Base City: Dublin, Ireland

For the second leg of the trip, as we were traveling Ireland, we made Dublin our home base. We had plenty we wanted to see in this city, it was the easiest location to catch day tours from, and Mary studied there, so it had plenty of nostalgic value for her!

Accommodations: Abbey Court Hostel

Our experience with this hostel was mostly good (definitely better than the hostel in Oxford). The staff were friendly and knowledgeable, our reservations were correct, and the beds were comfortable enough, though the room got a bit hot at night. The showers were a little frustrating, as they had a water-saving feature that shut the water off after about 20 seconds, which meant you had to start the shower again every 20 seconds and be blasted by cold water until it heated up again. Mary and I spent our first shower yelping as the water went from cold to hot to off. My main complaint had nothing to do with the hostel: the people in our dorm room were the most varied sleepers I've ever met. There was one group who would go to bed at like 8 p.m, one group who never seemed to leave the dorm room ever, the partiers who came back from the bars drunk at 3 a.m and woke up at like 11 the next day, then us, who went to bed at like 11 p.m. to wake up for tours early the next morning. As a result, the light was almost always off when we got back to get ready for bed, then it was still off when we woke up to get ready in the morning. (Also, one night one of the girls had a night terror and woke up screaming bloody murder at 2 a.m, which made another girl start screaming, and everyone in the room shot out of bed thinking we were going to die.)

Transportation: Paddywagon Tours

We chose two tour groups to use for our day tours on this trip, and overall, I was satisfied with both. Paddywagon's general feel was a little more jokey and laid back than Irish Day Tours' was. I also was not confident that our bus driver/tour guide knew what he was talking about the entire time, but it was fun not to have to do the research myself and to be driven everywhere. It was a great opportunity to turn my brain off for a day and just enjoy the sites. 

June 20, 2017: Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

We arrived at the Molly Malone statue in downtown Dublin around 7:30 a.m, early for our 8 a.m. pick up time for the tour. It was a little overcast that day, and Mary had warned me that it can get windy and chilly on the cliffs, so I'd packed both my raincoat and my jean jacket. As we were standing and waiting, a fellow American overheard us talking and approached us, asking where we were from. When we told her Kentucky, she exclaimed, "Really? I'm from Louisville!" (I honestly don't understand how the world is so small.) It was her birthday, and we ended up sitting behind her on the bus and sharing stories of traveling and a mutual love for Please and Thank You cookies. 

It wasn't long before the rocking of the bus so early in the morning lulled us to sleep, and when we awoke, our tour guide was stopping for coffee and bathroom breaks. I got the biggest hot chocolate I'd ever seen, topped with a huge spiral of whipped cream and chocolate marshmallows, and we returned to the bus until we made it to our first real stop: Kinvara. We only had about 20 minutes, but it was still a picturesque representation of a sleepy fishing village in Ireland. 

We then followed the Wild Atlantic Way along the coast, stopping at the "mini cliffs" in the Burren, an area of Ireland filled with limestone rock and beautiful views. 

Lunch was in the village of Doolin, where we ate our carved turkey outside to enjoy the lovely weather. Despite the overcast morning, the clouds had cleared to reveal a blue sky and 75-degree day. I wish we'd had more time in Doolin, but we had to rush to the bus right after lunch to press on. 

Imagine the last time you were on a bus. Remember how high off the ground you were? How you felt like you would hit every passing car? How there wasn't enough room on three lane interstates, much less a country road? Well, imagine that giant bus navigating tiny lanes made for sheep and tractors, and that tiny lane being crowded with cars who are trying to get to the cliffs or back home from them. Then, imagine that your giant bus has to do a three-point turn into the traffic because your bus driver left his cell phone at the last stop.

Luckily, our driver managed to turn around, nip back to Doolin for his cell phone, then set off in the right direction again while only losing about twenty minutes of our packed day. It wasn't long until we arrived at the Cliffs of Moher themselves. Anything I say to describe them won't do them justice, so just try to get a sense of the enormity and awe-inspiring beauty from the photos below. 

Fun fact: see the huge rock poking out of the water in the middle photo on the bottom row? That's where Harry and Dumbledore landed after apparating out of Hogwarts when they were trying to find the locket in the Half-Blood Prince. 

One and a half hours is too short to fully appreciate all that the cliffs have to offer, but it's what we had, so we made the most of it by walking up to the observation tower at the high end of the cliffs, then clinging to the path along the edge, almost to the point on the far end. We sat side by side with our feet dangling over the edge, watching the birds cartwheel and land on the cliff face and made up stories about living in the caves below. The gorgeous weather held up the entire time we were there, despite the cliffs being notorious for dousing visitors in rain and fog.

Then, it was time for us to go, and we all piled back into the bus. We stopped in Bunratty for a snack and a photo op at Bunratty Castle, but it was raining, and the castle is, I'm sorry to say, a little unimpressive, so we just sat in the cafe and walked around the gift shop.

We arrived back in Dublin around 8:00 p.m. that night and had dinner at the Teller Room. The bangers and mash weren't as smooth as I normally like, but good all the same. Our walk back to the hostel took us through Temple Bar, where I saw a drunk person being arrested (fun, right?) and a cool display of funky street art.

It was an early night for us in preparation for our tour the next day to Cork and Blarney Castle!

If you've missed any previous installments of this trip—Boston, Brighton, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, or Oxford—go here!