May 13 Derry to Westport

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Today we should travel through the rugged country side of Donegal with stops to sample scones and see demonstrations of spinning and weaving their famous tweeds. We should see W.B. Yeats’ grave in Sligo. We will end up in Westport with some free time before dinner. We will have 2 nights at Hotel Westport. At some point, we returned to the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland. There was no sign, so I am not sure exactly where that happened.

So, there was no scone stop. We did have Irish coffees at Triona Design in Ardara where we had the weaving demonstration. We did not buy anything, even though I tried on several jackets but none fit. It was too bad because I am looking to replace my black blazer after this trip.

Breakfast was at 7am. Derry’s City Hotel did not want to open that restaurant one minute early either. The bus left at 8am. Clay and I drew the front seat behind the driver in the rotation today. That was good because we had some rough riding today and it would have been bad for me in the back. Clay still didn’t get any good pictures on the drive because the windows were all spotted with rain, or else he has bus bits or Tommy or Martin in his photos. We drove west from Derry. We drove through Glenties and to Ardara for our weaving workshop and shopping, Irish coffee and comfort stop. We spent about an hour at Triona Designs.

In the afternoon, we had a little over an hour in the town of Donegal for lunch or whatever. Donegal Castle was right there in town and we walked over and thought about paying to tour it but it looked like you needed to allow 45 minutes and we didn’t want to cut our time too short. We found restrooms at the Information center and then got some light lunch at a little café by the bus.

Later we drove by the west coastline at Mullaghmore where Lord Mountbatten was killed when the IRA bombed his yacht in 1979. We also drove past his former castle, Classiebawn. Then we drove to Sligo to see W. B. Yeats grave.

About 5pm we arrived at Westport where we are at the Hotel Westport for 2 nights. It is on a little river with a path into town. Our room is at the end of a hall on the 3^rd floor and has windows on 2 sides and a small balcony. Given that it sleeted at one point today and we can hear the wind howling, I don’t think we’ll get much use of the balcony. Besides being the corner room, it is large with a double bed and a single bed. I took the single bed and let Clay have the double bed since he let me have the big bed in a room like this in Windermere. There is a desk with a stool, 2 chairs and a table, 2 nightstands, a tea set, a TV, a closet and a pants press. The bathroom is much smaller and in worse wear than we’ve seen, but and this is a big but, it has a towel warmer. I love a warm towel after a shower or bath. There is a shower over tub and the tub floor is higher than the bathroom floor again. These seem so dangerous. The room numbers are crazy here. We are in room 313 on one hall of the 2^nd floor. The elevator only goes to G, 1 and 2. The other hall on our floor has rooms numbered in the 600’s. You figure it out.

Dinner tonight was downstairs at the hotel restaurant at 6:30pm. It was one big noisy room full of large groups. Clay had salad, salmon and ice cream. I had soup, beef and apple berry crumble.

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