I hope you've got time on your hands..

Good morning, all! Time for another rambling post from me as we had another busy day yesterday.

Thanks to advice from Bridie at Beach Cove, we had a little bit of a plan for yesterday's travels. We'd start out on the Connor Pass road, the highest pass in Ireland, as we continued north along the coast towards Galway, with a stop off at the Cliffs of Moher. We knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us, so we never made it back into Dingle. Not that we had anything in particular left to do or see, but somehow I had missed taking pictures of town the previous night. So, though I have an excessive amount of pictures of other places, I will be lacking in pictures of Dingle. Which is a shame, because, though bustling and a bit touristy, it really was a quaint and colorful town.

Anyway, before we could leave Dingle, we obviously had to have breakfast. Now, I don't think I've really talked about our breakfasts much so far. This breakfast, though, is worth talking about. Just about everywhere we went, we had tea, some kind of cereal or fresh fruit, full Irish breakfast (maybe smoked salmon instead), and that was it. You can get a full Irish breakfast everywhere, consisting of sausage, soft fried egg, toast, tomato, and bacon. Mind you, the bacon is so much better than home as it actually comes from the back of the pig (where the word bacon comes from), rather than the belly of the pig, where we cheap Americans get it. Other than that though, breakfast hasn't been too different from place to place. I've been hesitant to order pancakes, because that felt like something I could easily get at home. Well, I was wrong. I ordered pancakes yesterday morning, enticed by the fact that they were served with local honey. Honey instead of maple syrup? Count me in! Not only are these pancakes served with warm honey oozing out of the middle, but these are not like the pancakes I get at home - no Bisquick or super thick stacks of cakey pancakes here. Oh, no. I should have gotten the hint from the pancakes we ordered at Cake Cafe. Those were thin and light and almost crepe-y. They were served folded into quarters, with a little extra flavor tucked into those folds. Folded pancakes? Try folding a Bisquick pancake and you tell me what happens. Certainly not the delicate pile of deliciousness I saw on my plate yesterday morning. At Cake Cafe, they snuck a little bit of cinnamon sugar in between the layers. At Duinin House in Dingle, that's where they stashed the local honey. I stuck my fork into the top layer of the stack and honey started oozing out around the tines. I'm not sure how that sounds to you, but for me, it was perfection.

With that kind of main dish for breakfast, you'd think I'd be happy. Oh, I was happy. But what could make that wonderful of a breakfast happier still? Baileys. Yep, Baileys. Because before you get your main course, there's a cereal course. And this place was famous for their porridge. They don't just serve you porridge with cream - they serve you porridge with Bailey's Irish cream. Yeah. That happened. Think about it. Be jealous. I have no idea how to make porridge. I'm guessing it's similar to oatmeal. Regardless, I will probably try replicating this at home. And if it doesn't turn out? Well then I won't mind being my own guinea pig. (If you were interested in a commentary on Ben's breakfast, well, I apologize. He also got the Bailey's porridge, but I was so wrapped up in the yumminess of my own main breakfast dish that I completely forgot what he ordered. Oops.)

So after that thoroughly amazing breakfast, we packed up like the nomads we are and headed for the hills. Well, headed for the mountains would be more apt. It was still fairly early in the morning when we started in on the Connor Pass, so the skies were dreary and the clouds were hanging amongst the peaks of the mountains. This would be a problem. The whole point of driving through the Connor Pass is to get the mountaintop views of the valleys and bays and sea below you. I won't even bother calling it fog. Instead, we were driving in the clouds. When we pulled off the road at the main lookout point, we could see maybe ten feet in any direction. With the drive we had ahead of us that day, I thought we'd have to give up on these views. Instead, we hunkered down in the car, fiddled with the iPad and waited a while for the clouds to pass. I must have been really enthralled by one of my hidden item games, because I didn't look up until a small tour van pulled up beside us. When I did look out the front window, there was suddenly a view in front of me. And even with clouds lingering around the edges, it was still a pretty phenomenal view. The mountain sloped down to empty fields below us, two massive peaks directly to either side, then flowing down into more pasture, a few houses, and then out to the bay and sea further beyond. The scope of the view was incredible. I was glad I got out of the car because it meant I got to eavesdrop on the tour guide while I took my own photos. Because below us we could see dozens of rock formations, like the remains of ancient homes or town walls. There was no pasture here, no houses nearby, just old stone remnants of something. According to the guide, we were looking down on the ruins of a monastic settlement. The huts we could see were where they used to keep bees. This was apparently a very common sight and we would be seeing many more of these stone ruins as we headed north through the Connor Pass and even further north in the Burren.

And there was exciting news on this particular scenic route. As we pulled out of the parking lot for the overlook, we passed a large, menacing looking yellow sign saying, literally, Turn Back, Do not Enter. Thankfully, we were not breaking the law or driving to certain doom by driving past this sign, for the sign was directed at oversize vehicles, tractor trailers, tour buses, that sort of thing. No trucks to get stuck behind? No coaches to move out of the way for? Awesome! And it was a good thing, too, because not long after that sign we came upon an intense set of switchbacks - one lane wide switchbacks, to be precise. It was harrowing and exciting and beautiful and I was reminded that there was no way I'd be able to do anything productive on the computer that day because this countryside, even when it was covered in clouds, was still too beautiful to blatantly ignore.

