PLEASE, SIR, I WANT SOME MOHER

Sept 16, 2014
This was to be mostly a driving day, so we fortified ourselves with the excellent breakfast prepared by hostess Marion.  Since I’d been so good recently, I splurged and had the full Irish.  Oh, yeah.  According to Loni’s notes, I preceded this by cold cereal, and topped it off by eating some of Loni’s porridge.  Ah, well, we trenchermen must be fueled.  I have to say, breakfasts in both Scotland and Ireland have proved to be highlights of every day.


Our route today was to drive the  Connemara Loop, then head south through Galway, and end up at our night’s lodging at Pairc na Fhia (Deer Park) B&B near the town of Ennistimon in County Claire.  First order of things was to figure out how to go.  Oh, yeah, I see Connemara on there.  In Ireland, you’re either inundated or left with no signage at all.

We drove north from An Mam to pick up the Loop at what was called Leenaun on our Ordinance Survey Official Road Atlas, an essential if you’re going to drive yourself rather than take a tour.  That’s also what’s shown on the left signpost above.  We couldn’t get Leenaun to show up on the GPS, thus had to wing it using the map book.  When we got to the town itself, the signage there showed the correct spelling to be Leenane.  Looks like there’s some sort of dispute going on.  We found the Atlas also to be frustrating in areas where it used only the Irish nomenclature.  Leenane, for example would be An Lionan.  That’s OK if the atlas gives both spellings, but the Irish one alone does not show in the GPS database.  Fun and games on the road.  From Leenane, we headed west to the town of Clifden, which the unreliable Lonely Planet described as an “appealing Victorian era country town offering evocative strolls.”  Oh, yeah?  About the only thing we could see that barely rated a picture was this strange tower.  The town did have banks and WC’s, both a necessity.  We ATM’d some Irish euros, did our business, and continued around the peninsula to Roundstone, again, not what it was cracked up to be.  The countryside, however, was typically impressive.

It was at this point that we headed to Oughterard in our quest for the Quiet Man Bridge, reported on in the previous post.  Having wasted much of the afternoon in that pursuit, we decided to make tracks south.  We went through Galway, a fairly industrial town, getting caught in our only real traffic jam of the trip.  We didn’t see anything notable from the car, but to be fair we didn’t really go exploring.  Just passing through.  From Galway we went southwest through the region known as the Burren, which probably means “barren” as it was a lot of nothing.  We proceeded to Ennistimon and our next lodging, the Pairc na Fhia B&B.  This is a five star place of newer construction, with resident pooch (the white blob in front of the door) guarding the entryway.

The reverse view, from where I’m standing, was quite lovely with lots of stone walls.  Yes, we’re loving it.

We were greeted by our hosts, Tom & Marion, and Mitzi the retriever, with a nice afternoon tea and biscuits.  We left no prisoners. 

Tom gave us all sorts of advice about when and how to see the Cliffs of Moher and Haig’s Head, like waiting until 6:00 pm when the light was best, the ticket takers go home, and the entrance is free!  Well, all right!  So, after settling in, we headed west.  These cliffs are certainly impressive, at 200 meters high, but I still liked the Slieve League better.

For perspective, the tiny nubs on top of the tip of the first cliff are people.  Yeah, 600+ feet down is a long way.  Again, the mist along the coast makes for difficult picture taking.  Here’s another shot of the next cliffs, showing the sea caves.

The above coastline is facing south.  To the north, they’ve built a replica tower on a promontory, which seems to exist only as a backdrop for tourist pictures.

The view to the north from that promontory, though, was gorgeous.

It was a lot of walking to get to the cliffs from the parking area, but certainly worth it.  While they haven’t let commercialism mess with the views, you can’t escape it along the access path.  At least they did a nice job of blending the shops in with the environment.

On the way back we stopped for dinner at Vaughn’s Anchor Inn in Liscannor, a nice little harbor town.  The place was pretty empty when we first walked in, but we were a bit early.  Before long they sat a party of 14, then one of 8, etc., and it quickly became quite lively.  The easy winner tonight was Alice with a perfectly cooked lobster.  Loni had fish & chips which she pronounced excellent, and I didn’t do too bad with a scallop appetizer and a seafood chowder.  And, of course, a Guinness. 
So, thank you kind sir, for giving us Moher.  (Ouch)