1 July, 2008
Sheila's breakfast wasn't great. It was greasier than most and the meat didn't seem to be very expensive. On the whole, not a bad place to stay though. From
The Black Valley we headed to
Dingle (An Daingean in Irish).
SIDE NOTE: Dingle Town is the beginning of the
Gaeltacht (an area where
Irish is the primary language). Road signs in these areas only give the name of towns in Irish. It's no big deal, but you need to make sure that your map has the Irish version of town names.
Once in town, we stopped by the pier and used the public restrooms before heading into the Tourist Office. The Tourist Office had great maps that had all of the town names in Irish (which is what I would hope they have in the Gaeltacht). They even gave us directions to our B&B (
Coill an Róis).
From Dingle, we headed on the
Slea Head loop. Our first stop was Dúnbeg. It's a nice
promantory fort, but I thought that the
Staigue Fort was more impressive. The fort was built during the Bronze Age making it one of the oldest forts of this type in existence. Admission was
€2 per person. Across the road is an Audio-Visual that we skipped, but they let us use the restroom.
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| The entrance to the fort |
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| Inside the fort |
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| Exiting the fort |
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| View from Dunbeg Fort |
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| Another view from Dunbeg |
After that we saw the Beehive houses (Cloghans). The stone huts were built with corbelled roofs, making them able to protect against the wind and rain. You are able to go in and out of all of the huts on the complex on your own. Again there was a car park, €2 admission and a REALLY clean single person restroom.
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| One of the Cloghans |
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| The sign on the inside of the restroom. The BEST sign I have ever seen! |
We finished the Slea Head Loop, seeing some absolutely fantastic scenery. The loop left us back in Dingle and we proceeded to our B&B (it was 3:45 PM). Jimmy (the owner), greeted us and started a DVD about Dingle, but we ended up just chatting and drinking tea for about an hour. Then we set off with his maps in tow.
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| The view of the Blasket Islands from the Slea Head Loop |
First, we went to the Gallarus Oratory - another Heritage site - woo hoo! (This one has free admission, but only for the Gallarus - there is a private visitor center that charges a fee) Built as a church for the locals around 700 AD without mortar, it was cool to see how it keeps out the rain and wind still today! A couple of hours earlier the wind was so strong that it was blowing through our car (that's right -- the wing was howling THROUGH our closed windows!). Inside here though, just a slight breeze.
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| The Gallarus Oratory |
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| View through the Oratory |
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| Priest's house at Kilmalkedar |
Next up - Kilmalkedar. This place was really special. We started at a ruined building to the left of the church, across the lane. After seeing so many buildings with guides, it was fun to try and piece together the clues to deduce what the building might have been used for. (We guessed it was for the priest and we were right!) St. Brendan's Holy Well is next to the priest's house, but it is locked up by the owner. A real shame, maybe one day he will open it. When we finished here, we entered the churchyard.
I'm glad that we went through the front instead of the side gate (through the modern graves). As we walked up the front walk, a statue of the Virgin Mary with a red rose in her hand and a rosary wrapped around her hands stood looking out over the graves. Just over her shoulder to the left was a grave marker labeled in ancient Ogham script. After entering the door to the church we saw many features that are considered to be unique - the sign said that they were copied from Cormac's Chapel at the Rock of Cashel. We recognized this and most definitely should have won something! I also noticed that the hiking trail was labeled differently. It had what looked like a medieval pilgrim and a Crusader's cross. I figured it must be some sort of St. Brendan pilgrimage site. I found out later that just up the hill from the church is where he used to meditate, and is the site where he had his vision that led to his explorations. And the pilgrimage happens on the last Saturday in June (3 days ago)!
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| The Ogham Stone |
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| The graveyard |
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| Notice no mistakes in Irish, but something happened with the English =) |
We were hungry and went into Dingle Town to eat. We ended up eating at The Old Smokehouse on Main Street. €25 for two entrees, 2 glasses of wine and a cup of coffee. The food was mediocre, but the service was good. After we finished eating, we made a brief stop in The Internet Cafe on Main Street.
We got back to Coill an Rois about 9:15 and I was exhausted so I went straight to bed.
Day 4 Ireland Itinerary
Black Valley, Ring of Kerry
Dingle Town (just under 2 hours)
Coill an Róis (about 15 minutes out of Dingle Town)
Once in town, we stopped by the pier and used the public restrooms before heading into the Tourist Office. The Tourist Office had great maps that had all of the town names in Irish (which is what I would hope they have in the Gaeltacht). They even gave us directions to our B&B (Coill an Róis).
I'm glad that we went through the front instead of the side gate (through the modern graves). As we walked up the front walk, a statue of the Virgin Mary with a red rose in her hand and a rosary wrapped around her hands stood looking out over the graves. Just over her shoulder to the left was a grave marker labeled in ancient Ogham script. After entering the door to the church we saw many features that are considered to be unique - the sign said that they were copied from Cormac's Chapel at the Rock of Cashel. We recognized this and most definitely should have won something! I also noticed that the hiking trail was labeled differently. It had what looked like a medieval pilgrim and a Crusader's cross. I figured it must be some sort of St. Brendan pilgrimage site. I found out later that just up the hill from the church is where he used to meditate, and is the site where he had his vision that led to his explorations. And the pilgrimage happens on the last Saturday in June (3 days ago)!
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