Ireland

It's been almost two months now since our trip to Ireland, which has been enough time (for me, anyway) for the memories of the trip to transition from "Wow, that was amazing!" to "Good times... did those actually happen or am I just dreaming it?" And so, since one of the stated purposes of this blog is to help us capture our thoughts and adventures while they're still fresh in our minds and we haven't yet forgotten  them, I should go ahead and write a post about the trip.

We traveled to Ireland with Heather's parents on a great package deal including flight from Boston, rental car, and six nights accomodation in the villas at Adare Manor. This provided the framework for us to plan the vacation around - with a home base to return to each night, we could do day trips in various directions rather than having to figure out where to end each day.

Although driving on the left side of the road (which Heather and her mother both handled like pros - Mr. Smith and I chickened out...) was the first reminder that we weren't in Kansas any more, so to speak, it really hit home when we wandered over to the nearby golf course to explore the 600-year-old friary ruins 

smack in the middle of the course. 

Besides the age of the ruins, the other thing that struck us as different was how simply taken for granted it all seemed to be. No admission charges, no fancy signs, no fences, no other tourists - just the four of us, the ruins, and the occasional golf ball hitting one of the walls. Although we saw many other amazing sights on this trip, these ruins are special to us because we had them entirely to ourselves to explore. Amazing.

In fact, I would say that although we saw many of the famous sights (the Poulnabrone Dolmen, the Cliffs of Moher - which were beautiful, by the way - the Gallarus Oratory, the Rock of Cashel, and so forth), all of our best memories from the trip are of the places and sights that you wouldn't find on most maps.  There's just something about that feeling of discovery, I think, about having a place that feels like it was our personal secret, instead of just being another checkbox on the list of "Places Tourists Go To Take Pictures". There's nothing wrong with the famous sights and sites (they're famous for good reason!), but the lesser-known places have a definite appeal in their quietness and solitude.

One such place was the waterfall and hidden glacial lake at the top of the Connor Pass into Dingle. We did get a tip on finding that one from our Rick Steve's travel book, but it definitely wasn't on our map or in any of our other books. So peaceful and relaxing - we could have sat by the still waters of the lake, seemingly alone in the world, for hours.

We of course visited many pubs while we were there - fish and chips, live Irish music some nights, and of course, lots of beer. Guinness is said to be better in a real pub in Ireland, and I'd agree that this is true, but I found that I preferred Smithwick's myself. 

Heather was more looking forward to the hard cider, but found that the typical Irish brand (Bulmer's) wasn't particularly to her taste. Another reason (as if we needed more!) why we need to make a trip to England next - they have the right kind of cider over there!

I couldn't possibly fit all of the pictures into this post, so I'll just have to give you a link to our album instead. But I have to include one last image, from our last day in Ireland: