A Hundred Thousand Welcomes

Cead mealle faillte! A hundred thousand welcomes from the heart of the Gaelic world. This post is a follow-up about my recent trip to Ireland, with some of my recommendations of places to see and things to do, with particular relevance to outdoor-minded folks and/or those traveling on a budget.

First up, Dublin, or Dubh Linn (Dark Water). There are just some things you have to do in Dublin, regardless of how much money it costs or how "touristy" it is, and one of those things is seeing the Book of Kells at Trinity College. Intact, beautiful books that are over 1200 years old? Well worth the admission price of 8euro. The Guinness Storehouse tour is fun too, with a free pint served at the Gravity Bar, which has a 360 degree view of Dublin (nice when it's not foggy and rainy).

But the coolest and most cost-effective thing you can do in Dublin is to take a free walking tour starting out from the Dublin Castle. They last 3-4 hours, and you'll get tons of information about culture, history, language, and even local stereotypes from a local guide. (Mine was James, who was chock-full of knowledge.) There's no better way to explore the city, and you'll meet some fun people while you're at it.

Next, grab a Bus Eirann coach to the west coast of Ireland, to Galway or Doolin. From Doolin, you can do a 6-mile long cliff walk to the Cliffs of Moher, which is only slightly miserable when it rains the whole time. You can catch a bus back if you're so inclined, or walk back once you make it to the visitor centre.

While in Doolin, it's best to visit Gus O'Connor's Pub, where there's delicious food and amazing "trad" sessions EVERY night. Oh yeah, and the music is free, with musicians getting together to jam out with traditional Irish tunes. There are 2 other pubs in Doolin, but I preferred the atmosphere of O'Connor's.

Head to Killarney as your jumping-off point to explore the Ring of Kerry. From Killarney, I did a 10 mile walk to the Torc Waterfall in Killarney National Park. I also went horseback riding in the park, which was the priciest activity of the trip, but rather fun despite my horse's constant obsession with snacking.

The best day activity in Killarney is to rent a bike for a little under 13euro and bike to the Gap of Dunloe. It's a 50km trip to get to the Gap and back, circling around the lakes, with some travel on bike paths, some through the National Park, and a little bit along the Irish highway (ON the highway). It's all pretty safe, and if you take it casually, you can get some spectacular views and really enjoy yourself. Start off biking around the north side of the lakes, west out of Killarney to Kate Kearney's cottage. Then bike through the Gap of Dunloe to Lord Brandon's cottage and back along the south of the lake.

After you've done a few miles on the highway, you can stop at Dinis Cottage for some really tasty food and snacks. This cottage was a saving grace for me, because at that point in my bike ride, I was out of water, dehydrated, and confused that I was biking on the highway, and so I think of it as a sort of Irish Shangri-la.

Cork, the next city... probably my least favorite of all the locales, but it did have some gems tucked away, including the St. Anne's Church / Bells of Shandon near the hostel I stayed in and a tasty fish-and-chips shop called the Fish Wife that had some crazy tasty curry chips. And a pub called Pat Buckley's where they show you how to / let you pour your own pint Guinness or Beamish!

In lieu of spending time exploring Cork too much, I spent a full day at the grounds of the Blarney Castle, which gets a bad rap for being super touristy, but it's a truly lovely way to spend a day. Blarney is really easy to get to by bus, and you'll get dropped off about a 3 minute walk from the admission gates to the castle. With a druid garden, arboretum, fern garden, and poison garden, you could explore all day long and not get bored. Add a picnic and kissing the Blarney Stone and you've got yourself quite a trip.

(Note the tiny spot of light a few feet above the top window of the castle: that's where the Blarney Stone is, on the underside of the wall. What many people don't realize until they get to the ramparts of the castle is that to kiss the stone, you have to slide out on your back over this 4-story-high hole to reach the stone!)

Added bonus for the castle grounds is the oh-so-interesting Poison Garden, which had a marijuana plant casually hanging out in the middle of it!

