We decided to start seeing the local sights of Ireland this weekend, and there is no better way to start than an overnight trip to the Aran Islands. The Aran Islands are a group of three islands about 7 miles off the coast of Ireland directly even with Galway. It is a 25 mile drive to the ferry dock and then a 40 minute ferry ride to the islands.
It is a pretty ferry ride:
Yes, that is a cemetery behind the beach:
For those of you reading that partake in the annual Memorial Day trip, this will look familiar:
No smoking on the ferry, but NO GUM?
We went to the largest of the three islands, Aran Inis Mor. The island is 7 miles long by 2 miles wide at the widest. This fluctuates depending on the tides, but this is the usable area. Only 800 people live on the island.
The main business on the island used to be fishing, but now tourism is #1. There are six bars on the island, here is one:
The ‘nice’ restaurant on the island:
You might be thinking: “I have heard of the Aran Islands but I can’t quite place it?” They are also famous for sweaters and wool. Aran Island Sweaters is a trademark, and here is the main store:
They are actually really nice sweaters, we didn’t find anything for Paty but I did get myself a new jumper (Irish lingo for sweater or pullover) or two. We also got a cool Merino Wool blanket that is exceedingly warm!
The most popular form of transport around the island is by bike. So we rented two bikes and started pedaling.
For those of you familiar with the story of our last bike excursion in Whistler I was a little hesitant to commit to this mode of transport, but as you can see it went well.
There are 1200 rental bikes available on the island in total. This is for only 800 residents. Needless to say it is quite the popular destination in the summer. But for our trip the island was virtually deserted. Which was nice and almost too bad because to say the weather was unseasonably warm would be a vast understatement. It was 15 degrees (59 Fahrenheit) and not a cloud in the sky with little or no wind all weekend. For this island chain, that is the first landfall on the Atlantic Ocean, this would be good weather for mid September, not the first weekend in November.
Since we decided to do this trip last minute we did not have a place to stay and the last ferry left at 5 pm. Thus our first order of business was to find a place to stay. With the modern convenience of cell phone technology, this took about 10 minutes when we walked by an advertisement for a Bed and Breakfast with ‘views from every room’. So for 35 Euros a night each we were set:
View from hotel
We then set out to see the sights of the island. The main attractions are four forts that were built by the Celtic tribes. Dun Dubhchathair or The Black Fort was the closest to our B & B. Back to the bikes:
The bikes didn’t really help on what passed for roads to the fort:
At times the trek was worth the trip:
We arrived at Dun Dubhchathair and were more than impressed. The fort was built on the side of a cliff:
Everyone does this:
Note to self: bring tripod on next excursion:
It was approaching sunset when we got to the fort itself:
I felt like William Wallace conquering the fort:
We took a few pictures on the way back to the path where we left the bikes:
That was the end of our tourist excursions for Saturday, one thing to notice from all those pictures is that we were the ONLY people at the fort. This is the second biggest site on the island and we were totally there by ourselves, it was kind of surreal. Although this fort is the much more logistically tough of the two forts built on the cliffs to access, it was still strange being the only people at this great place. For those of Paty’s friends reading, it would be akin to showing up at Uxmal on a Saturday afternoon at sunset and being the only one at the site.
Saturday night we went to dinner at the previously pictured Fisherman Restaurant (it wasn’t that good) then I had a pint at half of the island’s six bars. The locals still speak Irish or Gaelic amongst themselves. This was very prevalent at the pubs. While there were still tourists on the island, the numbers were far from overwhelming. It was about a 1-1 ratio at the pubs.
The next day we enjoyed the breakfast at the B&B and headed out to be tourist’s for the day. Our ferry left at Noon or 5 PM, we still had a lot to see so we decided on the 5 PM ferry.
Back on the bikes and our first stop was this church:
We had to hike up what some people would call a mountain to get here as from the church we had a 360 degree view of the island. It ws worth the hike.
