Both: Hey everyone!
Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.
Greg: This update is about the rest of our time in Ireland, mostly around the Cliffs of Moher, but we did do a couple of other things.
Jen: Yeah, I was really excited about the Cliffs of Moher when we started planning our time in Ireland and it was just made better by the fact that we got to see our friends from Austin.
Greg: Shout out, Desai family!
Both: Woo woo!
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: So we'll begin this one by talking about a little town called Doolin, which is right there at the Cliffs.
Jen: Yeah, and we decided to do a ferry tour that day so we could see the Cliffs of Moher from sea level.
Greg: While driving to that ferry ride, though, there was - I don't know - like a charming small town Ireland thing. We literally had to wait on cows.
Jen: (laughs)
Yeah, as we were driving down the road, this man was walking in the middle of it. And following him were about 24, 25 cattle moving from one pasture to another. They took their sweet time. We were patient and enjoyed the view. And then we got to drive on.
Greg: Yeah, it was funny to me, though. Cars did start to pile up behind me because I was the first one there and had to wait. None of them got impatient. None of them honked their horn or anything. It was like, “This is just normal Ireland, dude. We're going to wait it out. It'll be fine.”
Jen: (laughs) And it was!
Greg: Yeah. So we got up to the ferry, got on board, and had a terrific tour of the Cliffs. It started with all of these birds, and Jennifer got so excited because she saw puffins.
Jen: Yeah, apparently puffins go to the Cliffs of Moher to nest, along with some other birds, but…the puffins are the cutest.
Greg: I guess, just to give you guys an idea of what it's like, we got within a couple hundred feet of the Cliffs themselves, and they are over 300 million years old. It used to be the seabed in that area. But, you know, seismic activity keeps pushing it up, so it's just 200 plus meters of sheer dark rock cliff. And it's like a stretch of - I don't know - 12, 14 kilometers long. It is almost oppressive when you're kind of close up to cliffs that size and that dark.
Jen: Yeah, it's one thing when you look at pictures of them, because that's what I always saw. And I was like, that's why I want to see them. And then you see them in person and they're just ginormous and, like, ominous, especially with the way the weather was that day.
Greg: Yeah. Another interesting thing we learned about the Cliffs on that tour is a tower system that they made when they were concerned about a Spanish invasion and then later a Napoleonic invasion.
It's basically like the tower system from the movie Lord of the Rings.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: There's a tower and in the distance you can see another tower. And from that tower, in the distance, you can see another tower. And that stretches for a long portion of the coast of Ireland. And when anyone saw a threat coming in, they would light a fire. And every tower that can see the fire would light a tower, just like in the movie. It was kind of an interesting piece of the tour.
Jen: Yep. And there's actually an island out in the water. And they have a tower there, too. And they're pretty well preserved. Like, you can still tell what they're supposed to be.
Greg: One of the coolest parts of the tour is something I already knew. The Cliffs of Moher are actually the cliffs that they use in the movie The Princess Bride when they show you the Cliffs of Insanity.
Jen: If you couldn't tell, Princess Bride is Greg's favorite movie.
Greg: Look. Objectively, remove all emotion, statement of fact, The Princess Bride is literally the best movie EVER.
Jen: (laughs)
But the Cliffs of Moher were also featured in one of the Harry Potter movies.
Greg: That's right! There is a cove that was used for the portion when Dumbledore takes Harry to go find one of the Horcruxes. There's, like, this huge, massive cliff structure and the waves slapping up against them. And then they go inside and find the thing with the shell and he wants water and you can't get the water in the shell… So that was a piece of the movie that they use the Cliffs of Moher for that shot.
Jen: Yep. So there's another update with your Harry Potter reference.
Greg: Right, yeah. After the ferry tour, we chose to go to a traditional Irish pub. It turned out to be probably the most touristy pub there, but it was, like, okay.
Jen: Yeah, it's called Gus O'Connor's, and the interior was just what you would think an Irish pub would look like, so it was a lot of fun. The food was really good, I thought, for pub-style food.
Greg: Yeah.
Jen: And there was a lot of it.
Greg: So overall, I don't regret the touristy Irish pub.
The next day, we met Nirav and Ami and their two kids, Arin and Keya, out at the Cliffs of Moher on the top side.
Jen: Yeah, we've known Nirav for a long time. We met him in college and stayed friends with him. He and his wife and kids now live in Austin, and we miss them a lot. So it was great to see a familiar face there, too.
Greg: It really was. It uplifts you because when you travel this long and you really don't have a lot of that familiarity to have somebody, especially somebody as close as Nirav is, meet us out there…
It was a fantastic day, but it was also a strange day because we knew that the cliffs were windy. We didn't realize how windy.
Jen: My goodness, the wind...
When we got to the parking lot, we couldn't even open the door for a couple minutes because the wind was blowing so hard. And it was so cold that day, even though it was July.
And we even laughed about how, you know, it's 100 degrees in Austin and we have three layers of clothes on on the cliffs of Ireland.
Greg: Right. It's also comical when you see dudes that look like they could have played in the NFL. I mean, like 6'4", 240, and they're getting moved by the wind like it's nothing.
Jen: Especially children, too. (laughing)
Greg: Oh, poor Arin.
Jen: So at one point, Arin runs over to Ami and says, “Mom, it just blew me into the wall.”
Greg: And you laughed at him.
Jen: You did, too. His mom laughed at him. (laughing)
Greg: Yeah, we…I think we all did.
But, up at the top, we walked along the Cliffs. They have, you know, a wall to keep people from getting too close to the edge. But there's a walking trail that goes, like, the whole length of it, right?
Jen: Yeah, the walking trail actually starts in Doolin and goes all the way to Liscannor. It's a rough trail. It's not paved or anything. So a lot of people come there to hike it. We did not…
Um, but right in the middle is the visitor’s center, which is where we went to the Cliffs.
Greg: Yeah, and there's this little interactive kind of thing you can pay for access in that visitor’s center. It's mostly centered towards kids, but I do think the kids had a really great time in there.
Jen: I had a great time in there.
Greg: Yeah, I think we all did.
Jen: But one of the other fun things that happened at the Cliffs was in the parking lot. We were trying to put our jackets on. And I look over, and there's this little fox just sitting probably about 20 feet from our car, just sitting there posing like a puppy. I guess he thought we were going to give him a treat or something.
Greg: Yeah. Initially, I was a little worried because anytime a wild animal comes right up to a human without any fear, one of the first things that I get concerned about is rabies. Fortunately, he had no other real signs of rabies. So I kind of let go of that concern. And then, of course, we found out later he's a little bit of a celebrity in the area.
Jen: Yeah. So Greg's worried about our safety and I'm just worried about the photo ops.
Greg: Yeah. But this is what he does. He comes up when people park, hoping that they'll basically drop food or toss food, and he'll literally pose for the pictures pretty much before running away.
Jen: He was adorable.
— Note to everyone: DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE! —
Greg: So we said goodbye to Nirav and Ami and their kids before we left the Cliffs of Moher and began our drive to Galway.
Jen: So on the way to Galway, we actually saw a roadside castle.
Greg: Yeah, Dunguaire Castle is actually one of the cooler ones along the way to stop and see. It's kept up pretty well. The original castle was built on Galway Bay, a very strategic point.
Over the years, whatever reason, it ends up kind of a rubble. Then, in the 16th century, they built a new tower castle over the fortifications from the original. And that one got restored in the 20th century. And so it's still fairly well kept up. It's a great castle. You can just literally park and then walk the sidewalk to the gate, walk in and see Dunguaire Castle.
Jen: Yeah. And they also have tours you can do and they host events there. So you might even get to go to dinner in a castle if you're lucky.
Greg: Dunguaire Castle was just a short stop for us. Appreciate the castle from the outside. Get a few photos. Then we went ahead right into Galway.
