Day 14 Dingle Revisited

Today we woke to beautiful sunny skies! Although we head back to Dublin today, we had no particular timeline to follow. Yesterday was a spectacular day and it poured rain, so we thought, why not try the drive again to see the loop in the sunshine. What a good choice.

Breakfast at the B&B was very good and set us up for a morning of exploring.

If our early morning view out our window is this good...
Fruit is served with a combination of fresh and stewed fruit. Never would have thought it was so good! Why yes, that is Bailey's being poured onto my porridge! Yum!

Setting out early we were not very far into the drive when we realized what a great idea this was!! These pictures are the same shots we took yesterday. What a difference a bit of sunshine can make. I thought it was beautiful here yesterday, and it was, but today...my oh my!


Campers on the beach we walked yesterday.



Thoughtfully posing

Didn't really realize yesterday, this is a mountain stream that we had to drive through to pass along this road!
Beautiful but very narrow two-way roads!




Looking out to the Blaskets
When we made it to the Great Blasket Centre we got out to look at the spectacular scenery and ended up on a wonderful hike along the coast. The National Looped Walk travels along the coast and through farmers fields. It was absolutely beautiful hiking.
I am still dazzled by roadside flowers!

We can see the islands today 






Heading for a hike through the cow and sheep pastures

This was hilarious. Our hike led us past this old school house. It made for great artsy pictures of the Blaskets, but we did wonder about who used the school since there was no evidence of homes in the area. We also found bathrooms out back but were puzzled by what appeared to be toilet stacks in the floor. Odd for the mid-1800s?? After our hike we went in to the Great Blasket Centre to ask about it! Turns out the whole thing is fake!!! It's a movie set created and left over from the filming of Ryan's Daughter in 1970.



After our hike through the cows and sheep we decided to risk life and limb and travel along the Conor Pass. There are bumper stickers and t-shirts all over Dingle with slogans about "surviving the Conor Pass". Now I know what they mean! It's one of the highest mountain passes in Ireland and runs 12km across the peninsula. It runs around sharp cliff faces and there are sections where it is impossible to pass another car on the two-way road. I absolutely do not have pictures of those sections because we did pass cars and I was too busy with the rosary to take a picture! Once we pulled into a parking spot at the top of the pass, we then set out on foot to hike to the summit. The views from the top were spectacular and the pictures do not do it justice.

Heading up the pass.

The shadows from the clouds are beautiful!

The Atlantic in the distance.

Cars heading down the pass.



A cairn at the top.


Patrick always in the lead.
On the way back to Dublin, having survived the pass, we stopped at an outlet mall for a stretch and a coffee. Even the freaking outlet malls have castle ruins here!!!

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