I am pretty behind on my travel posts, so I think it is high time that I catch up and post my favorite trip from this year – Ireland. Originally, Jason and I weren’t planning on going to Ireland at all this year until I spoke with my friend Megan. Megan was my RA for a year at Anderson, and since she was studying abroad this year in Spain we decided that we should try and meet up at some point. And what better place to meet up! At first I thought it would be way too expensive, but we started working the numbers and found that we could afford it! Jason and I were so excited.
So we landed in Dublin, and to be honest I won’t really spend much time talking about Dublin. It was okay, but that is not where the real magic of Ireland lies. On Thursday and Friday we went to the Guiness factory, Trinity College, and saw some beautiful churches – but none of it was anything to sniff at in comparison to the beauty that waited for us on Saturday. If I ever go back to Ireland, I will spend my time on the other side of the country.
We had decided to rent a car while we were there in order to take a three hour trip from Dublin to the other side of the island. Our first stop was the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs are absolutely incredible. They are not the tallest in Ireland, and they are a bit “touristy” but this did not diminish their beauty.
I am grateful that we arrived when we did, because we had about half an hour to skip over the fence and stand on an “illegal” part of the grass before we got kicked out! We had a much better view from there and were able to take some good pictures in that time. Yolo.
You will probably just glance over these photos and think, “Well.. There’s another picture of some cliffs.” BUT seriously… you do not understand how amazing it was to be there. We stayed there for 3 hours. Staring. Taking pictures. Staring more. We were freezing cold, and it rained, and still we stayed there.
Again – please remember that you can view these pictures larger if you click on them.
Jason taking pictures off the “illegal” portion of the cliffs. We were so tiny…
The spray from the ocean hung suspended in the air because of the vacuum from the wind created in that corner. We got wet not from the rain, but from droplets of water that literally floated upwards towards us. Sometimes you could see the water droplets dancing in mid air for several seconds before they evaporated or hit the rocks.
On our flight over, we saw a competition in a magazine to take a picture of yourself reading that magazine on your trip! This is the picture Jason took of me for the competition 🙂
The sun was so bright and the water was so blue that it was hard to get a good picture of the cliffs without them being entirely black. But you can still see how immense they are and how long they stretch. I did enhance these pictures (of course…) but the water really was this blue.
See that tiny dot on that last bit of land jutting into the water? That’s a lighthouse. Yeah.
Watching the rain come in over the cliffs was very interesting. We could see it crossing the water and coming towards us, and we were able to get inside just before it started raining hard.
And of course, Jason took some of the necessary photos of Megan and I in front of the Cliffs. Gotta have some selfies! Megan took some good ones of Jason and I as well, but I haven’t taken those off Jason’s computer yet. I’ll have to save those for another post 🙂
After leaving the cliffs, we headed towards another area of the coast called the Burren. Burren comes from the Irish word “Boíreann” which means a rocky place. Basically it is this vast stretch of land covered with rocks and not much else. Sound boring? Far from it. We found a great spot to take pictures just as the sun was setting, and again we spent at least an hour to an hour and a half there in awe of the beauty. This is why I love to travel.
Sunset over the Atlantic ocean on top of some crazy cool rocks… yes please.
The waves crashes so violently into the rocks making it too dangerous to get close up to the water. We watched someone from another group walk right up to the water and get smashed in the face with a wave. Maybe if it would have been warmer and we had a change of clothes… but it was freezing cold, and windy to boot.
Every where you looked it was this barren expanse that looked so peaceful and ragged at the same time…
There was also a herd of cows… They walked around us and kept grazing while we took our pictures. We tried not to make any sudden movements and stayed away from the big guys with horns… There have been several people killed by cows in Ireland when coming upon them with no warning!
Eventually we moved to a second location, but it was just too dark for me to take any good pictures. I snapped this one with my phone and then all the rest of the pictures I took are too grainy.There were a bunch of sheep at the second location, so that was interesting!
There are not many places in Europe that I can say I would spend money to go back once we come back to the States, but Ireland is one of them. If we don’t get to go back while we are here I know that I will find myself there again. It is too beautiful to stay away.
The Airman's Wife 