We continued to drive north through unendingly beautiful countryside, until we ran out of land. A part of our journey included a car ferry to cross into County Clare. I'd only been on a car ferry once before in Texas and Ben hadn't ever, so it was a neat experience. The ferry was called the Shannon Breeze - good joke. More like Shannon Windstorm. Holy hell! The trip only took about 20 minutes, but I didn't want to be out of the car longer than it took to find the snack counter and take some pictures on the upper deck. It was cold and windy and I think I still had flip flops on at that point in the day. Not a good combination. We made it without any slips or spills on my part and kept on towards the Cliffs.

If you're unfamiliar with the Cliffs of Moher, picture the surf battered cliffs Harry & Dumbledore approach towards the end of Half-Blood Prince. That's them. They're massive in scale. Lush grassy peaks that end abruptly at sheer cliff faces that just go down and down and down to the churning water below. They make a sort of U shape, so you can walk along paths on either side to get pictures of both sets of cliffs. At the one end is a big imposing sign telling you to "Keep Out. Private Property" in four or five languages. A big sign that has a handy dandy foot path going right around it and out along the edge of the cliffs. We took a picture of the sign. And then promptly followed the group of people hopping the fence and walked farther out along the cliffs. Easily the most reckless thing I've done on this trip - probably in my life. Mom, don't freak out. We didn't go out too far. Just enough (big surprise) for me to get a better picture of the other side of the cliffs. Ben walked out a little farther, since he is clearly much more brave and crazy than me, to take a few more shots. We both survived the walk back and hopped the fence to safety. As usual, we took dozens of pictures because, like the rest of Ireland, words cannot do the place justice. I think I kind of gave up on trying to describe it. I know I'm behind on pictures by a couple days, but hopefully I'll get a bit more accomplished tonight so you can see what I mean.

From the cliffs, we drove on and on. I caught a little cat nap. We drove along the edge of the Burren. I don't think we caught too many pictures of this area as we weren't really taking the primary scenic route with lookout points of its own. The Burren is filled with stone ruins even older than the monastic ones we spotted earlier. The area has been inhabited for - get this - 6,000 years. First by hunter-gatherers who later went on to farm the land. This eventually eroded away the soil, leaving behind bare limestone and thousands of dolmens and other ancient funerary sites. We probably could have taken the scenic route, but we were already going to get to Galway after 7, so we decided to bypass it and settle for what we could see from the car windows.

In Galway, we checked into the Glenlo Abbey hotel. My, oh my, is this place gorgeous. I don't know what kind of magic Dan Dooley Travel has up its sleeve, but the room we have is usually over 300 euro a night in the off-season (which is now). The place is an extension on an old, you guessed it, abbey, but even though the place is modern, it's rather classically decorated. I became a sucker for the place when we passed the guest lounge - a library that looks like I might step back in time 2 or 3 hundred years if I cross the threshold. Oh, and there are fresh lilies all over the place. I could smell them before I could see them. I have big, big love for lilies, so this won me over. Almost more than the pretty grey marble bathroom in our room. After staying in B&B's with the tiniest showers known to man for four days, a full sized bathroom and bathtub is a big deal.

After marveling over the room a bit more, we hopped in the car and drove the few minutes into town. What was supposed to be a 7 minute drive turned into about 27 minutes, since Dan Dooley does not work magic on GPS units. It tried to send us down one way streets, streets that were pedestrianized, all kinds of fun things. The restaurants we had in mind had closed early since it was a Sunday, and the bars that had been recommended for good local music were too crowded to want to bother. Instead, we wandered through the pedestrianized part of town until we found an itty bitty restaurant still serving food at nearly 9pm. It was cramped and probably not the best food in the world according to the guidebooks, but it was homey and filling and cheap and open, so we still enjoyed it. Fun fact: Ben voluntarily ordered seafood as his appetizer. I was so proud.

Today was the first morning we got to sleep in, since we didn't have to check out and get on the move to the next town. That was definitely a plus. Breakfast was yummy. Smoked salmon omelet = good idea, Danielle. I think Ben ordered the pancakes. Again, they were these light, foldable things that barely needed any toppings, they were that good. We really need to figure out the magically foldable Irish pancake recipe before we come home, I think.

Now we have a leisurely day ahead of us. We'll head back to the pedestrian area to check out the local shops. Last night we stumbled upon Thomas Dillon's Jewelers, the originator of the claddagh ring. I've been trying not to buy things for myself so far on the trip because I knew I really wanted to get a ring there. Hopefully things aren't too expensive. We shall see. I think we'll also probably be taking a walk along the seawall out to Salthill. I'll remember to take pictures this time, not like in cute little Dingle. Although, just fyi, from what we saw of Galway last night, Dingle is much cuter. As in, I didn't see any drunk guys peeing against buildings in Dingle. Yep, that happened last night. People walked by like nothing was out of the ordinary. Weird. I'm acting under the assumption that we won't see that in the middle of the day today. Fingers crossed.

Off we go! Be back with pictures later tonight.