..or why I'm going to bed at 9 tonight
So if you've been on any sort of social media recently you'll know that I went to the cliffs of moher today! A bus tour company called paddywagon does day trips out to the cliffs for only 30 euro for students and I heard good things about it from a friend, so I jumped on it. The bus left cork at 8 am, which is likely why I went alone (i guess that's a dealbreaker) . First, we stopped in limerick for a pit stop, bathroom and coffee break. We were only in town for 20 minutes, but we were parked by the river shannon as well as a castle, so i snapped a few quick pictures of the scenery while i waited.
After leaving limerick we drove through more of county limerick until we hit the burren. Located in the west of the ireland, the burren is a protected region of limestone. Since its free to use in county clare, every house, farm, business, you name it, is surrounded by a two foot limestone wall resembling a castle, usually covered in vines as well. Certainly beats barbed wire or picket fences. As we headed closer and closer to the Atlantic ocean, our tour guide told us about how this landscape of limestone came to be: during the famine, British officials paid (forced) starving irish men to build these walls so they could make enough money to feed their families. Shocking to no one, making already starving irish men burn off more energy wasn't a very good policy decision. Welp. The guide started playing The Fields of Athenry, it was sad, whatever.
Also in the burren were the "mini cliffs". For about 10 minutes, we stopped alongside a rocky exterior overlooking the Atlantic and wandered around the shore. We'd have stayed longer, but a cycling race would be totally shutting down the area at any moment so we needed to move quick to beat the traffic. As all my pictures show, this is the prettiest place in the world to race. In fact, we ran into the cyclists in doolin, the sleepy tourist town where the bus stopped for lunch. 45 minutes of instagram later, we left once again, but this time for the cliffs of moher.
As we climbed a hill that overlooked a gorgeous harbor and the Atlantic ocean, the tour guide began to ramble on about how the cliffs are Ireland's number one tourist spot and how amazing the "gifts of moher" (lol get it? Gifts, not cliffs? ugh) souvenir shop is.Needless to say, I was concerned that someone had managed to commercialize the life out of...a bunch of cliffs. The first things I saw upon arrival were the gift shops, tourist office, and about 5000 people with cameras, so that didn't help.
But thankfully I was wrong. once i hit the dirt trail which is about 700 feet above sea level, i could only focus on the miles of deep blue ocean in front of me. I had expected there to be a fence separating people from the cliff, but instead I could sit on rocks a foot any from the cliff and absorb the view. At first, it sounds kind of like the northwestern lakefill or another "pretty water view". But something about the cliffs- their sheer mass, their beautiful coat of vine, or the ocean that stretches to infinity - made it impossible to look away, even though nothing was happening in front of me. I'd assumed that I'd get bored during the 1.5 hour stop, but the time flew. I'm not sure why a) high places, b) waterfront places, or c) high waterfront places make people all deep and reflective, but basically I had to deliberately look at my boots while hiking back or I would've missed my tour bus.
Overall: cliffs of moher = A++++
Our last stop on the way home was an express trip to bunratty castle. Thanks to the Italian middle school kids on our trip who consistently showed up to the bus 10 minutes late after every stop, we only had 15 minutes here. Nevertheless, I wandered over to the castle, got a picture of it, and then realized someone had left a side door open. Naturally, I snuck in and found an old courtyard with a cannon relic. Got caught instantly, high tailed it to a cafe, and then back to the bus.
Thanks to the italians, I'm still on the bus instead of back in cork (I'm never doing a guided tour ever again, btw), but should arrive back soon. Not sure what will be happening tonight, but tomorrow a few guys and I will probably go out to watch the camogie final (cork women's hurling!) Before streaming in American football all night.
Sorry for rambling, stay in touch, and have a great week!
Katie
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