Waterford to Clontarf (back to Dublin)

I really don't need one of these

I left Cobh yesterday afternoon and drove to Waterford, which is a medium-sized city about 100 miles southwest of Dublin; Waterford was my last stop before returning to Dublin today and ending my Irish adventure. Waterford seemed like a good place to break up the trip back to Dublin from Kenmare, and I also thought I'd like to take the tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. I got to Waterford around 4:30 in the afternoon, checked into my cute little room in a converted sack-dyeing factory, relaxed a bit, and then walked into the town center for some quite good Indian

Now I know where to get a giant crystal bear,
should the need arise.

food. This morning I got up and had a nice breakfast-chat with two other guests at the BnB, a mom and her university student son who were on holiday from Germany, and then walked to the House of Waterford Crystal; the next tour wasn't for another 50 minutes, so I walked around the showroom a bit which caused me to remember that I don't actually care for or about Waterford Crystal. The showroom is quite large and the things are pretty, they're just not my style, so I decided I didn't really need to know how they were made; I skipped the tour and made the two hour drive back to Dublin, which is where I am now, in a very nice, leafy neighborhood called Clontarf.

************

built in 1837, opened as a hotel in 1997

After I wrote all that, Clare, whose house I'm staying in, suggested I go to the Clontaft Castle Hotel for dinner, which is right in the neighborhood, and she offered to drive me there. Since I have been traveling all around southern Ireland for 10 days and not seen one castle (I could have, I just didn't see the point, although, no real point in a giant crystal bear either), that seemed like a good idea. I think a castle which has been turned into a luxury hotel makes a great point. So off we went; she dropped me at the entrance and I went into the Knights Bar for a steak sandwich and what I think was essentially a wine cooler. And just like with the Rolo-favored pudding, I don't care what you think, it was delicious. That's the second delicious fizzy pink drink I've had while traveling. Somehow drinking a local-brew pink wine cooler in Ireland (or the Bahamas) is less embarrassing than drinking a Seagrams at home.

And that's the end of the Ireland trip for me, I get on a ferry to Wales tomorrow morning. Here are some things I have learned in Ireland:

1. Most Irish people (there were a some exceptions, but very few) are extremely nice, friendly, and hospitable.

2. Driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the car, while unnatural and not the way God intended humans to drive, is do-able.
2a. Round-abouts are no big deal.
2b. Sometimes the GPS lady is just screwing with you.
2c. Keep left, keep left, keep left. 

3. The Irish countryside is spectacular; the cities... meh.
4. It's pretty easy to get just about anywhere if you're not in a hurry.

"Near, Far, Whereeeever You Are..."

The only problem with visiting the Titanic Experience in Cobh (pron: "Cove") yesterday, was that Celine Dion's song was in my head for most of the day, other than that, it was pretty cool. The Titanic was built in Belfast but Cobh (which was called Queenstown at the time), located between Kenmare and Waterford, was its last port of call before heading for the open Atlantic in 1912. One-hundred and twenty-three passengers boarded in Cobh, 44 survived. The Titanic Experience is a museum of sorts, each visitor joins a tour with a guide who tells the story of the ship, its passengers, and its sinking; there are video reenactments, replicas of rooms, and  photographs, timelines, and artifacts, and it's built on the site of the former ticketing office for the White Star Shipping Line. The passengers embarking on the Titanic in Cobh would have purchased their tickets at this site and then rode the tenders 30 minutes into the harbor and boarded the ship; the original pier for the tenders is still standing outside the building. Each ticket for the Experience is printed with the name of an actual passenger who boarded in Cobh, mine was Mary Mangan, she was 32 and traveling alone. At the end of the tour, you can look up 'your' passengers name to see if they survived... my Mary did not. Eight people got off the ship in Cobh, one of them was Father Frank Browne who had a camera on board, hence the fantastic photos of life on board before the disaster.

replica of a third class ("steerage") cabin - this was actually
considered super-fancy because it had running water and electricity,
which most of the third class passengers wouldn't have had in their homes.

replica of a 1st class cabin

Cobh

Kenmare

along the road between Dingle and Kenmare

I'm getting used to the driving, I think. This morning I left Dingle and drove to Kenmare. Con helped me map out the best way - again, I was going to take the main roads but he suggested the secondary roads, two actual lanes, twisty/windy, but he said I could do it, and he was right. The scenery was spectacular, and it wasn't even a big problem that it rained quite a bit of the way. The fact is that much of the time, I am the only car on these back roads. Sure, there is the occasional bus (which I've learned not to look at as they approach - keep eyes on the road in front, not on the bus to the side); sometimes there are a few cars behind me, and when that happens, I pull over at the first available spot and let them pass since I am going slower than most, and then I'm on my own again and it's just fine.

would have missed this on the main road

and this

I arrived at Pat and Eilish's place around 1:30, left the car, and walked into town. All these cute Irish towns are starting to look alike. There isn't much to do in Kenmare which is fine with me. I checked out a tiny lace-making center (apparently this town was known for needlepoint lace-making... something something nuns... something something Queen Victoria...), and then I walked to an ancient stone circle which is in a clearing a short walk from the town center. There were a bunch of stones. In a circle. It was a pleasant enough day, raining off and on, currently on, and I'm happy as a clam to be back at the bnb with no plans but to relax and read.

Pat and Elish's BnB

needlepoint lace

3,000 years old... ritual site? clock? calendar? anyone? 