We picked Galway because it's on the major highway that goes back to Dublin, which is where we needed to be the next day. And we made plans with Nirav and Ami for dinner.
Jen: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Greg: After we went our separate ways, thanked them for taking time out of their vacation to see us, we got on the road towards Dublin.
But kind of halfway there, we stopped at a very, very long-established settlement, like, literally going back to the Stone Age or the Bronze Age. Back then in Gaelic, it was called Atha Luain.
Jen: The city now is just known as Athlone, and its location is a great spot mid-river on the River Shannon. And so the castle was built there to defend that spot. And it's been the site of many territorial battles throughout the years.
Greg: You learn about some of those conflicts when you tour the castle. We were very pleasantly surprised, though. All the people who work there are so enthusiastic when you come in to teach you about the castle.
Jen: Yeah, they were super pumped to just let us know everything about the castle and the area. And if we had any questions, come find them.
Greg: I enjoyed the tour and the place we ate, and I thought it was a great place to stop.
Jen: Yeah, it was definitely a good stopping point and allowed us a little break before heading back into Dublin to drop the car off.
Greg: From Atha Luain, we went into Dublin, dropped off the rental car, and just went straight to the hotel. We didn't have really the time or the energy at that point to see Dublin, and we regret that a little bit.
We chose to book a ferry to get from Ireland back towards London, which means we were gonna go from Dublin to Wales and then catch a train in Wales. But…it's an 8 a.m. ferry. We had a taxi waiting for us at a quarter to seven. On their website, for the ferry, they tell you check in by 7:30.
We're in the taxi. Jennifer notices that the ticket says check-in by 7 a.m.
Jen: Yeah. And this was…we —There was no way we were going to get there by seven because of the traffic.
What should have taken us 15 minutes wound up taking us about 35?
Greg: It took longer than that because in the 35 minutes that we were in that taxi, we didn't even get all the way to the port.
Jen: This is true. So we're sitting stuck in traffic, and I look over and see another taxi driver that's going the opposite direction trying to get our driver's attention. So our driver rolls down the window, and the other taxi driver says, "You might as well let them out now ‘cause they're not letting any traffic through unless it's a car getting on the ferry."
Greg: So we all said thank you to that guy. And our driver, very apologetic, pulled off to the side. We very quickly paid for the amount of time that we were in there and then grabbed our bags. We were still almost three-quarters of a mile from the port.
Jen: Yeah. So we take off running. We're putting our 25-pound backpacks on as we go, passing people by that are just waiting to get on the ferry. They're all looking at us like we're crazy.
We're trying not to pass out because we are not runners…
Greg: No, we are not.
Jen: (laughs)
And we had both resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not going to get on this ferry.
Greg: And in fact, we should not have, except when we got to the port, they had, like I think, three people still going through the check-in process. And I want to believe that they recognized how screwed up the whole thing was at that point.
So they were allowing late check-ins because we did not walk in that door until almost 7:50.
Jen: So we didn't have to wait a long time for the ferry to leave, but it took us that long to get our heart rate back down.
Greg: Yes, I am not built for 25-plus-pound backpack, running a mile. It's just not who I am.
Jen: (laughs)
It's funny looking back now because before we left on the trip, we walked around with our backpacks so we could get used to them. And at one point we're, like, “I wonder what it's like to run with these things?” And so we did and realized we don't want to ever have to do this.
Well, now this makes the second time that we had to do this…
Greg: Yeah. And I don't like either one.
Jen: (laughs)
In any case, we did make it onto the ferry. We got off in Wales, caught our train into London, which means the next few updates will be all of the time that we spent in London.
Jen: Yeah. So we saw a lot of different things — Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, Stonehenge, the Great British Museum, as Greg calls it.
Greg: It's great!
Jen: (laughs)
And last but not least, the Harry Potter Studios.
Greg: You know, it was more than just this one visit. It was a lot of in and out that we did in London because we really did enjoy it as a city.
Jen: Yep! One of my favorites.
Greg: So stay tuned for that. And thank you for checking in!
Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!
