Ireland in a Fog Part 2

Day 30: July 16, 2012

Check out Ireland in a Fog Part 1. 

An ancient tomb in the Burren.
Older than the pyramids.

            Emily, Haley, and I decided to take a couple bus tours out of Galway to explore the western part of Ireland. Monday we took a tour of The Cliffs of Moher and The Burren and Tuesday we took a tour of Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. Both tours had some similarities and some differences to say the least. The biggest thing they had in common was the fog. Ireland in a Fog Part 3 will be about our tour of Connemara and Kylemore Abbey.

Emily and Haley with the wind blown look!

            Monday morning we met up, I came from my spacious, out of the way, quiet apartment in Donegan Courts just about a five minute walk to the girls tiny little boutique hotel right in the center of Galway City. Haley said she feels more like she is in France with the decorations and the size of the room. But they both agree that it they really like the place, even though they were kept up the night before until about 3am because of the pubs right across the street from their window.

Haley and I right before the fog set in.

            Our tour of the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren started out a little later than when we had hoped to begin the day, but it all worked out well. We grabbed the back seat so we could all three sit together, but this eventually turned out to be a poor decision. Emily’s never liked the back of cars, and driving down the bumpy, curvy, narrow roads reaffirmed her discomfort.

The crazy fog over the cliffs!

        I had already been to the Cliffs and we drove through the Burren on our way from Doolin to Galway, but it was really cool being able to experience it with the girls! When we got to the Cliffs it was pretty cloudy out and a little drizzly. Typical Ireland weather. Of course, Sunday when we arrived in Galway from Dublin it was the nicest day we had had since arriving in Ireland over a month ago. But the day we decide to take a tour it’s back to the Ireland we all know and love. So we hiked up the left side of the cliffs and decided to go past the “DANGER: Do not Cross this barrier!” sign like half of everyone else up there. The wind was whipping with great strength directly at our faces. Luckily it wasn’t at our backs or else this would have been quite a bit more frightening (for the girls of course, I wasn’t scared at all). Once we reached a point where we all felt like we had gone far enough, or Emily and Haley told me to not get any closer to the edge, we decided to turn around. It was a good choice too because once we turned around the fog started rolling in. Not just a little bit of fog either. It was like we were walking around in a giant cloud. Luckily this didn’t last too long though!

A 60 foot drop to the rocks in the Atlantic! 

            After our foggy experience at the Cliffs we were off to The Burren. In Irish “burren” means “great rock” and that is a very precise term for the landscape. Rocks on rocks on rocks. It was amazing to see the massive amounts of limestone covering the hills. Green grass sprouted up between the cracks. The fog made the deserted landscape seem even more eerie while to our left the fog over the Atlantic added to the ghostly scene we were in.
           Overall the tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren was great! The fog added a different dimension to the tour. I’m glad we got to the cliffs in time before the fog got too intense and that it didn’t stick around the whole time because as you can tell from the pictures you could barely see anything.