Still need that tripod:
A couple things are unique about the church, first it is reputed to be the smallest in the world at 10’9” x 7’. It was built for Saint Benan who was a contemporary of Saint Patrick. He died in 468, so the church is quite old.
We then biked into the city and Paty decided that we were done with the bikes. So it was on to a van tour for the rest of the day.
Our first stop with the van was Na Seacht d’Teampeall or the Seven Churches. There are only two churches remaining and also an old cemetery on the site which is actually still a working cemetery:
From inside the church, the alignment of this window with the grave behind it must have some hidden meaning:
Typical Irish road outside of the main road that goes around the island:
All the field walls here are made by stacking stones. It is quite impressive as these walls are everywhere:
Those Celt’s could really stack the rocks! All the pictures from this post of the forts and walls are made by stacked rocks only. There is no mortar or binding agent between the rocks, they are just stacked.
Supposedly the island contains 7,000 miles of stone walls. Enough stone walls to reach to New York City and back from the Island. Or to Seattle!
Lastly we went to Dun Aonghasa, billed as the most important semi circular Celtic stone fort in Europe. No disputing that fact from us, it was very impressive! This fort was also built on the edge of the cliffs, but on the highest point of the island's coastline. It was a 78 meter (about 260 foot) drop to the water from the edge of the fort. There were no handrails or anything. I guess the Euros think you can take care of yourself. I don’t see this being a feasible option in the States.
Outside of fort in background:
Info plaque on fort:
View from the fort, you can see all the stacked rock walls crisscrossing the island in the background:
And yes, I am wearing shorts. I might have been the only one on the island, but I am telling you it was really warm. I was quite comfortable in shorts, who said global warming is all bad?
These next pictures are all from inside the circular fort. The fort is estimated to be about 4,000 years old. It has been rebuilt, altered and added to over that time, but the original inner wall was made around 2,000 BC. They used it as fort to protect themselves from invading Vikings, but mostly as a meeting place. The Vikings didn't invade the Aran Islands all that often. Not really anything of value on the island besides rocks that would necessitate an invasion.
I told you everyone does this:
The ensuing view:
More pics from in fort:
After the fort, which was justifiably the highlight of the island, we headed back to the ‘village’. They use that term lightly. We had about 90 minutes until our ferry left. We checked into one of the pubs and watched a little of the England v New Zealand Rugby match with a Kiwi that was very excited about all the action. All in all it was a great weekend.
For those of you that are planning on coming to visit us, this is a must see. It is not necessary to stay the night as the island can be done as a day trip as well. To get to the islands there are three options. The drive and ferry option that we took is 25 Euros each. You can fly to the island from an airstrip approx 25 minutes up the coast from our apartment. That is 45 Euros and the flight only takes seven minutes. There is also a ferry direct from Galway. This is a longer ride and I could not find information on when it leaves and prices. I think it might be a seasonable ferry. During the peak of summer the main island that we visited gets 2500 visitors per day. While we were there they estimated it was about 150-250 visitors.
Heading Home:
I have been a little slow to post the last week or so, my internet connection at the house has been sporadic at best. It is not working again today. I am typing this up at home and then it is off to the coffee shop again to download the photos and then publish. I will try to do better going forward. I have the material for a Halloween post in Galway.
Also, for those of you I have not talked to we have our first weekend in Europe outside of Paty’s work planned. Next Wednesday night we are heading to Riga. Where is Riga you ask? In the wonderful Baltic country of Latvia. It is supposed to be a nice place to visit since becoming a free county from the Russia back in 1991. I am pretty excited. We are actually meeting the Klisch’s there for the weekend. These are my friends that are currently living in Zurich. For loyal readers of the blog, Bryan is one of the guys that I was at the World Cup with in June. Expect a good post in two weeks titled ‘adventures in Riga’.
1 comment:
Looks incredible! Wish I was coming to see it in person....maybe someday. We missed you this weekend - had a nice Tobin family dinner:)
Shannon
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