian Airlines is that we will be flying to and from Dublin, instead of the original plan, which was to fly to Shannon and avoid the East side of Ireland altogether.  However, the planes they fly there are the Boeings that keep falling out of the sky and have been grounded....  so they had to cancel a lot of flights.  Not their fault. (Also, we are flying “Evelop”, which Norwegian has subcontracted to because they don't have enough planes....  Boeing sure messed things up....).
Ireland is a small country, so this only adds about 100km to our first day.
Since they drive on the wrong side of the road, Joe and I will have the same division of labor as we had when we went to New Zealand:  He’ll drive while I scream “YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE CLIFF!”.  It worked well for us then, so I expect it will work well in Ireland too.
In the mean time, it is still grey, cold and raining in Westchester County, so at least we are prepared for rainy weather, which all guides books have told us to expect.
Also, in case anyone worried, just because we are in a tiny airport that’s very easy to get to, we are still VERY early......