Day 32: Gettin' down in Dingle town

This morning we arose early and took advantage of the free laundry services before shouldering our packs for one last hike: six-ish miles of paved roads from Baile na nGall [Ballynagal or Ballydavid] to An Daingean (or Daingen Ui Chuis) [Dingle].* It was pretty much a straight shot: left out of the pub/hostel, right, slight left, right, left, and there you are. And it was pretty nice too, actually; though some bits were along little roads with hedges taller than we were and the last long straightaway was pretty busy, we still got to see the countryside and even some interesting archeological remains. We walked past a stone longhouse-type thing, basically an elongated stone arch, that is apparently fairly well-known. No mortar was made to construct it, and it's as solid as the day it was constructed several hundred years ago. We made our farewells to the Dingle Way...

These markers had guided us faithfully for four days

Interesting note: we found ourselves on another walking way for a little bit, this one possibly more of a pilgrimage. 

...and walked for two hours to Dingle. Quick, relatively painless, and only 100 meters of elevation gained in one long up and then down. So much more pleasant than a fifteen mile trek including 700 meters up would have been.

One last look at the northwest side of the peninsula

We arrived in Dingle, checked into a hostel, and explored the town a bit more: looked at gift shops, cried bitter tears that the wool shop was closed, and got ice cream. The ice cream place has a lot of good flavors, but my favorite (and the strongest reason I currently have to return to Dingle) is the Dingle Gin flavor. It's not particularly strong or anything, but it's a unique flavor and I could eat at least a gallon of it before getting tired of it. Too bad they don't deliver to the US...

After some music and Guinness and food and more wandering, we turned in for the night and prepared ourselves for the railway ride across Ireland to Dublin which we shall take tomorrow.

*Dingle has actually had quite a lot of confusion about its name. In 2005, all towns in the Gaeltacht (the Irish-speaking parts of Ireland) were legally obligated to remove the English names from their street signs, which for Dingle meant putting up An Daingean signs everywhere. Since this town relies so heavily on tourism, residents were upset about the change and worried that tourists would not be able to find it. About a year later, the suggestion was put forward to instead put up signs labeled Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis, with the result that there are three different names for the town signposted all over the place--which if you ask me serves only to confuse us even more.

Day 31: Defeated by Dingle

We rose, breakfasted, and set off moderately early today, finally departing at 9:45 from the Stone Cottage B&B--if you ever do find yourself in a remote hamlet on the far end of the Dingle Peninsula, I would recommend them highly. Very nice, very professional, cooked for us and generally had a great little set up going.

We quickly decided as we walked the first few miles that yes, we would go to Dingle after staying the night in Feohanagh. This took a great weight off our minds, at least, if not our backs, and we walked onwards with a bit more spring in our step. We walked towards and then past Sybil Head, a great outcropping of rock at the far northwest edge of the peninsula.

Sygil Head

We also walked past a lovely secluded beach...

Clogher Beach, a perfect crescent of sand and water

...and these three heads called the Three Sisters...

I instantly developed an unreasonable amount of distaste for the southernmost one

...and all the way to the beach by Smerwick Harbor, where we took a break (and I took a nap) and then walked along that beach and the next one, Wine Strand (harking back to smuggling days) until we reached the edges of the town of Murreagh and walked on to the hamlet of Baile na nGall (Ballynagal, apparently also Ballydavid). We stopped for a nice big late lunch and relaxed for an hour or so, then prepared to head on. We chatted with the waitress for a few minutes and found out that no, there wasn't really any accommodation in Feohanagh but there was here, so we decided to cut the trip early and have a relazing afternoon and evening. Mom discovered that she had lost her windbreaker somewhere along the beach, and now that we didn't have any extra walking to do we went in search of it. We had the great good luck of finding it again and strolled happily back, I with my feet in the water. We returned to the pub and watched a bit of soccer and got some salad and an Irish coffee, which we had both wanted to try. It was delicious, but definitly a sipping drink. I tried to chug the last really quick and found that to be a mistake.

After dinner, Mom went out to enjoy the evening light, and upon showering for a bit I followed her. There was a nice cliff walk that looked out upon the bay, and tonight we got to catch a beautiful sunset.