I found the Irish bus system very user-friendly and inexpensive, though it is worth noting that most coaches don't seem to have a bathroom on board even for multi-hour trips. And as for food, I ate out at a few places, but since I don't like eating dinner alone, I visited grocery stores a lot and cooked a good bit of my meals. I was able to use my credit card at a few places, but Ireland seems to run best on a cash-only system, so I made two withdrawals from ATMs, one at the Dublin airport and one from a Bank of Ireland, and just carried cash. A very easy and safe place to visit, whether you're traveling alone or with friends!

Whiskey in the Jar

In June I was able to make a trip across the pond to the lovely Emerald Isle herself: Ireland. This post is the first of two about that trip; in the second one I will list some recommendations about things I did and saw, but this one will simply be a top-10 list of some surprising or unexpected things I encountered while I was there.

starting with this hand

1: Beer OCD. In bars in the US, some fancier or snobbier or namby-pamby beers (think Stella Artois or any high-grav) require they be served in their own special glasses with their logo printed across them. Other more humble, down-to-earth beers are happy to be served in any old pint glass. Well, in Ireland you'll be happy to hear that all beers are treated as equals, served in proper glasses with their own logo.

2. Guinness really does taste better in Ireland. But it has some stiff competition from Murphy's and Beamish, other local Irish stouts.

3. Crosswalks take FOREVER to get across as pedestrians. The light takes an eternity to turn, and regardless of how long you've waited, you have 10 seconds of walking available before the next long wait. Needless to say, jaywalking is quite common. When you're diagonally crossing intersections in, say, Dublin, assume 5 minutes before you'll get across the street if you follow the lights.

Muckross House, in Killarney National Park

4. The Irish have a way of underestimating distances. "Just down the road" could mean several miles. Unlike in America where walking times seem to be based on elderly and disabled walking speeds, "a 15 minute walk" absolutely means a 15 minute walk (or more) for a healthy young person in Ireland.

5. Biking on the highways is a common and acceptable practice in Ireland. And I'm not just talking "cycling," with aerodynamically-efficient kitted-out roadies cycling at speeds of over 30 mph. I myself rolled along in a straw hat and scarf  on a mountain bike at a casual (read: dehydrated) pace and initially had some question as to whether or not I should even be on the highway, where cars have speeds around 80-100 kmh. I felt reassured after seeing a couple on bikes taking a leisurely date and after seeing a family of very out of shape Eastern Europeans hitting the road. When there aren't bike paths available in beautiful scenery, that's when you change over to the highway. And since everyone bikes on the highway at some point, drivers aren't rude or surprised by bikes and handle them accordingly.

goats not included

6. The food everywhere I went was shockingly good! I wasn't expecting it at all, but I enjoyed some genuinely excellent meals across Ireland. (See caveat in the next point.)

7. The espresso drinks I tried were terrible. I had them in a few different places with baristas probably of different skill levels and ages, but they all tasted like... burning or drip coffee or.. something. I'm not sure what happened to all of them, but the best coffee drink I had was in an airport cafe. Like many in the British Isles, the Irish are fans of instant coffee rather than drip coffee (or apparently espresso).. ugh. Enough said.

8. Something I miss from living in Europe is seeing baby strollers with plastic hoods covering them in times of rain. You don't really see that in the US much because people don't walk in the rain or take public transit (some metropolitan areas excluded).

9. Live music, or more specifically, "trad" sessions of traditional music in the pubs is fantastic. You can find free live music in a pub any night of the week in pretty much any city in Ireland. From old-timers playing the concertina and spoons to the young, new faces of traditional Irish music playing fiddles and guitars, there's great music everywhere, though Doolin near the Cliffs of Moher boasts being the birthplace of Irish music.

best pub in Doolin

10. Finally, the most important point, the Irish truly are some of the friendliest people on the planet. You'll never be alone in hostels or pubs in Ireland, and when you start chatting with the locals at a bar, there's nothing but great craic (a good time) to be had.