Honeymoon Journal

We thought we might have time to spin through Westminster before our afternoon flight, but decided instead to head to the airport early because it was technically still an international flight to Ireland. It turned out that the flight was delayed by nearly three hours -- Aer Lingus being a pretty minor carrier -- and we probably would have had time to see the cathedral. Nevertheless, we made it to Ireland that afternoon and picked up our rental car. Without so much as a test drive (but with a little pamphlet), they sent us off onto the "wrong" side of the road, and (boy!) did it take some getting used to. Luckily, Payless Rental gave us some good directions and things are pretty logical as far as roads and signs go in Ireland, but the roads are so, so narrow that we felt lucky to have made it to the Cliffs of Moher in one piece. Ireland is extremely fond of stone walls, and you often have to pass by oncoming traffic with only an inch or so to spare between the oncoming car and the stone wall! Christy was very tense the whole time, but Tom was dauntless and picked up driving splendidly. Anyway, we made our way safely to the Cliffs of Moher and hiked out to one of the lookout towers (O'Brian's Tower). We then, wanting to see the cliffs a little better, walked (somewhat dangerously) along a cow-path along the edge of the cliffs for about a mile, and it was a spectacular view of the cliffs and ocean - surprised all the while by the closeness of the pastures to the sheer drop; they must lose a number of cows that way.

As the sun began to set, we drove along very small and treacherous "roads" in search of Doolin, a little coastal town reputed to have excellent Irish trad music (and only two roads). We were able to find a cute B+B and the hostess told us where to get the best of the scene; according to her, it's basically a choice between two pubs that rotate players nightly. Doolin itself, with a population of only about 200 people, is almost all pubs, hostels, and shepherds; if it weren't for people coming to hear the playing, the town would probably dry up overnight. We spent most of the night listening to an Irish band and drinking Guinness (well, Tom did; I had a cider). The band had a fiddler, a banjo and bodhran player, and a guitarist who also played an Australian sounding stick (imagine a fog horn combined with a rain stick and that's how it sounded). We slept well that night.