The sun behind the northeasternmost of the Three Sisters

Sinking behind the waves

I then returned to the pub which at this point was overrun with more youths than I thought lived in the area, all of them dressed like they wanted to get completely sloshed (I think it was someone's eighteenth birthday). Instead of hopping in and sipping at a cider while enjoying the wifi and maybe a bit of the World Cup, I chose instead to get a good night's sleep for tomorrow's new final leg of our Dingle Way experience.

Day 30: Hiking isn't actually very nice when you are carrying all of your luggage

We started off this morning in Dingle, and actually got a reasonably early start of about nine thirty (it doesn't seem that we'll ever get any faster with packing and breakfast). We walked through to the end of Dingle and onward into the wilderness--okay, the farmland.

Some of the...ummm...wildlife...

We continued onwards, took a recommended shortcut, and in surprisingly good time found ourselves in the town of Ventry, which had a post office, a shop, and a gorgeous beach.

The beauty of Ventry Beach

We walked along the pleasantly firm golden sand for two and a half kilometers, that stretched across hours, and finally got to the end. This was about the end of the fun part of the day, less than six miles in to a thirteen-mile hike.

We started to climb a bit again, then took a path that led us around Mount Eagle. Or should I say, led us up and down the shoulder of Mount Eagle in a zigzag pattern that sapped our energy as we plodded along trying to avoid stepping in too much sheep dung. Much of it was apparently in somebody's back pasture. But the views were pretty dramatic, and almost worth the pain (blisters, my hip seems a bit bruised, and my ego has been ripped to shreds).

Lookin back, you can see Ventry Harbor and even just a bit of Dingle Harbor

The Blasket Islands

Dunmore Head and some Slea Head cafes and shops

Mount Eagle had a ton of ancient structures--I don't know what those mounds of stones were but I think they had something to do with burial practices.

When we finally got around the mountain and into full view of the Blasket Islands, we stopped at a little cafe near Slea Head and enjoyed some Diet Coke and ice cream; I fell asleep while Mom ate yogurt. We then soldiered on to our accommodation in Dunquin. At least, we thought it was in Dunquin. It wasn't, it was in the next town over. Luckily that was about a quarter of a mile away, and an obliging and friendly young Irishman offered to give us a ride when we stopped in a bar and asked for additional directions (the bartender was oddly enough from Oregon, although she had adopted an Irish accent because she was studying Irish Gaelic in Galway). When we finally did arrive at our B&B for the night and gratefully put our packs down, we discovered that apparently there are no pubs or restaurants anywhere near that serve food after six in the off season. But our hosts apparently do a dinner service for walkers, so we got homemade lasagne, salad, and a lovely little dessert. I was exhausted and very hungry, and I wolfed that thing down almost without even seeing it. Riley would have been proud.

I expressed to Mom my doubts of being able to actually accomplish the rest of the trip: twelve miles was on the short end of the scale for the Dingle Way, and in two days we would have to shoulder a much larger mountain on a fifteen-mile trek. Mom began to agree, and we slowly accepted that the Dingle Way would not be enough fun to be worth all of the pain and struggle--travel is supposed to be enjoyable, not merely bearable. So we made tentative plans to stop in Feohanagh (I'm pretty sure it's pronounced fee-oh'-nach, where the -ch is a soft German phlegmy hiss or whatever you call it) and then taxi or hike from there to Dingle on the following day, spend some relaxing time in Dingle and then even get to Dublin a day early. This made me feel much calmer, and after a couple of nights of poor sleep because my bed was too hot, I fell asleep around ten thirty. Mom showered and enjoyed the room a bit more before turning in as well.

Day 29: Hiking is pretty nice when you aren't carrying all of your luggage on your back

We rose early-ish this morning but completely failed to get a good start, not leaving the B&B until after ten thirty and then realizing we had left our guidebook behind, so we (well, I) had to run back and retrieve it, pushing the start back to eleven. But we had an excellent and filling breakfast, and our host offered to take our bags to Dingle for us since he was already doing the service for another pair of walkers. So even a late start wasn't much of a problem today.

