May 15 Cliffs of Moher

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We have a very long day today. We drove towards Connemara along Ireland’s largest fjord. We went through Oughterard. We stopped at Connemara Marble Industries in Moycullen County Galway and it was also our comfort stop. We drove through some weird rocky landscape called the Burrens in the morning and afternoon.

We stopped in Galway and had an opportunity to see the Connemara marble in their Cathedral.

We went to Monk’s seafood house in Ballyvaughan for lunch. Tommy thought they had a toasted ham & cheese sandwich for non-fish eaters but he was wrong. Clay had fish and chips that he said was more than double the price and nowhere near as good as what he had earlier in the trip. Too bad. I went out and walked along the waterfront and tried to take photos of a swan there.

We had a stop in The Burren National Park to see Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. It was a bleak place and even in 3300BC I can't imagine life there.

We have had mostly sun today though, so that is an improvement. It is still cold and windy but it hasn’t rained as much. In the afternoon, we had close to a couple of hours at the Cliffs of Moher. It was very impressive and we were so happy to see it in sunshine. The bad news is that the puffins spend sunny days at sea after 11am or so, so we missed them. A ranger pointed out one to me on Goat Island with his binoculars. It was clear this afternoon, so we could see the Aran Islands in the distance.



We drove on near to Shannon for our one night in Bunratty Castle Hotel. It is a big hotel near an old small castle. It is a smaller room than we have had yet. No pants press. One king size bed. There is a towel warmer but nothing stays turned on without a key card in the slot on the wall. No ice that we can find. The hot water takes several long minutes to arrive in the bathroom and the toilet doesn’t want to flush. It is fine for one night. We may be getting a little cranky.

We meet 6 new people tonight at 7:45pm and one of our party leaves in the morning. How weird is that? The group is changing after 8 days. Everyone wonders how that will affect their places in the bus rotation. Dinner is at 8:45pm or so. We are to attend a medieval dinner at Bunratty Castle. It will be a late night. Tommy has offered an evening out tomorrow for around €30pp to attend a traditional Irish show called Celtic Steps. We’ll see how we feel tomorrow.

We got back to the room just before midnight. I hated tonight. I hate mixing entertainment with a meal anyway. I hate meat on bones and I hate eating with my hands. We did all that. They led us up a long narrow spiral staircase to ply us with mead (disgusting) while a violinist and a harpist played music. There were probably already 30 people in the room at that point. Then they crowned an Earl and Lady for the evening. Tommy gave them the Singaporean newlyweds. They were good sports. Then after they had everyone a little drunk they led us back down the narrow spiral stairs. We packed into an even smaller room full of long tables and benches. Tommy had told us we should try to dress nicely tonight. So, we did. No one else did. It is hard to get onto a bench for dinner in a dress. We each had a finger bowl, a small plate with a bowl on it and a mead cup. We had pitchers of red wine, white wine or water. At that point all of our end of the table was only drinking water. They served bread and parsnip soup to drink from the bowl. No spoons only a sharp knife and hands. Then they served spare ribs. Followed by a joint of capon and root vegetables. Last was some kind of jellied dessert with a cracker crust on the bottom. It tasted like raspberry. I had a long hungry day today. Good thing I still have a supply of protein bars.

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