One of the most beautiful spots you could ever visit, true story!

We discovered a windy little road that wound its way up a mountain, cliff one side and rock wall on the other, it was barely wide enough for one car but was meant to be for two. I don’t know what you were meant to do if you actually had the displeasure of coming across another vehicle but thankfully we didn’t have to find out. We stopped at a look out and took a pic or two from here, but it was here that Chris did some rock scrambling and found that at the top of this small look out a lake spread before him. He was very very pleased with this discovery. I’d have gone up too but I didn’t feel confident rock scrambling in thongs so waited at the bottom.

It was a warm day today, many people showing signs of catching the sun a little more than perhaps they should have, but the warm day meant not only sunburn but that every beach was packed to the brim with swimmers and beach goers. It was hard to find parks so we were happy to keep on driving and just discovering the beauty of this area. Tonight was a sleep by the road side night and we began to keep our eyes peeled for a beach that had fewer inhabitants, and just as the sun began to head to bed for the night we found our spot, and it was a doozie of one! A secluded beach with cliffs surrounding it, green grass, cows and sheep in fields around it, just stunning. We stopped here for a while, relaxing before heading into Dingle once more to go to the pubs that we’d earlier noticed were advertising ‘traditional Irish music, here tonight’

Chris here now, Em has decided that I need to contribute to the blog entry today (as she protest about being tired, heck I drove today, I guess holding on and navigating at the same time must take it out of her)

So we when we got into dingle we parked up happily taking note of the free parking after 6pm, anything free in Ireland is worth celebrating I am often thankful that they haven’t come up with a way to charge for sunlight or air yet!
We walked the main strip of Dingle popping into each pub in turn talking note of it’s pluses and minuses, the first was nice, clean and had a good vibe but it was too hot inside and full of the non-Irish, the second had a few more locals but not a seat free, the third didn’t have music I don’t remember what the score for the forth pub was but you get the picture, there was also a pub on the other side of the street that was clearly the “locals” pub as it was no where near as dolled up and had a bunch of Irish lads hanging around outside. We summed up our options as the street started to empty of establishments and decided that we would avoid the tourists and head to the undolledup locals’ pub. The pub was barely decorated with the usual garb, like sports teams photos and mirrors advertising Jameson’s, Guinness the whole venue consisted of two small rooms one that had the bar in it and hardly any chairs and through a small doorway was the backroom that had a table occupied by 5 older locals drinking a variety of Guinness, lager and cups of tea! There was a couple of plasmas on the wall showing a game of Rugby between the Irish and the yanks (I didn’t even know the yanks knew what rugby was let alone had a team) the bar room was quickly filling up with guys in rugby and polo tops mostly in the colors of what I can only assume is their favorites team who started setting themselves up with the limited seating to get the best view of the game and a whole swag of young girls dressed to impress each one with heels higher than the last getting the ankle injury waiting to happen ridicules. Em and I headed for the small table in the back room and made ourselves comfortable expecting the bar room crowd would soon flow over into the backroom. After about half an hour and one slow pint each we became aware of a unwritten law in this pub, apart from girls and the occasional lost but soon re-directed boy going to the ladies, the door of which happened to be in our smaller back room nobody under the age of 50 crossed the threshold from the bar room. The group of older guys sharing our small room where friendly enough but clearing not interested in striking up a conversation.
We moved on with Ireland leading 8-0 and headed for a pub to hear some music, which consisted of a guitarist, an accordion and some sort of bag pipe/flute thingy that actually made quite a nice sound. It was all quite nice really, but as previously stated, hot, stuffy, crowded and full of tourists so based on all these factors and that that we’re now turning into old fuddy duddies we made our way back to our ‘home’ for the night, settled in, opened the sky roof thingy and watched the stars before falling into a deep sleep.

written by  Chris and Emily on May 31, 2009 from Dingle, Ireland
from the travel blog: Europe 2009
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