We hiked for a few miles before reaching the ruins of Minard Castle, which was damaged by Oliver Cromwell's forces in 1650.

The ruins of Minard Castle

We also saw a tour bus parked by the castle, with guess what logo painted on the side? That's right, REI Adventures! I wanted to ask the group about it when we saw them coming back from whatever hike they were doing, but I didn't quite work up the courage.

We soon traveled onward to Lispole, an intersection that boasted a gas station and even a little shop! We bought a bit to eat and hiked on until the Way took us off the busy highway and stopped to consume our purchases (a tasty little chicken and bacon sandwich for me and a Diet Coke for Mom because she is, well, Mom). We rested for half an hour and continued onward to Dingle. That was our only appreciable break for the day; thank goodness we weren't carrying our packs!

We continued on through the beautiful scenery (and the sheep) for another few miles before we reached the point where the Way turns from a nice little farm road into a potentially boggy, certainly grassy, and in our mind pointless track. The turnoff itself was, well, a turnoff.

Overgrown stile, uphill climb: we NOPE'd out of that pretty quick

After that, we had a lovely pleasant walk down to Dingle. As luck would have it, we passed a very neat little medieval bridge over the Garfinney River, which we would have missed if we had taken the original track.

The old bridge, from the new bridge

We continued along the road and after a couple of uneventful miles we arrived in the coastal town of Dingle. We found our accommodation and our bags and took showers before heading into town for some food.

Now there is a movie that I rather like called Leap Year, which is about a woman who goes to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend because it's apparently an old Irish tradition that you can do that on Leap Day but the other 1400-odd days of the four-year cycle the men propose. Anyway, after a few travel problems that through some very confused geography land her in Dingle, she pays the owner of the only pub in town (and the only inn, and the taxi service) to take her to Dublin. Even more transportations mishaps occur, they fall in love, and eventually they get engaged on the Cliffs of Moher (which some more flexible geography is within walkin distance of Dingle). Very sweet, more enjoyable the more you watch it (which is why I like is so much, I've seen it about five times now).

But the point I want to get across here is that Dingle is not a single pub/inn with a couple of additional buildings. It is the biggest town on the peninsula, with a flourishin tourist trade and even a friendly dolphin!

Chock-full of restaurants and B&Bs and gift shops and a fantastic ice cream shop

We ate dinner at a fancy restaurant that mistakenly called itself the Old Smokehouse, did NOT expect cloth napkins, white table cloths, and French names for our food (I had duck, Mom had salmon en croute), but it was delicious and nice to have a bit of class for once. Then we ice creamed and finished the night in a pub listening to Irish music, catching a bit of soccer, and experiencing a very drunk German man who told us about eight times that his friend was turning fifty and that there were too many Americans. We eventually left him to his friends and returned to our B&B for a nice long rest.

Day 28: Let the hike begin!!

Today was the first leg of our epic hiking journey around the Dingle Peninsula. Six days, almost eighty miles, and hopefully not too much elevation change. It started pleasantly enough: we had a light breakfast of banana bread and tea, and then met some of our host's sheep, especially Pedro, who was the "other twin" abandoned by his mother and bottle-fed, who is now more of a pet than anything else. He would eat right out of your hand and he even let us pet him a little bit. A few other sheep came down with him, but they did not get quite so close.

Pedro being fed by our host Brigid

Another sheep, a bit more cautious

Our host was extremely helpful and gave us a ride to the Dingle Way, which was doubly helpful in cutting off two or three miles of hiking we would have had to do. Today ended up being only about nine miles instead of eleven. And my, was it beautiful. We hiked by mountains...

Mountains!

...and over streams...

Streams!

...and through sheep fields...

I'm pretty sure that most of Ireland's land area is inhabited by sheep, not people

...until we reached Inch Beach, which had a lovely cafe (with wifi!) and a beautiful beach facing right out at the Atlantic.

Inch Beach, the cafe, and the Iveragh Peninsula beyond

We spent two and a half hours there, eating and drinking and generally relaxing as much as possible (well, I was doing that--Mom got stir crazy after a bit and started wandering around while I finished up a blog entry--we're trying to catch up, I swear!) before we began the final leg, four miles up and over a small ridge and down into Annascaul.

