Eire, Day 3, The Cliffs of Moher

I loved being able to hike here, the same picture I had picked for my blog background three years ago.

 

By day 3 of our adventure holiday, I am over jet lag and sleeping normally, and A has moved beyond the "if you can't find it, grind it" school of left-hand stick shift driving. We even go to the correct side of the car now instead of making the Chinese-fire-drill move we have all week each time we re-enter the car.

I am quickly becoming the queen of tarts. Good thing today involved lots of walking!

 

After breakfast, we left our B&B and continued our trek across Ireland. We saw castle ruins and thatched houses and even stopped to tour a "showcave" where the bones of extinct brown bears, stalactites and stalagmites were found.

This Neolithic stone grave is older than the pyramids.

During the potato blight famine, farmers were given projects to complete in exchange for food. They engineered these stone walls so that air could flow through them, and most of them are still standing.

One drop at a time for several thousand years. Wish I had that kind of patience.

 

By afternoon, I became a cheesemonger, sampling all sorts of cheeses at a farm shop. A woodland walk up to the showcave and a hike to the Cliffs of Moher followed. What gorgeous beauty!

Those little dots near the castle are people. Puts fear of heights into perspective.

We continued our drive around Ireland and lost count of how many stone walls, stone ruins, sheep, and cattle we saw. We listened to Irish radio and made a game of "same but different" words in the English language. (Post to follow.)

We arrived at a beautiful hotel and walked into the city to find dinner. We laughed about how unusual it was for us to be going anywhere past 20:00. Anniversary magic.