We started our first full day in Ireland with breakfast at the Aran View Manor. And what a view! We’d arrived in the dark the night before but were delighted to see the Cliffs of Moher off in the distance which were going to be our first destination of the day.
The whole atmosphere at the Cliffs of Moher has changed. There’s a car park. You have to pay to get in. There are paved paths which make it pretty much ‘wheel-chair accessible’. There’s a multimedia visitor centre. It’s very commercial. To be fair, it was then too to a certain point, but not like this. The path then was a dirt path and you could walk from O’Brien’s tower all the way to Hag’s Head – which we did in '96. Now, about 200m from the visitor’s centre, there’s a big sign that says ‘don’t even think about going past here’! Not that that was going to stop us. It was the wind and the rain that gave us an indication that we’d gone far enough about 750m further on. On a fine day we would have undoubtedly made it to Hag’s Head. Still, there were plenty of other things to keep us busy. 
The smell of the burning peat was everywhere as we drove around and I just breathed it in. Smell is your memory trigger and I just loved the smell of it here, where I’d really first smelled it. It’s an odd smell, I appreciate, but it’s a comforting smell to me and it sure took me down memory lane!
After lunch we did a big drive around in a circuit looking for castles and ruins. We saw the dolmen, a stone fort and I went into the Ailwee cave 180m below where Marnie was hiking around. Then we hiked around the Burren in the rain which was so beautiful and ‘moody’. Marnie got some amazing photos on her iPhone with a cool little app that takes 2 pictures and combines them. The picture on the right is an example of the barren Burren.
We went into Doolin to O'Connors for dinner (with 5 minutes to spare before the kitchens closed) and an authentic trad session! Yay! That's what we came for. One musician that stands out was a boy of maybe 12 or 13 years who treated us to a haunting tune on his tin whistle followed by a lovely ballad that he sang. This kid's got talent!
Quote-of-the-day: "So are you really hungry? Is that why you want to go to dinner so early?" Said at 9:30PM. Apparently Marnie’s jetlag was in full force as she thought it was closer to 6.
On our first trip here 15 years ago we’d started in Dublin and taken the train over to Galway. After a few days we took the bus to Lisdoonvarna and then Doolin. We wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher and when we asked for directions years ago we were told to walk to the end of the road, hang a right, walk another 200m to the intersection and go left. We could hitch from there. Times have changed. One – we have jobs now and could afford to rent a car (how posh!) and two – you just don’t hitchhike in Ireland any more like that. It’s no longer safe. It’s a bit sad though I understand why not. Still, I can’t help but feel grateful that I got a chance to see it in the ‘good old days’ and to get to experience hitch-hiking, which, as it turns out, we did all summer by necessity given our poor-university-student existence.
The whole atmosphere at the Cliffs of Moher has changed. There’s a car park. You have to pay to get in. There are paved paths which make it pretty much ‘wheel-chair accessible’. There’s a multimedia visitor centre. It’s very commercial. To be fair, it was then too to a certain point, but not like this. The path then was a dirt path and you could walk from O’Brien’s tower all the way to Hag’s Head – which we did in '96. Now, about 200m from the visitor’s centre, there’s a big sign that says ‘don’t even think about going past here’! Not that that was going to stop us. It was the wind and the rain that gave us an indication that we’d gone far enough about 750m further on. On a fine day we would have undoubtedly made it to Hag’s Head. Still, there were plenty of other things to keep us busy. 
The next destination was the pier in Doolin where we got information about a boat trip to one of the Aran Islands, Inishere, for the following day. With that sorted it was next time for lunch in Lisdoonvarna at a cozy little pub out of the rain.
The smell of the burning peat was everywhere as we drove around and I just breathed it in. Smell is your memory trigger and I just loved the smell of it here, where I’d really first smelled it. It’s an odd smell, I appreciate, but it’s a comforting smell to me and it sure took me down memory lane!
After lunch we did a big drive around in a circuit looking for castles and ruins. We saw the dolmen, a stone fort and I went into the Ailwee cave 180m below where Marnie was hiking around. Then we hiked around the Burren in the rain which was so beautiful and ‘moody’. Marnie got some amazing photos on her iPhone with a cool little app that takes 2 pictures and combines them. The picture on the right is an example of the barren Burren.
Quote-of-the-day: "So are you really hungry? Is that why you want to go to dinner so early?" Said at 9:30PM. Apparently Marnie’s jetlag was in full force as she thought it was closer to 6.
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