The inland is as beautiful as the coast here--everything is green and covered in little fields.

I like that hill. That is a niiice hill. 

We soon arrived at our B&B for the night, then relaxed for a couple of hours (we each took a shower, we were incredibly sweaty) before going into town and getting some food at the South Pole Inn, which commemorates the importance of Tom Crean in early expeditions there. I unfortunately don't remember what the importance is, but there is a brewery that calls itself Tom Crean's.

After dinner we relaxed, watched A Bug's Life, and turned in for the night. We are so glad we decided not to camp this thing. Beds and showers (not to mention internet) are too pleasant.

Day 27: The wheels on the bus go round and round...FOR SEVEN HOURS

This morning our host kindly offered to take us to the bus stop so we didn't have to walk for an hour, which was exceedlingly helpful. We had already purchased bus tickets so we just had to show the confirmation email and get the little things printed; then we were on our way! We rode four different buses, only once getting off at the wrong place (in Ennis we accidentally hopped off at the other end of town, so we had to walk through the city center to get to the bus station, which turned out well because we stocked up on groceries and hit an ATM) and only once getting onto the wrong bus (we started to board the 51 for Galway instead of the 51 for Cork, but the driver told us where we needed to be and everything worked out pretty well in the end). I slept or Facebooked (the buses have wifi!) through most of the journey, and Mom read or looked out the window.

We finally hopped off the last bus for the day in Camp and began the trek to our accomodation, which was on the other side of the town (well, the gas station, shop, and two pubs with a couple of houses nearby) from us. We walked for an hour or so (punctuated by a stop at the aforementioned cafe for sandwiches and general lunching) and arrived at our stay for the night. It's a sheep farm!

I should mention, the Dingle Peninsula is absolutely beautiful. 

Green fields, golden beaches, sparkling blue waters...

Some neat examples of hay baling

More from Cheryl--I do enjoy just looking out the window when touring a completely new place. It's fun seeing new things and unexpected sameness. Subways seem to be popular all over the British Isles. But an Irish golf course particularly caught my eye. It was nothing but grass all over undulating ground. No trees or even shrubs to mark the fairways. There were of course flags to mark the holes, and probably some markers for where to tee off, but everything else was just grass mowed to different heights.

We enjoyed talking to Brigid our host at The Sheep Farm. I forget what it was in Gaelic (Erin here: it's Gleann na nGealt). Turns out her 2 daughters both moved to the Bay Area some years ago, and one now works in Palo Alto. Small world.

Day 26: The Aran Islands are all Greek to me

Walked this morning from our accomodation about three kilometers out of Doolin into town and out another two kilometers to the pier on the other side, to get on a ferry that would take us to Innisheer (Inis Oírr in Gaelic). It took quite a while but we did arrive on time and took a lovely half-hour journey across the water to the nearest (and smallest) of the Aran Islands. It's a beautiful little town, full of traditional Irish culture (which mostly surfaced in the street signs and maps, which were conveniently written in Gaelic without an English translation, so we had some fun with that).

The beach of Innisheer. Gorgeous waters, lovely soft sand. 

We tried out the island's bike hire company, and they were much nicer than the guys in Windermere (way cheaper too!). The girl handing out our bikes just said, "Hey, if you'd like a taller one go ahead, try this one out," and it actually ended up working really well! No condescending salesmen, no rain, and probably most helpfully, no insane mountain bike trails. I am, after all, an experienced road biker.

So Mom and I hopped on our bikes and headed out to tour this lovely little island! We saw green fields and stone walls...and more stone walls...and basically there are about ten times as many stone walls on this island as there are inhabitants of it.

I think the ground is so rocky that they had to dig this much rock out of it to get enough soil to farm, and they had to put it somewhere so they did this. 

Cheryl here: I had a blast riding bikes here! The roads were little lanes between walls, with more walls branching out every which way, and beautiful flowers along the roads and cute animals (ponies, sheep, cows) in the fields (more flowers too). The roads twisted and turned and went up and down, sometimes reasonably smooth and sometimes quite rocky. It's hard to describe, but it was beautiful and fascinating and crazy fun all at the same time.

