Ireland Road Trip – Day 5 – County Clare

This morning we said good bye to beautiful County Galway and headed south to County Clare as we continued our tour of the west coast.    This was another day of beautiful views.

Our first area of exploration was The Burren which is a barren, rocky area that is dominated by thrusting headlands and barren plateaus.  The valleys and driving along the coastal road though finally showed us why it is called the emerald isle.

We stopped to visit a natural cave complex called Aillwee Caves as it was advertised as having wonderful geological formations.  Unfortunately it was very disappointing and none of my pictures turned out (not a huge loss).  Definitely not recommended.  I think the neighbouring birds of prey demonstrations with eagles, owls, and hawks would be more interesting.

The highlight of the day though was visiting the Cliffs of Moher.  The cliffs surge 120 meters out of the Atlantic Ocean.  You are able to walk all the way along the tops of the cliffs providing spectacular views.

There is a walk called the Burren Way which is a trek across the tops of the cliffs for about 20 km. It sounds demanding but would be amazing to complete!

Late this afternoon we arrived in Ennis which is a lovely town of 20,000.  It has a lovely core which is fun to wander around.  Unfortunately everything was closing by the time we go there so hopefully we will have a chance to go back in the morning before we move on.   All the store fronts and most houses are decorated with yellow and blue the colours of the County Clare hurling team which is competing in the all Ireland finals this Sunday.  Here is a link to YouTube as I can’t explain it!

In our wandering around I bought a simple silver ring.  The purpose is for it to appear as an engagement or wedding ring for when I’m in Morocco in a couple of weeks.  Apparently this is absolutely necessary to avoid being harassed by men.  So if you see it in pictures, don’t worry – you haven’t missed something!

Tonight we are staying in a bed and breakfast out side of Ennis which is also a working farm.

The view from our room of the lake with a church ruin in the background.

Our neighbours – nice clean County Clare sheep.

I need to ask our host in the morning why the sheep in County Clare are so much cleaner than the ones we saw yesterday in County Connemara.   It was probably all for the best in the end that none of these buys wanted to come home with me to be a pair of socks.