Clifden

We decided to take a quick one night trip to Clifden this weekend. Everyone keeps saying we need to see Conemara. Since we haven’t been able to figure out what Conemara is or why we needed to see it, we took it upon ourselves to drive there. Apparently Conemara is the area directly west of Galway. It is kind of an Irish national park. There is what passes for a mountain range in Ireland there. And lots of outdoor activities such as hiking and fishing.

Clifden is the largest village along the coast in the Conemara region. It is kind of a gateway to Conemara or a place you would base your excursions from if you were planning on spending time in Conemara.

Clifden is only about 55 miles from Galway. But this being Ireland, that meant a 1.5-2 hour drive. Although the scenery is thoroughly Irish and genuinely scenic:


But remember that sheep have the right of way on the road:



The town, more like village, of Clifden is dominated by two churches that are on the hills above town:


Also there is a salt water bay as the Atlantic is right around the corner of this inlet:

Downtown Clifden, one of the two streets through town:

The vaunted Clifden Christmas Market, at least three different vendors:

And Ice skating rink:

For only 16 Euros for an adult or 12 Euros for a child, you to could skate around this 30x20 foot oval! Doesn’t seem to be a good value to me.
Our guesthouse:

The Dun Ri, was nice. And for only 70 Euros, unlike the ice skating, it was a good value. I would stay there again if for some unforeseen reason we had to stay in Clifden again.

As there was not much to do in Clifden and we also seemed to be visiting during a typhoon, we ended up here:

Typical Irish pub, really the only thing to do in town.

Overnight the typhoon intensified and this was the view from our hotel in the morning:

Last night there were many sheep grazing around what was an upright gazebo. I am assuming the sheep took cover and were not blown away. The gazebo on the other hand did not fair as well.

The drive home was an adventure as we had to ford the road in a few spots:

But the Nissan Micra made it. Barely. There were 120-150 kph winds. This is 75-94 miles per hour, so pretty serious. I was kind of surprised that the road didn’t get flooded more times than it did.

Overall Clifden was nice. It is very small and very quiet. I think that it would be worth a visit in the summer when more is going on and there are more things to do. My lasting impression is the best I can compare the feeling of the city is to Bend, Oregon. Not the new big Bend, but the downtown core maybe 35 years ago when Bachelor was just one chair lift. There are many cool pubs in Clifden and the one thing we noticed is there were at least three really good outdoors themed stores. More Northface and Gortex on sale in this little village with only two roads (both one way) than in all of Galway.