Day 6 - Dingle and County Kerry

Lenda - What a great day.  Woke up, enjoyed a pot of coffee and a light breakfast at our B&B, then headed out the door for a  clockwise tour of the Dingle peninsula.  The views of the ocean, mountains, offshore islands are wonderful.  Windy as heck, but sunny and warm by Irish standards.  4 hours later, Diane had seen bee huts (limestone tepee-like structures) from 500BC to 500AD, a famine homestead abandoned in 1845, Dunbeg (translated as small fort) with it's 1,000-year old limestone walls (I ducked way down in the passage ... couldn't even imagine hitting my head again.  Once was enough....), and the "Sleeping Giant", a mountain range in the water off the peninsula coastline that looks like a contented man lying on his back in the water with his hands on his stomach.  Maybe too much Guinness for the man?

Now, I'm a big fan of the No Cal and So Cal coast drive, but even this hardened Californian was occasionally gasping, "Oh, look at that!"  So green on the hillsides, so blue the ocean and sky...absolutely amazing.  The sheer drop offs are really great especially when next to 2-ft high "retaining" walls of stacked limestone.  Retain?  Hardly.  At the steepest point, the road is only one lane wide.  In Ireland, there is no "my side" or "your side" of the road.  There is just "the road".  And you deal with it.  Damn, that was one wild drive!  Did I mention I love driving in Ireland on the wrong side of the car?  Did I mention that the left (passenger) side of the car is now decorated with a few branch scratches?  Better than hitting the oncoming car traveling at 60km.  Check out any rental car in Ireland - the front left bumper is usually destroyed as well as the entire left side of the car.  Dang this is fun!  Diane says it reminds her of driving on the Autopia at Disneyland except at much higher speeds without sheep, cows, hikers, and cyclists as obstacles.

Diane and I are now in Murphy's Pub where we shared a chicken and stuffing sandwich, and I'm having my Irish Coffee (and she her Harp).  Diane is journaling in her book, and I'm plucking away here.  Oh, if you feel like complaining about the cost of gas - don't.  Try about $6.75 a gallon here.  But you can really get a great deal on Dubliner cheese and KerryGold butter.  Yum!

Finished off the night at The Small Bridge bar with wonderful traditional music chatting away with some  Dingle locals and people watching.  Diane is shaking her head at the music from the nightclub next door ... all American music.  And so it goes in Ireland .....