Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Easter weekend in Ireland


Liz and I made our way back to the bus station to head to the Cliffs of Moher. I was excited to see the Irish coastline, as I had not been to the ocean or other large body of water in quite some time. I must say I enjoyed the tour guide on our first tour much better. He was a smoother driver on the windy Irish roads, as well as much funnier and light hearted. Don’t get me wrong this tour guide was great, just not quite as likeable. I am amazed by the amount of information these tour guides know and how often they are driving buses. Many of them give the tours 5 or 6 days a week and the bus leaves at 10 and does not get back until after 6! Not a career I would aspire to have; however these guides seem happy and energetic.

We first stopped at the Aillwee caves. These caves predate the Egyptian Pyramids and were discovered in the 1940’s by a farmer taking his dog for a walk. His dog chased a rabbit down a hole and the farmer went in after him discovering the amazing naturally made caves. They are full of stalactites and stalagmites. These are those bits of minerals in caves, which look like drip sand castles or hang down from the tops of caves like icicles. Our tour guide described them well. He said stalactites are things that drip from above and stalagmites are things that tend to get dripped on.


A waterfall in the caves

Me in the caves!

We then made our way to the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs rise 120 metres above sea level. We walked to the very top. A bit later in the season, puffins can be spotted living on the cliffs. We were disappointed not to see any, Liz more so than I, however it was still totally worth seeing the cliffs. The pictures don’t give them justice.




It was a bit windy! 
The Cliffs of Moher 
Liz and me at the cliffs!


After our tour we took the 3 hour bus ride back to Dublin to be there for the weekend. It was very cool to be in Ireland for Easter weekend, because everyone takes the Christian religion quite seriously. Did you know that it is a law in Ireland that you can’t serve alcohol on Good Friday? Well, it is. Our hostel was quite loud well into Friday night because people couldn’t go out to drink, so they partied in the Lobby instead. Liz and I were exhausted from the tour so we went to bed in anticipation of a long Saturday because we figured most things would be closed Sunday so we wanted to do touristy things Saturday.

We set out on Saturday to see three things: 1. The Book of Kells 2. The Natural History Museum and 3. The Guinness Factory. We were lucky enough to see it all! As well as do some meandering and see the city a bit.

The Book of Kells is in the Old Library which houses thousands of books old and new. The building is beautiful and the books are in great condition.

The Old Library

The Natural History Museum was quite educational. It was awesome to see some owls!! I do love owls. 

Owl
And Liz finally got to see her puffin. Not quite the same as seeing a real live puffin, but pretty close. 

The queue to get into the Guinness Factory went on forever. But since Liz and I bought tickets online we got to skip it! That is really the way to go. We got to see how Guinness is made, from the grain to the hops to the water and mixing it and letting it sit, it's really quite the process. 

Lovely day for a Guinness!
We decided to search for a pub with live traditional Irish music for our last night in Ireland. We came across the Arlington Hotel, which we didn’t realize would have quite the show. We got to see two different bands play as well as a professional Irish Step Dancing team! The music was great, we even recognized a couple songs and the dancing was impressive. We shared a beef and Guinness stew with a side of chips to go with our last Guinness and it was delicious.

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Sláinte! ~Laura

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