Travelogue: Ireland
1-18/8/97 Travelogue: Ireland
1-18/8/97 We spent two weeks in Ireland, traveling from one Bed & Breakfast (B&B) to another and exploring the Irish countryside. We reserved all of our B&B's ahead of time and only had to change one night (thanks to terrible weather and canceled events). Our primary activity was to walk up, down, around, through, over, between, and on as many pieces of Irish land as we could. We supplemented this with one afternoon on horseback in the southwest. The weather was glorious for our first day, suddenly becoming absolutely dismal, and then gradually improved. It didn't hamper too many of our plans. Our last few nights were in Dublin, a very lively and happening city - including the last night when we were shown around to a few of the local hangouts by a Laurie's sister's friend who lives there. Other than breakfast and Guinness (sweet nectar of the gods), the culinary experience was not quite that of Italy: nothing spectacular but the prices. At most of the B&B's, the breakfast was a so-called "Full Irish Breakfast": cereal and OJ, egg, bacon, sausage, pudding (sausage relative), toast, whole- meal brown bread. It was generally enough to keep us going until dinner.
The first weekend was rather a slow start to our holiday, with failed plans and failing weather.
Although the weather didn't improve quickly, we did our best to ignore our days in Southwest Ireland.
We finally had a little sun, and quickly took advantage of it in various counties of Norhtwest Ireland.
We ended our wonderful vacation in Dublin, a big difference from the quiet and remote extents of Ireland.
As you may have gathered, food and culture did not dominate this trip as they did in Italy. This was more an exploration of natural beauty throughout the Irish countryside, and, in particular, on the coast from Bantry Bay in the Southwest all the way to Inishowen in the North. I strongly recommend a visit to anyone who has the time to spend. The landscape is surprisingly varied for such a small island (spoken like a true Canadian), so a tour as we did was interesting. On the other hand, if I went back, I would stay in one or two areas so that I could explore them more properly, perhaps even taking one of the many walking routes (100-200 km) which are well documented and signposted.