Connemara, Part 5 - The Cliffs at the End of the Trip

As the sunset on Friday night, we started packing to head back to the apartment in Dublin. There was one last stop on our agenda, though: The Cliffs of Moher. This was the third and final miscalculation that I made in Irish driving time. I'm sure I'll make more miscalculations, but this would be the last one that I made on this vacation.

The Cliffs of Moher sit in County Clare and not technically in Connemara. But they tower over the ocean beneath and provide some spectacular scenery.

I give you the Cliffs of Moher:

Connemara, Part 4 - Connemara National Park, Achill Island

The last two days of our trip, we decided on hitting Connemara National Park and Achill Island. Though Achill Island isn't officially in Connemara, it was part of our trip. These were probably the two most beautiful places that we went.

Connemara National Park was a perfect place to take RJ as it had everything that a 15 month old could want: A playground, sheep (he got over his episode at Airfield Farm), Connemara ponies and a trek up the side of a mountain. Ok, perhaps the trek up the side of the mountain isn't something that a 15-month old would want - unless he's riding his Dad like a pony. :)

Here's a picture of RJ enjoying a Diet Coke (bottle):


Friday, we decided to take a short drive up to Achill Island in County Mayo. Yes, there is a county named after Mayonaise (not really). The short trip (which I expected to take 2 hours) took us 3 hours. Once again, my powers of drive-time estimation were foiled by narrow Irish roads. The good thing is that the payoff was great. We ended up at Keem Beach which was an absolutely fabulous place.


We almost didn't make it here, because we passed two other (not quite as) beautiful beaches that didn't involve us driving up over that last mountain - which involved a narrow road, no guard rails and very little margin for error between our minivan and the Atlantic Ocean.

Connemara, Part 3 - Kylemore Abbey

When you're out in Connemara, everybody says that you have to go out and see Kylemore Abbey. They're quite right, you do need to SEE Kylemore Abbey. It is absolutely beautiful architecture set against the backdrop of a mountain and a lake.

However, I don't know if I'd recommend actually paying the fee to go in. When we went, the cost was 10 Euro (Book of Kells was 9 Euro) per person to get in. That was the highest entrance fee I've paid to get into any historic site in Ireland.

Once you're in, you can take the walk down to the Gothic Church, tour the lower floor of the Abbey, and visit the gardens. Admittedly, we didn't visit the gardens and perhaps that would have made up the balance of the 10 Euro per person.

My recommendation is this: If you're on a tight budget, visit the Abbey, take some pictures and have lunch at the cafe there, but don't pay the entrance fee. There are a few places you can get good shots of the Abbey without going in. However, if you're not on a tight budget, drop the 10 Euro and go in. There are some beautiful views on the walk to the Gothic Church and my experience with gardens at other such places tells me that the gardens would have been wonderful as well.

Kylemore Abbey is an absolutely wonderful site to see.

Connemara, Part 2 - A bunch of driving and a haircut

We had planned on our second day in Connemara to head out to the Aran Islands. I've heard that it's absolutely beautiful there. To get there we'd need to take a ferry across. We ran into a couple of problems.

The first problem is that we did not have an internet connection or a phone book. Being so reliant on technology has its limits. We didn't know what time the ferry left. I figured if we left by 9:30AM, we'd get to the ferry port by 10:30AM and wouldn't have to wait too long. I was half right. If we'd gotten to the ferry port by 10:30AM we would have been right on time for the ferry. The second problem was that I didn't realize is that it would take us an hour and a half to get to the ferry port. This was my first lesson in Irish driving times that I would fail to learn two or three more times on our vacation (much to Beth's chagrin). We arrived at 11AM and the next ferry was at 1PM. We decided to skip the Aran Islands.

However, we did find a nice coral beach by Carraroe to spend the day. Since we had some beautiful weather, we stuck around Carraroe for lunch and then headed back to our own beach. Here's RJ at the beach at Carraroe.



The following day, we had planned to go into Clifden to get RJ a haircut. RJ did really well. Here's a picture of him at Dog's Bay beach sporting his new do.



In those first few days, we did a bunch of driving, too. Here's a couple of my favorite spots.

Dog's Bay Beach

Lough Inagh

Killary Fjord

Connemara, Part 1 - a Garden, a Cottage and a Beach

Beth, RJ and I had a fantastic time in Connemara (County Galway, Ireland). Now it's over and all three of us are wishing that we were back at our beach front cottage on the bay - not only for the wonderful view, but the for the amount of space we had at the cottage compared to the amount we have at our two room apartment back in Dublin.

I figured I'd do a recap of the vacation in a few parts. I don't know how many parts yet, but I'm guessing at least three, probably more. Beth and I got so many pictures and we had such good weather it might be easier to say where we didn't go in Connemara.

First, I'll start with our trip out to Connemara. We stopped at a place in Roscahill (just outside of Galway City) called Brigit's Garden. This was a great time for the whole family. After two hours in the car, RJ got to run around for a bit, we all had some lunch, and enjoyed the scenery. Beth liked it so much that she wants to back in the summer when everything is in bloom. Here's RJ entertaining himself with a stick that he found.


When we arrived at our cottage (pictured in the top right corner), we were amazed by the view and immediately ran across the road to the beach. This is RJ playing in the sand at the Coral Strand beach (north of Ballyconneely) right across the road from our cottage.


Here is picture of the sunset from the front yard of our cottage. We believe that those are Connemara Ponies (not horses) which are a special type of pony that have many legends about how they came to be. My favorite is the one about how the Spanish Armada ran aground in the area circa 1588 and let their Andalusians loose in the area. The result of the breeding between the Andalusians and the local ponies are said to be the ancestors of the Connemara Ponies.



End of Part 1