The Wild Atlantic Way

We followed what is called The Wild Atlantic Way, a road marking to identify the spectacular views on Ireland’s West coast. When we left Parknasilla, we went inland to the little town of Kenmare, a favorite in the Rick Steves’ Ireland book. We were looking for a better road atlas (found it, finally) and checked out a bookstore. We’ve found Rick’s book very helpful. Our motto is “Stick with Rick!” We don’t follow all his recommendations, but they give us context and helpful guidance. And we have them on our phones with Kindle so there are no travel guide books to haul around!

Another really helpful tool is the app maps.me. We learned about this from our friend John Williams who has used it in remote locations in Southeast Asia and other places. It doe GPS locating on your smartphone and runs the map and does routing all without the phone being connected to wi-fi or cellular service. Really great. Check it out.

Continuing the car repair, we stopped in Killarney at a Ford dealership to see if someone could turn off the low tire (that sould be “tyre”) alert light. Even though we have a Škoda Octavia car, the Ford person found the right menu (totally accessible to us if we could figure it out) and turned off the light. No charge. Good Irish friendliness and hospitality we are experiencing everywhere.

We headed north up the coast, driving across one peninsula to the town of Tarbert where we caught a ferry across the Shannon.

Ferry Across the Shannon

 We continued along the coast until we came to the amazing Cliffs of Moher (pronounced “more”). These spectacular cliffs, home to all kinds of birds and animals including Puffins, were pretty amazing to see. We had a very windy walk, again with people from all over the world, and then continued on our way.

The Cliffs of Moher

 We stopped briefly in the little seaside town of Doolin. Doolin is a very famous music venue where people from everywhere used to show up for sessions in the local pubs. As traditional Irish music has become so popular everywhere, fewer people show up in the this rather remote village. But we came here for a very special purpose. Our neighbors at home had two cats named Huxley and Doolin. They were part of the south end of 44th Ave NE cat gang that included our own Little and Teasel. All have now died. But Doolin was named for this little Irish town, so we took this picture and sent it off to our neighbors “In Memoriam.”

We ended the day in a Galway suburb called Oranmore. Our hotel had a a peppy little Italian bistro with lots of families having dinner. We had great pizza.