Kenmare

Dingle

would have missed this cute little town if I had taken
the main road

Yesterday I drove 112 miles which took about 4 hours. That's right, that's how windy the roads are. It was a beautiful drive though and for the most part, each side of the road actually had a designated lane, so, bonus. I was planning on taking the main road but Matt (having heard all my laments about driving) gently talked me out of it and outlined a much more scenic route that included a small car ferry and some coastal towns. It was actually a very pleasant day of driving and I arrived at my next stop, Con and Angela's place in Dingle, relatively unscathed and with no new scratches on the car - oh, and I spent 20 minutes today rubbing out the previous scratches, which seems to have worked. If the car rental agency doesn't noticed the slightly cracked passenger side mirror, from when I clanked it hard against the mirror of a parked car, I'll be golden. How that mirror clanking doesn't happen every five minutes, I do not know.

Con and Angela's house on the outskirts of town

hills around Dingle 

Dingle town

turns out Henry Clark, whose stained glass I liked at the gallery in Dublin,
was commission to do windows for a convent in Dingle, in 1922.

former convent of the Sisters of Presentation founded in Ireland by Nano Nagle (1718-1784)

Mural of Nano Nagle painted in 2009; she was living the life in Paris when she
decided to return to Ireland to educate poor children

After walking through the town and visiting the convent, I took this gorgeous walk 

and then I went here for a half pint of Thomas Crean's lager, named for an Irish Antarctic explorer, part of Robert Scott's expedition in 1912

then to the pub for fish and chips, and called it a day.

At Least I Didn't Drive into a Lake

You know those stories about the idiots who are so wrapped up in what their GPS is telling them that they don't pay any attention to their actual surroundings and drive into a lake? I might be one of those idiots. Today was actually a wonderful day which I spent more or less driving all over the countryside, following sometimes less than stellar directions delivered in a soothing British accent by the GPS lady. I was not necessarily soothed though, when at one point I ended up (because she told me to turn left, so I turned left) on what was a rutted, rocky, and in places steep dirt track. I had gone a few yards and was thinking, "this can't be right" when I noticed the very rugged jeep that I had just passed was a few yards behind me. I put the car in park in the middle of the road (there was no 'side of the road,' there is rarely any 'side of the road') and trotted back to ask advice from the guys in the jeep. They could not have been friendlier or less perturbed by the fact that I'd stopped my car in front of them. I asked if the road I was on connected to a main road, they thought it did; I told them my GPS had instructed me down it, but that seemed like a really bad idea, given the micro-car I was driving and the fact that the 'road' was barely a road, right? Nah, they said, I would be fine, and besides, they'd be right behind me if I got into trouble. The actual consequences of me 'getting into trouble' didn't really mentally take hold, and they were so good-natured and encouraging that against any reasonable person's better judgement, I hopped back in my car and continued down what could generously be considered a goat path that was barely the width of my car. But most of the country roads here are barely the width of my car, and between the suspect GPS and google maps on my phone, I eventually found where I was going, found the next place, and the place after that, and eventually made it back to Julie and Matt's, ready to be back in their awesome house or really, anywhere but behind the wheel.

That being said, there were times when I would come to the top of a hill and catch a view and let out a snort of joy (snort of joy? That's what I'll name my band) because it was just so lovely. The sun was shining, I didn't drive into a lake, the roads are narrow but the countryside they go through is stunningly pretty... just look:

Little perfume factory and shop in the middle of nowhere;
if you go, take the road, not the goat path.

lunch was at the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon

then I drove to Lahinch and sat on the cliff eating a snack
I'd never buy/eat at home, and watched the surfers

This is the snack; yes, that's Rolo pudding. It was fantastic.

The Cliffs of Mohr

Today could not have been more spectacular. Could. Not. First, this is the breakfast Julie made for me:
Kind of impossible to have a bad day after that. After breakfast, on Matt's advice, I drove right past the Cliffs of Mohr Visitor's Center, bypassed the crowds in their massive tour buses, and parked on a private farm which charges 2 euros for parking and cliff access. The farm itself was a gorgeous piece of property.

From there, I walked about 3 miles along the cliffs and ended at the Visitors Center, from which I was able to catch a shuttle back to the farm and my car. The day was sunny, the breeze was perfect, the crowds were elsewhere... one of those days where I just can't believe my luck.



Left is Right, Right is a Head-On Collision Waiting to Happen

I was never excited by the idea of driving in Ireland, but after researching the public transportation options for the places I wanted to go, the time and trouble it would take to get trains and buses made renting a car a necessity. Even though they drive on the left. While sitting on the right. Both seemingly ridiculous notions after decades of right-lane/left-sitting driving. But how hard could it be? So this morning I went back to the airport and picked up my rental car. It's a tiny thing, easy to maneuver, and the driving on the left wasn't so bad - I just kept chanting "keep left, keep left, keep left" every time I came to an intersection or went through the approximately 8,000 roundabouts it took to drive the 150 miles (I refuse to think in kilometers) down Ireland's most winding roads to Doolin. Or near Doolin. I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere, but delightfully so.

The driving itself -- and sitting on the right wouldn't have helped -- was not so delightful. Once I got off the main highway, the roads were so narrow that whenever a car was coming in the other direction, it seemed like a miracle that I didn't smash right into it. For some reason, while sitting on the right, the tendency is to overcompensate when there's oncoming traffic by moving too far to the left, and since there is no shoulder on most of the roads I was on, that means coming precariously close to the stone walls which are inches from the passenger side door. I got used to the rat-a-tat-tat of the lane-edge markers on the left telling me to stop veering that way, and managed to get where I was going relatively unscathed. It helped that the views of the hills and the distant coastline were lovely (when I dared taking my eyes of the center divider), and I finally ended up here:

That is Matt and Julie's house and they couldn't be nicer. My room looks out onto a grassy field and green pastures dotted with farm houses; there are even a few sheep strolling around nearby. The town of Doolin is right up the road, but I'm not going anywhere this evening. My hands have finally unclenched and I'm going to sit up in bed and read - because when I look up from my screen, book, notes for tomorrow's adventure, this is what I see: