Well, after the late night we slept in till 7:30 and I consumed massive quantities of coffee with breakfast. Today is Laundry Day, we dropped a bag and for €8.50 they wash, dry, fold and deliver back to the B&B. How can you not do it?
We spent the day driving through the Burren, seeing the Dunguaire Castle, sitting in the sun, drinking mineral water on the quay in the little seaside harbour of Kinvara, seeing thatch-roofed houses and so many castle ruins that I finally gave up trying to photograph them.
Hey look! Another pile of rocks!
Oh Lord, no...
The best thing I thought was the Poulnabrone burial chamber, hind of a mini Stonehenge, about 5000 years old, from the Neolithic period. Think about it. Older than the pyramids, before the bronze age.
The Burren is a barren series of rocky mountain tops, eroded into weird forms by water. It is a National Park, which is not at all like a US National Park. In fact, we were pulled over in a dirt lot and a New York lady came up with two maps, asked me if I spoke English, then asked me where the Burren National Park was? She had been seeing all the signs, and it's on the map, but... I waved my arms around and said, this is it! No fees, so entrance station, no rangers and life just goes on in the towns. It is just a designated area. She still wanted to know where the rocks were, besides under our feet that is, so I directed her back up the road a ways to a good viewpoint.
You notice Burren sounds like Barren? First lesson in Gaelic. You're welcome. I had a lot of fun growling, "Ayyye, life is harrrrd in the Burrrrr'n ... and death? Death is harrrrrder still!"
Moving on: an Old church in Kilfenora which is unremarkable except this church has the Doorty Cross and North Cross, both carved of rock, by hand, in the 1100s.
We stopped by the famous Cliffs of Moher which rise 700 feet out of the Atlantic, which is impressive here, but not so much if you are from say, California, and have driven Highway One. Still, they were pretty and cute in that quaint way everything is over here, and we had fun hiking as I defied the "Stay Back or Die" warnings to get a couple photos.
It was a nice scenic day, but we couldn't wait to get back to Galway and pub hop. For dinner Gail got the roast vegetable tower with goat cheese, and I had the seafood chowder and spicy chicken sandwich, which everyone was eating last night, the sandwich which the one waitress said, "I ate one every day for two weeks and I want another one now." We listened to the music from the pub across the street; the tables around us fill, empty and fill again. A new waitress brings us water, when we run out she doesn't refill us, instead bringing us more, then more glasses of water till there was no room for food. I has to reach her how to use the corkscrew to open our bottle of wine, which she thought was really interesting before she kindly filled our wine glasses to the tippy-top in one big pour... Oh well.
We had another great night of music, more local beer (A Hooker, please!) and stayed out way too late before whistling our way back home.