Travel notes

Our host in Galway has generously prepared itineraries for guests on road trips. This came one day too late for us as we had already touched on his day 1 recommendations so we had to jump to day 2. This took us along the coast from Galway towards the Cliffs of Moher. He suggested that we bypass the famous cliffs in favour of what he described as a more intimate experience further down the coast at Kilkee. His insight was clear when we came over the rise at Moher to be greated by hundreds of cars and tour buses. It was very unappealing so we didn't stop. We ruled out Kilkee as that was too far, so we had to be satisfied with the cliffs we had already seen. He also recommended we spend some time investigating the Burren National Park and call in on an Irish Round Tower at Kilmacduagh. We did both, threading the Mazda 2 through a maze of roads. A stiff drink was required by the time we reached home base. The round towers are unique to this part of the world. They were built near monas...

It's been whirlwind couple of days. We arrived in Dublin after a short flight from Glasgow, picked up a rental car (6 speed manual Mazda 2) and drove to Donegal. The rental transaction was a bit of a pain. They always want a credit card because they take a deposit using a hold. Hertz say they can't process a payment from Wise when I return the car, which sounds like a them problem. Anyway the cars perfect and mostly fits on the backroads. We quickly learned that the more digits in the road annotation, the worse things get e.g the N12345 will be suitable for nothing wider than a horse. We're loosely embarking on a tourist route known as the Wild Atlantic Way which runs down the west side of Ireland. Our first big bite of this was a loop around the north western peninsula known as the Inishowen 100. Think of rolling hills with a carpet of green grass sprinkled with sheep and stone houses leading to wild beaches and sheer cliffs. It really was a beautiful thing and as much as ...