Here is another guest entry from Joan . . .
On our second day in Dublin we took another tour, this time to Newgrange a "passage tomb" built over 5200 years ago making it older than the great pyramids! It is a huge circular mound about 270 feet in diameter and the passage and chambers underneath are about 60 feet long! It was built with such amazing accuracy that 5000 years later after being discovered and excavated the rising sun on the winter solstice still lights up the entire passage and central chamber!
We also visited the hills of Tara and got to wander around the beautiful city of Dublin a little more.
We had decided that after all our wonderful but busy days of traveling Europe (Joan had been to England, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy by this point) and Morocco that we wanted relaxation. So we booked 5 nights in a B&B on Ireland's West coast in the town of Westport, County Mayo. We took a 3 hour train trip across Ireland and a taxi to our B&B.
We received a warm Irish welcome from our hostess Margaret. The place was lovely and our room clean and very comfortable. The B&B wasvery close to Croagh Patrick (Irish Gaelic for Patrick's Mountain) legend has it that St Patrick climbed to the top, fasted for 40 days and then drove all the snakes out of Ireland and into the sea!
The next morning we went on a long leisurely walk along the coast and the as it was low tide we returned on the beach. I thought it looked too wet so after a while I made way back to shore while Kathy continued on the sand. On an area that looked drier than the rest she found that the water had simply seeped under the sand and she proceeded to sink about 6 to 8 inches into bog-like mud. She managed to extract herself getting pretty muddy in he process and slightly wrenching her back while rescuing her feet and shoes. So it was back to the B&B and clean up 😜
We decided to rent a car for a few days and explore further down to Galway and County Clare and the Cliffs of Moher. (More on this in the next post.)
On the day we drove the 3 hours to the Cliff of Mother - We arrived only to find that heavy fog had rolled in just 5 minutes before and we decided to risk it and paid the entrance fee. We sat in the car and read for an hour, still foggy . . .
Kathy suggested that we should walk over to the cliffs anyway cause it was going to clear for us! We did and it did! Very dramatically! As we stood near the cliffs we heard excited teenagers squealing that they could see ocean and within moments the wind came in strong and blew the fog up the cliff walls and away. It was amazing. The views were worth waiting for!
So ended our Irish sojourn. We returned the next morning to Dublin and enjoyed a few more hours in that great city then caught an evening flight to Paris arriving at the hotel after midnight.