Wildlife notes: Saw a puffin on the way out (just a quick glance before it dove), very beautiful gulls on the island, and a gannet on the way back! Didn't know what a gannet was but it looked different than the gulls, and fortunately our host a couple of days later had a bird book on the shelves, and it was unique enough for me to identify. I think I got a glimpse of a dolphin while we were waiting for the ferry.

Erin again: After an hour or two of biking along the south beach, we took a break and got some lunch, then went to the beach to sip on a Diet Coke (yep everyone, Mom drinks Diet Coke pretty much all the time everywhere). We were approached by a dog that just walked up and stared at us at his eye level: so apparently my shins were really exciting. I petted him a little bit and he seemed to enjoy it, and then I went on my way.

Then he approached us again. He actually went and found a bit of seaweed and dropped it on my feet. I threw it for him, and he ran and got it and brought it back to me. It was adorable.

DOG

This carried on for a few throws, and then he got bored and stopped chasing them. We separated for a bit, and he brought over a couple of other bits of seaweed before I found out what he really likes doing. I was playing with digging my feet into the sand by slowly wiggling them side to side, and he just stared at them. He even pawed at the sand in front of me.

I thought I'd try an experiment. Much like I occasionally do to Misty, I wondered what would happen if I startled him by yanking my foot up into the air. A big clump of sand went flying up into the air, and he loved it. He had finally gotten me to do what he wanted all along.

So I spent the next two hours standing at the beach kicking sand for this dog who never tired of it. He would look right at me (eye contact now, he wasn't trying to tell me anything about what I should do with my feet) with such excitement, and if I moved my foot back a little bit in preparation for a swing he would crouch a little bit more, like a compressed spring. It was so fun to watch.

I started throwing them higher so he could jump for them; he loved it even though he got sand all over his face and probably swallowed about a cupful of it

Mom left at some point to continue actually touring the island, while I stayed until it was time to regretfully say goodbye to Dog and catch the ferry.

Well, it was supposed to be time to catch the ferry. There was some huge snafu with the fuel truck and our ferry didn't arrive for over an hour; we kept being told that it would arrive in twenty minutes (a ferry did arrive then, but it was never the right one--ours was of course the very last ferry to show up).

We finally did hop on and enjoy some lovely birdwatching (this is where we saw the Gannet) and jellyfish sighting. When we got back into the mainland, there was a school (I don't know if that is the proper term) of jellyfish of unbelievable size. The school, not the jellyfish; they were only about six inches in diameter. But so many of them!

I'm not sure how well you can see them there but there were millions

We returned to the pier and walked back through Doolin to our accommodation, stopping at O'Connor's Pub again for dinner and more Guinness (when you're in Ireland I feel you have to have as much of it as possible, without over-imbibing). It turns out that getting to the pier and back was over six miles of walking--good thing we didn't have our packs on!

Day 25: The day we went down to Doolin

This morning we woke bright and early and prepared to hop on the bus that would take us to Doolin. The night before our host had been kind enough to phone the tour bus company and ask about the feasibility of being dropped off in Doolin at the end of the trip (when the bus would swing by it anyway) instead of coming all the way back to Ennis and then taking a regular bus. She set it all up, even bringing the bus to our B&B to pick us up (this had already been arranged for another traveler who was staying at Sleepyhollow but it was certainly pleasant). At ten thirty we were on our way, passing quarries and Irish countryside and enjoying the view exceedingly. Recent graduate that I am, I spent a good bit of the time looking at the tall brush as we passed it and studying the effects of the air that the bus was carrying with it: when the wave hit the bushes, how they reacted, and no one is interested in this but me so I'll stop now before you all fall asleep.

A lot of the view was this, but I didn't really mind...

We arrived at our first destination, a castle from the fourteen and sixteen hundreds (the tower was built in the 1400s, the rest in 1681). It's on private land so we couldn't go too close, but it was nice to see it and also to stretch our legs a bit, get a couple of photos.

