Yesterday morning, after more fresh-baked scones for breakfast, we bid farewell to our new friends at the Old Monastery Hostel (human and animal) and drove to the pier at Rosseaval to catch the 1 pm ferry to Inishmoor, the largest of the Aran Islands. Because we were early, we did not get lost, and in fact arrived almost 2 hours ahead of the boat. We thus sat in the only bar:
...where the fishermen were enjoying their pints of Guinness (...at 11:15 am) and speaking Irish with one another. We shared a pot of tea and enjoyed the ambiance, and I obsessed very slightly about the weather, which was bad. It wasn't raining hard, just consistently, and given that our stated plan was to go to an island with very little on it but ruins, and to get to those ruins via bicycle, it was making me a bit antsy. But, though it rained at breakfast, and all the way to Rosseaval, and all through tea, and on the boat:
...it stopped more or less exactly as we pulled into Kilronan, on Inishmoor. In point of fact, we had absolutely glorious weather on Inishmoor, sunny, with some puffy clouds, a light breeze, not too hot, a little chilly in the evening. Perfect!We probably walked way more than we had to - dragged our luggage the 3 km to our hostel, and then walked back to Kilronan to rent bicycles. Oh well. We had the best room in the Mainistir hostel - a (very squeaky) canopy bed with a really gorgeous view of the sea:
(that's the view between my feet, from bed)Inishmoor is spectacular. I'm only sad we didn't stay longer. Emily (sensibly) pointed out that it's kind of inevitable that I will feel this way about every place we only stay one night, but I think it's especially true of the Aran Islands. We didn't see half of the ruins, despite biking for 5 hours. I'm not really complaining, I'm just saying that it was so, so lovely. Related: biking around the Aran Islands is excellent, and I highly recommend it. Biking there has given me fantasies about coming back to Ireland and biking through the south.
Inishmoor is a strange place that has been inhabited for thousands of years, and is thus criss-crossed by thousands of kilometers of stone walls:
Oddly, though, there isn't much livestock, with the notable exception of a particular horse sticking his head over a wall between his pasture and the road around a blind curve, who whinnied more or less exactly as he came into my view, effectively scaring the living hell out of me.We saw a ton of memorable scenery; for brevity's sake, I will present you only a Thatched Cottage:
and Celtic crosses:
We went to Dun Aengus, the primary tourist attraction on the island, a Bronze Age stone circle fort right on the edge of the cliff:
The only fence involved in this whole operation was the one keeping the cows from wandering into the fort. Note: there was no such fence to keep the tourists from wandering off the 91m cliff, around which the fort is built.At one point on the way back, we ditched the bikes to walk to the cliffs, where we could climb down closer to the water. We ended up in an area that was much like a playground, for me; I could have spent all day there, climbing up and down the rocks. Well, with the exception of the high-tide parts of the day:
We unfortunately missed the seals at the seal colony, as they evidently fish during that portion of the day; we did see a large number of trumpeter swans, however. Instead, to get back to the hostel, we hiked up the steepest hill I have ever seen, came up at the top...and were totally unsure which way to turn. We had to ask a passer-by for directions, and she actually, and legitimately, laughed at us. Yes, folks, we're Ivy League graduates who got lost on an island with infinite visibility and three roads. I will distract you from how ludicrous this is with a pretty picture I took at the time:
We had a delicious dinner at the hotel, which is where we first met Johnny. Johnny is an (Aran) Islander, in his 70s, and the dominant first impression he left was that he belched loudly through dinner. We will return to Johnny in a moment.After dinner, we walked to the nearest pub (with the sun setting behind us), where three guys, locals, played music. I ran into Johnny at the bar. He recognized me from dinner, and introduced both himself and his equally-old friend Paddy, who told me about the time in his youth he spent touring the Eastern seaboard of the US, picking up girls. He went all over: Richmond, NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Orlando...no luck in Richmond or Orlando, apparently, but when I said "Well I'm sorry you had no luck in all that...", he said "Oh don't worry, I had plenty of luck along the way."
The guys jamming were actually, 100% talented. Honestly, they were fantastic. A lot of covers, but well-chosen, some local stuff, some new stuff. But the best part of the night was when they called for Johnny. "Johnny? Johnny?! We know you're here, Johnny..." Johnny joined them up at the front, and they handed Johnny a guitar....and Johnny was amazing. Not just like, oh, I'm on vacation, I've had a few beers, it's fun to watch old local Irishmen jam good, but seriously, no lies, awesome. They had to turn down the volume on his guitar because he played so hard:
Johnny's on the left. People danced.Sadly, the Aran Islands are experiencing a very severe drought, necessitating the shutting off of water between 8 pm and 8 am. I contributed to this cause by not showering and instead falling into bed. A little drunk.
We left this morning (after a friendly hostel breakfast; I like hostels because you can actually meet random people and talk to them. It's funny to me how surprised people seem to be that Em and I are actually travelling together and are not about to kill each other. I think a lot of people have sister animosity in their lives). We had an entirely uneventful ride to Galway; I'm getting good at this left-hand thing. Our hostel here is significantly nicer than I expected, decorated with art and murals, brightly painted, and the only obvious difference between our room and a proper hotel room is the need to share a bathroom. It's also supremely-well located.
We took it quite easy this afternoon, as we're staying two nights, and we're both a little beat. We did, however, get to take in a local hurling event at a bar not a block from our hostel. A sports channel was interviewing (and broadcasting the interview live) several past greats of the sport of hurling on their opinion on the upcoming All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championships. It seems that Kilkenny is highly favored to win over Galway. I have since read about hurling on wikipedia; it didn't help much. But anyway, it was very interesting, and we got both free Guiness and free bar snacks just for showing up.
We ended the night at a bar known for its trad [-itional Irish music] sessions, and enjoyed the music with a drink or two. We met a large group of Hofstra students + professors in Galway on summer session, with whom we had a number of interesting conversations. They too have noticed how friendly the Irish are to Americans, and how much they seem to just like the USA. It's an interesting change; not that I've met many openly hostile people in my life, but the Irish are not only super-friendly in general, they're specifically very positive about the US. Obama helps, of course, but this isn't just "Oh, you guys are great now that you've elected a guy who isn't an asshat", it's more general than that, and it's nice.
Before that, though, we grabbed a quick bite at a crepe place down the road. I leave you with photographic evidence:
No comments:
Post a Comment