GAP OF DUNLOE

Patrick and Queeny

We just arrived in Killarney and check in at Elyod B&B for the night. Mary the owner explains that she won't be there the next day, coz. she invited her friend for the GAP OF DUNLOE TOUR. We listen carefully and during the evening we decided that that would be a great thing to do, even though touristic and not really a bakpacker solution.

The next morning a small bus comes to pick us up and in Killarney centre we change to a bigger bus until we reach the Kate Kearneys Cottage. Here we change once more to a jaunting car that has place for 4 sitting person and our driver Patrick, a real irish farmer. The jaunting car is led by a lovely irish pony, Queeny. A 1 1,5 hour ride through valleys and mountain, lakes and rivers, an amazing landscape that reminds me a little bit of my home country Switzerland.

The ride stops at the Lord Brandons Cottage where we eat a warm soup and enjoy the company of the others sitting in the sunshine. To go back to Killarney a small boat waits and we drive slowly but surely among the zig-zag lakes of Killarney. Our driver is a well preserved man in his 60ies that jokes all along the trip. The sun is high in the sky and a few of us for sure gets a sunburn while back on land. Who would have thought that one can get a sunburn in Ireland!

The journey of 6 hours is worth all the investment done in the early morning. It's something special and it's a MUST while staying in Killarney. We arrive at Ross Castle where a bus is ready to bring us back to our B&B.

COLOURFUL HOUSES

Petrol station, the old way


Lovely giftware shop



Why aren't our farmacies so colourful?




Pub and restaurant, always lovely to look at!

Ireland has not only great landscape but also colourful villages and towns.

I took those picture in Lahinch, not far away from the Cliffs of Moher. An almost dead little seavillage, but there was these houses lifting up everything that was around, the rain and the feeling of a ghost town.

COWS EVERYWHERE

Ireland might be known for the green island but the creatures that most take profit of that "green" are indeed cows and sheep.

You will find them everywhere, grasing, laying and mill over, running and posing for my camera.

3x Glendalough

"Non c'è 2 senza 2" we say in italian (there is no 2 without 3) and so it has been for one of my favourite places in Ireland. Glendalough.

St. Kevin founded this medieval monastic settlement in the 6th century surrounded by woods of oak. Today it's part of the National Park of The Wicklow Mountain.

There is everything to survive, forest, animals, water (river), lakes.

Old grave-stones

The 30 metres high Round Tower is what you see first from all directions. Built in 1876 was built as bell-tower, but served as well as store-house and a place of refuge in times of attack.

THOMAS MOORE was here

"There is not in this wide world

a velly so sweet as that vale in

whose bosom the bright waters meet!

Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must

depart 'ere the bloom of that valley

shall fade from my heart"

Thomas Moore 1779-1852

Photographed at "THE MEETINGS" Co. Wicklow, where the rivers Avonmore and Avonbeg meets and intermingle to form the river Avoca.

EIRE EIRE EIRE

Old sign in miles and new in km.

Back from a week in Ireland one of my favourite countries.

It has been 10 years since my last visit there and the country did definitively go through some changes. It seems like Ireland has become an European country, with brand new motorways, multinationals, restaurants with better but more expensive food, and people seem to have it better. But somehow, it was not the Ireland I knew from my previous visits. I miss the magic, the mistery that Ireland always had in my eyes.

Thank to all the wonderful irish people that I met along my way so has this trip been memorable anyway and indeed the irish countryside is and will be always a part of me. Sheep, green gras, hills, ocean, mountains, rivers, tea and scones, old monuments, churches, the wonderful colourful villages and not to forget GUINNES all this and more was part of my trip. I will put up some pictures in the next days and hopefully will give you an idea of this country.

Old GUINNES bottles. Picture taken at the GUINNES brewhouse in Dublin