The older bit is the part on the right with the arrow slits for windows

We then moved on to a ring fort with a gift shop and cafe. Since the fort was not free, we frugal Shears just chilled in the cafe and ate a bit (I got a scone and we got some local black pepper cheese to eat later, the sample was delicious) and got what views of it we could from the parking lot.

It was this really big stone circle with super thick walls; people used to live inside it and bring their livestock in at night. Pretty good system, actually.

We moved on to an ancient burial site in a bit of limestony landscape, a 6,000-year-old rock structure where a couple dozen remains have been found. Pretty neat, and it was nice to imagine so much history that this little collection of rocks may have seen.

It certainly has a bit of that ancient-y feeling

Then we drove fully into the Burren (super rocky landscape) and stopped for lunch at a nice seafood restaurant, and spent a few minutes on a cliffside enjoying the amazing views. Especially with polarized sunglasses (but even without), the sea was an amazing dark blue with hints of teal in the shallower areas.

Beautiful rocky cliffs

The view straight down. Don't worry, I took the precaution of telling Mom I loved her just in case. 

Then we were on to the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland's most famous coastal landmarks. They are truly impressive: a couple of football fields in height and rearing straight up from the ocean to the visitor area above.

The Cliffs. I think Leap Year figured no one would mind if they were moved to the Dingle area for improved effect (Never use that movie as a travel guide for Ireland, but do watch it if you like a good romantic comedy)

Back at the rest of the Cliffs. I loved the little rock outcropping that stuck out a bit from the rest, it was like a watchman for the west coast of Ireland.

Down at the rocks. The water was wonderfully clear.

Then, because we weren't returning to Ennis, we were shuffled to another bus that was going through Doolin, which actually dropped us off right at our B&B. The driver jumped on to the bus before we could pay him, but he was incredibly helpful, as was our original driver who arranged it all. The Irish don't seem to care much for all of the laws of the road and whatnot, but they will be incredibly flexible to help someone out, and we certainly appreciated it.

We checked in, dropped our bags off, and were given a lift into Doolin by our host, who happened to be going that way anyway with her sister. We wandered along the road for a good while, got some ice cream, and then sought out a pub for dinner (wrong order, I know, but hey, we're on holiday, we're allowed to do that). We had some delicious food including seafood chowder (all sorts of meat including mussels, salmon, and some kind of white fish--really neat combination, you don't really see that in the States), and finally tried a pint of Irish Guinness. Everyone says it, I know, but Guinness really is better in Ireland than elsewhere. It's positively creamy over here, and much less bitter. It's as tasty as any other beer I've had, or maybe I'm just finally starting to like beer. I still like cider better, but this was certainly worth a taste.

We walked back home (about three kilometers or so, our accommodation is actually pretty far away from Doolin itself, or at least the little line of pubs that calls itself the town center) for about an hour, and saw a beautiful sunset on the way. It was a lovely evening indeed.

Ruined...castle?...and house

We stopped for a few minutes at a different pub and caught a jam session. It was really neat to watch, especially with so many different instruments (guitars, a couple of harps, this weird arm-bagpipe thing, even a concertina!)

More sunset as we walked the final few hundred meters through farmland

Day 24: Guest entry--Mom!

Hi! We had 3 wonderful days in Edinburgh, although I never totally got my bearings there. We rode buses when we weren't walking, riding down narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings, and it was rare to see the hills around the city. But being surrounded by all the interesting architecture was also neat--churches and monuments and museums everywhere. And I couldn't leave Scotland without trying haggis. The form that shows up on menus is "haggis with neeps and tatties", which shows up as a tower with a large flat meatball sort of thing as the foundation, with a layer of mashed potatoes and a layer of shredded turnips on top, surrounded by a moat of gravy. Mine was topped with a sprig of rosemary. Best not to know what was in the "meatball". It tasted good, but I prefer the salmon I've had a couple of times.

The National Museum of Scotland was terrific. Lots of interesting exhibits with a little bit of everything, and a terrific wing on the history of Scotland, which we eventually focused on. We also liked the display on the history of ships, especially sailing ships, and there was one on music-playing devices, which included a victrola that looked just like ours (all the shape of the carved wood, but I don't remember what brand ours is.)

