Kind-of counting to 10 in Irish

Yes - I do wash Adaline - but she was willing to be videotaped counting to 10 in Irish immediately after drinking some hot chocolate!! This isn't an entirely accurate count to 10, but do you really know the difference? :)

November 15 - Part A

We woke up refreshed and ready for a day of exploring on Saturday! Hopeful that the Friday blahs had left us, we got a fairly early start for our drive around Connemara. First stop, the town of Cong, which has a beautiful little abbey.




After exploring the abbey, we headed down a beautiful path for the monk's fishing house. They built a house over the river - the house has a hole in the floor where they would cast their fishing nets. When a fish was caught, a bell attached to the net would ring, letting the monk know that he had a catch! We loved the little house, as well as the surrounding nature, and were somewhat sad to have to head back to the car...












We drove by Ashford Castle, which is now a hotel. Looked quite nice, but we didn't go inside.
We LOVED the town of Westport - in fact, we wished that we could have spent the night. It was a cute little town with lots of shops and warm pubs with yummy food. Mommy did found one favorite shop - and then we had some lunch.

Adaline is a fan of hurling - and she was delighted to find some hurling sticks outside a shop. Trying to explain that they weren't hers, however, proved to be a bit difficult. :)
Next time we go to Ireland, we plan to spend at least one evening in Westport so we can further enjoy the scenery and atmosphere.

November 15 - Part B

We took lots of pictures on November 15, hence the two sections... It was a long day of driving, but what beautiful sites!! After lunch in Westport, we stopped to see Croagh Patrick. Adaline has been enjoying reading a story about St. Patrick, so she was really interested in seeing his statue. Once a year, people hike barefoot to the top of the mountain you see behind the statue. It would have been a great hike (with shoes on...), but maybe when Adaline is older. :)






This was before Bryan went "offroading" and slid down a hill... The picture below shows Bryan teaching Adaline how to cross herself.

Directly across the street is the Famine Ship Memorial - in honor of all the people who sailed away from Ireland for a better life only to perish aboard a crowded ship... Quite moving.

During the potato famine, thousands of hungry Irish hiked through this desolate part of the Ireland looking for food... Not many made it.


We have seen several animals in the road - I was thankful we didn't hit the cow in the road that we saw earlier in the trip!!
The Aasleagh falls were touted in several books as being the most beautiful - we were a little disappointed... They are in the middle of an Irish fjord!
Random "road art" we saw along the way!

Kylemore Abbey was breathtaking! It is now a girls' school.
Our final stop - frankly, only because it was suddenly dark! - was Connemara National Park. We decided to do a short, short hike - mainly because little missy said we should - and we were delighted at the beauty. We would love to go back when we have more time to explore.


Apparently we wore Adaline out even though most of the trip was driving... We rewarded her (after dinner in our room!) with a little ice cream. Overall - a great, great trip!!

November 16 - Galway and the Burren

I think I may have skipped a day - will go back and recreate, but this was last Sunday... We had two wonderful nights in Galway, and then we drove south. We loved the city so much, though, that we had to make one last swing through before leaving. We will definitely go back!
They were putting up the Galway Christmas tree in Eyre Square Sunday morning. Adaline was impressed.
We visited the church downtown. Christopher Columbus worshiped there before sailing out to sea - they say he came to honor an Irishman who had traveled across the ocean before him, but I can't remember his name and Bryan isn't in the room right now to tell me...

There were beautiful "old things," as Adaline would say, all around the church. We were glad to get there before church service started - it was very peaceful and a perfect way to start our day.

We took a final stroll down "The Long Walk" (referenced in the song The Galway Girl) before turning around and heading back to the car.
Each part of Ireland that we have visited is just a little bit different - it is all so striking. In western Ireland, the land is very rocky, so the farmers used the rocks to make little stone fences, which I loved. The Burren, in particular, is very rocky - so lots of rock fences!

Above is a peat bog. We used Rick Steves travel book for many of our routes - he encouraged readers to get out and jump on the peat bogs to feel how they moved. We decided to forgo that particular recommendation... :)
We stopped for lunch in Ballyvaughn, a cute little town along the way. It had cute little shops and a cozy pub for us to eat in.
The Burren was somewhat man-made - when early Norman settlers (again - should verify with Bryan...) clear-cut the land of trees, the environment responded by developing into this interesting landscape - a lot of the books describe it as lunar. Apparently the flora is just amazing during the summer. Surprise, surprise - we saw it in the rain. :) It was still striking.



Next stop - an ancient tomb in the middle of nowhere! As an aside, Adaline has desecreated some national monuments (if you know what I mean...), and this is one of the ones where Bryan made a mad dash for whatever coverage he could find for Adaline to do number one. I know - too much information! I told him we should start a list - she will be horrified when she is older.

Thank goodness for Adaline's rain boots!!!


We never tire of seeing castles and towers along the way. This one was particularly amazing - we thought someone should spend the money to make it safe enough for tourists to visit - just beautiful!
Our final stop was at an abbey that Rick Steves recommended - has some of the oldest Irish crosses in the country. We walked around for a few minutes looking through the hundreds of crosses in the cemetery - only to discover they were in a protected room in the back. Ha!!

We had a great trip through the Burren, even though several spots were closed for the off season... We stayed in a bed and breakfast that I thought was in Doolin (a music town) so we drove there - only to reread the directions stating that our b&b was five miles away - but the landscape, again, was beautiful, so we didn't mind the extra drive. I will try to go back and make sure I add pictures from November 15 next.