Today we visited Ring of Beara. First of all I have to mention that even for people that know the streets in Ireland this can be quite hard. There are areas where the street is just that wide that two cars can pass it at the same time. No chance for car & bus. So it requires strong nerves and a calm driver (definitely not me).

Ring of Beara is definitely the most beautiful of the Southwest Coast of Ireland. The nature is quite wild and the weather was really good (sunburnt again). One of the things one should definitely go and see if traveling on the Ring of Beara would be Dunboy Castle.  In 2005 it was still a ruine, nowadays they have made a hotel out of it. In the lake in front of Dunboy Castle there’s a sunken ship so the whole area is very romantic.

The rest of the day we were shopping in Bantry and took our dinner in „Brick Oven“ which was absolutely delicious! Strongly recommended.

Weather: Sunny, warm

We left quite late for the drive to Bantry and it turned out that we were even to early to check in to the B & B. So we took a walk around Bantry House which is an ancient Queen Ann House where they have regularly small concerts or readings of authors. The gardens are very beautiful and Bantry has quite a warm climate so in the gardens they have palms and other rare plants.

Our Bed & Breakfast was named Rocklands which was quite nice and I would definitely recommend it. It’s 4 km from town centre, so still in walking distance.

As we were that early we had the whole afternoon to explore the area and we took a drive to Mizen Peninsula and Mizen Head. Compared to Ring of Kerry I’d definitely prefer this.

For dinner we went to the Bantry Bay Hotel. It turned out that Bantry is quite a sleepy little town..so there was nothing to do in town for the evening.

Weather: sunny, warm, sunburnt

We started the Kerry way after a delicious Irish breakfast and guess what we watched first? A stone fort. Due to the very cloudy weather I can’t say that I really found it beautiful. When we reached Caherciveen we stopped by a ruine of a castle and from there proceeded to Killarney National Park.

We took the time to see Muckross House (very impressive) and had a walk through the gardens. There are offers for a drive with a carriage and we decided to do that on the day  before leaving as they are quite expensive. But on our way back to Kenmare we had the great possibility to see „Lady’s View“ with blue sky…so the difference should be obvious.

The evening we spent in Kenmare town again having our dinner in O’Donnabhain. Originally we had cast an eye on a restaurant called Lime Tree as I would have liked to have some fish again, but it tourned out they were closed that evening.

The weather was very windy, mostly try and even some sunny moments.

Dingle is not really an island, but a peninsula. It’s by far smaller than The Ring of Kerry and much wilder. The roads can be very bad, but the beautiful nature is worth it.

We got up and started the day at 9.15. We first visited Dunbeg Stonefort and some bee cottages which was actually the point where I personally had seen enough of those. We drove to Slea Head and spend some time on the beach (sand beach – really!) and enjoyed the nice view on the Blasket Islands. I guess one can only see them when the weather is quite good.

The way back to Dingle town was adventurous due to the small streets and some travel buses that came across, but somehow we managed to get back without damaging the car.

In Dingle we went shopping and had dinner at Armada Inn, where they serve delicious sea food. I had monkfish with spinach. My first monkfish actually and I must say it was absolutely yummy. We ended up at O’Gradys again and enjoyed some live music that evening.

Weather: really nice, sunny (sunburnt)

We started early on Tuesday and drove to Kilfenora where we visited the Burren Center which was really interesting and provides a lot of information on how the Burren was created.  From Kilfenora we first visited the Caherconnell Stone Fort, which wasn’t the last of the stone forts we visited, and from there went forward to the Alliwee Caves. I had already seen those in 1995 and we realised that already the parking would be 10 Euros which we found expensive without even having entered the caves. So we decided we wouldn’t take a closer look. Instead we drove to Ballyvaughan, a small coastal town and wandered along the coast. On our way back to Doolin we stopped at a beautiful sandy beach and as the weather was sunny we drove to the Cliffs of Moher again where we spent a couple of hours climbing up and down.

The previous night in Doolin we had found a tiny restaurant called „Lazy Lobster“ which was closed on Mondays and so we already had decided to eat there that night. This is an absolute must have for anybody coming to Doolin. We had broccoli-cauliflower-soup as starter and salmon with vegetables and rice as main course. Awesome! It’s quite expensive but extremely good and the restaurant itself has such a nice atmosphere. I would eat there again every time I get back to Doolin, no question.

Due to the sunny, windy weather it turned out I got sunburnt that day. Typical Ireland. Even if the sun isn’t that hot it’s there and I really recommend sunblocker!