This ship is called the Star of India and looks like the Star of India but isn't the Star of India because it was abandoned in the Atlantic in the late nineteenth century. Our guess is that it was rebuilt and then ended up in San Diego.

The Edinburgh Castle was great too. It really looks impregnable from below, and hasn't been taken by force for hundreds of years, but there's always the siege strategy. It was built into the exposed lava of an ancient volcano, and I don't know how people built the stone walls while hanging a long ways above the valley floor. I would say hundreds of feet, but it probably wasn't as far as it looked. We also saw a neat display of old swords with a volunteer answering questions, and providing an assessment of some movies' portrayal of sword fighting.

So that was some comments about the previous 2 days, bringing us up to Day 24, our last day in Scotland and first day in Ireland. It was supposed to be sunny today but was raining when we woke up. But we packed our stuff but left it in our rooms, and got on Bus 35 for one more day (we ended up on this route 3 times before we got to the airport), and headed for Hollyrood Park and a hike up Arthur's Seat (a hill with a rock on top) for a view of the city. When we got to the top the clouds were misty, and we could only see through in bits and pieces--of course everything snapped clear as soon as we left the top. But it was a beautiful walk anyway. Unfortunately when we got to the bottom, we discovered that Erin no longer had her jacket. We weren't sure she even had it along, but Erin headed back up the fairly steep climb of over a mile to check--she returned with jacket in hand, so at least it wasn't wasted effort.

The start of the trail. Note the clear skies and high levels of visibility

The view from the top when we got up. Not really the scenery we were going for, but at least it was peaceful.

The sun slowly started to burn off the clouds, and pieces of Edinburgh appeared in momentary patches before fading back into the grey. 

Forty five minutes later and much sweatier, the view was pretty spectacular.

Then it was off to the Museum of Scotland for a few minutes to see a few more things we missed (we like free museums!), then back on Bus 35 to get to our lodgings and pick up our bags before getting on the 35 again which was also the route to the airport.

Extra note: Our host Becky in Edinburgh was really nice, with the right amount of friendliness but not intrusiveness. And her cat Hugo was really cute and friendly and even enjoyed playing chase the string with me.

Another side note: the miles of row houses in Edinburgh were sort a 3-d puzzle, how they fit the rooms together. And most of the gardens were really pretty with pots of flowers and lilac bushes and green lawns, etc (it rains alot here), although they were a 2-d puzzle between the house rows.

But back to our travels--the journey to Shannon was uneventful, except that after Erin's jacket was rescued from Arthur's Seat, I left mine on Bus 35, totally irretrievable since I didn't realize it till we were in Ireland (probably wasn't anything we could have done earlier anyway).

The people in Ireland have been very friendly so far. We ended up taking a taxi from the airport to our B&B in Ennis, because the bus desk was unattended and the taxi desk guy was about to go home, and it was on his way, and he gave us a discount, or at any rate it was only a little more than 2 bus tickets and was right then and door to door. We had another nice room with a beautiful garden view up close and open country and a hurling field in the distance (someone said that's what it was, to me could also have been a rugby or football field). Wensleydale cheese and brown bread for supper on the patio. Nice sunset, nice shower too--it got sort of hot today walking after the sun came out, then we got wet again as it rained just as we were walking out to our puddlejumper airplane.

First sighting of Ireland--Emerald Isle is right!

Well, that was sort of random but at least I'm getting used to Erin's bluetooth keyboard. Hope to contribute more on another day! --Cheryl

Note from Erin: The most eventful moment of the day for me was my second trip up Arthur's Seat. I was pretty annoyed climbing to the top, grumping about having to hike the entire way and getting incrementally sweatier, but when I finally did reach the summit I saw the jacket and everything was better. The views were pretty great too (earlier in the day, the clouds provided an interesting and mysterious cast to the city, as bits and pieces were revealed for a moment and then swallowed back up in the mist, but it was also nice to stop for a moment to pant and perspire and enjoy an unobstructed view). Then I returned to the base, this time assisted by gravity, and after hopping over the boulders a bit I gradually changed over to a something like a sprint, thus rediscovering my love for running downhill. So it was a good thing I left it up at the top after all, though I spent the rest of the day in dire need of a shower.