Dingle

Today....
wanted Andrew to write today's blog...but he had too many beers, so I guess it's up to me again.

Explored the Dingle Peninsula today - staying in the same B&B for 2 nights (apparently this has been voted the "Best B&B in Ireland" several times, and some famous U.S. folks (i.e. Julia Roberts) have stayed here in the past - so we had a relatively laid back day, which was great considering the weather.

We passed the folks from the U.S. that we met at the pub last night several times on our drive today which was funny - we ended up meeting with them at the pub later on this evening too.

We were able to get a few nice short walks in today - in between the rain showers, although it was still a bit chilly. We walked along the beach with a great view of Dingle - I found an awesome shell here, never seen anything quite like it, I was very excited and took a picture before I picked it up just in case it doesn't make it home in one piece!

We also climbed a low grade mountain with a view of the bay and Atlantic Ocean (in between rain and fog, which we waited on top of the mountain for) we got an awesome view of Skellig Michael - the pointed island on the left - where an ancient monastic site was discovered, and the "Sleeping Giant" a mountain that looks like a man sleeping on his back with his hand on his belly - to the right in the pic. It turned out to be great since we couldn't see Skellig Michael on our journey yesterday.

After a few other short stops on the peninsula we headed back into town where we had some awesome 'craic' (gaelic for 'chat') with a Dingle native who runs a music shop in town and who we later saw performing with her brother at the local pub. We bought her CD and she was so kind to give us a painting she did of a view of the Blasket Islands, off the Dingle Peninsula. It was really a highlight of our trip so far.

We also got a great pic of the sunset today - considering the stormy day we had this was really a blessing - and rare! Dingle being a huge area for angling (fishing), it provided a beautiful backdrop.

So now it's off to bed (it's almost 2:30 here) before waking up and heading back near the Shannon Airport and the Bunratty Castle area - not sure if we'll have internet again but will do our best to keep you posted through the rest of our journey as we fly back to Boston on Monday!