Tuesday, May 06, 2008

To The West

Over the bank holiday weekend, we decided to head to the west coast of Ireland. After a few plan changes, we decided to head to Galway first (major city on the west coast) and then decide which route to take. Thou' we never actually we made it to Galway City in itself. Here is the route we end we took during the trip.
While half an hour into the drive, we got stuck in traffic and decided to take small country roads than the big motorways and one of the best decisions also :), first no traffic, tiny country gravel roads, cows, sheeps, bins, horses .. great ride as we headed to the west coast with even more beautiful sunny weather (only if it cud be sunny always) and our first stop some tiny castle along the way. And we decided to head to the Cliffs of Moher (more here) or as everyone says "Cliffs of Mohan", I had to mention it :). It got very windy by the time we reached there and as we walked along the cliffs and a bit rainy also but it was very awesome. One of the best, n breathtaking. Some shots:

And we decided to spent the night at a small village "Doolin" near the footsteps of the clips and had a leisurely walk during evening to the cliffs. Doolin - aas very relaxing and the slow pace of life, friendly locals, live music. We took an early morning drive to the cliffs again. It was nice n warm at 7 AM, we were lucky to have such good sunny weather.



We headed to the very west of Ireland, town called Clifden, bypassing Galway city, driving all the scenic coast, limestone hills, small villages, narrow roads with 100 km/h speed limit (not really, we could only do 50 max on those roads, very surprising). It was just great. The weather was once again on our side, bright, warm, sunny. A local in Clifden told us to go up north side, its called the "Sky Road" and it was probably one of the best spots I have visited.



We started driving towards "Westport", city on the upper west side. And while driving there, we came across this spot "small beach n hills on both sides, nice blue water" (i guess the name was Moorneen or am not sure) but it was so nice, we spent like 4 hours there, just relaxing, sleeping, lunch, walking along the beach, frisbee, and finally some of us dared to go for a swim also. Just thinking of it, wants me to go back there :D .. was gorgeous





Some more (i can keep on going):




We headed to "Westport" through the Connemara National Park. I let the pictures talk -





At westport, pics talk again -




It was my first time to west, and i really enjoyed it and need to go there more often. If you visit me, we def. need to do a drive down west or south or north. Its Ireland at its best.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nothing beats getting out of dublin and drive around the country when the days are warm and sunny... that's a lot of driving that you guys did! ;)

Anonymous said...

HI there,

I am curious - do you know why the Cliffs of Moher is referred to as Cliffs of Mohan? I am researching my Mohan ancestry.

Lori Mohan Herrick
loriherrick@verizon.com
Virginia, USA