In which teatime takes it up a notch (Ireland part III).

Mondays tend to be a little under par when it comes to Fun & Excitement, but not in our case. This particular Monday was a most excellent day for adventuring, filled with barren and gorgeous mountain crossings, colorful towns with funny names and salt-flavored ice cream, lots of histories, treacherous coastal roads with a side of ocean&tea&scones, ancient dwellings, plenty of sky action, and even one of those things that are born when the rain and the sun love each other very much.

 The weather was not forecasting in our favor when trying to plan out the week’s schedule of what to do when, and the locals confirmed that it was useless even to check, as the sky was currently fickle at best. So, we packed layers for all weathers and went to explore the southern coast of the peninsula: first destination Dingle (hee hee, dingle dangle dingle dangle – even more fun after having previously driven through Tralee {tra-la tra-lee tra-la}). Weyll, actually the first destination was a small pull-off area going through Conor Pass (– hah, just discovered a few videos taken by people driving across the pass, the first of which was taken from a car in the rain with no view, half the time pulled off on the side of the road, watching the car in front of them pull off at a too-tight corner and wait for multiple vehicles to suck in their sideview mirrors and try to squeeze by without anyone’s vehicles getting scratched, smooshed, or shoved off/into cliffs – all to the soundtrack of an electro-pipe version of “Colors of the Wind”. This one here is a little more badass/dancey, though you can go ahead and skip the first two and a half minutes). The half-hearted drizzle thankfully let up as we piled out of the car, and spots of sun even broke through clouds, spilling onto the landscape below.

 

Around another bend or two we found a more legit parking elbow, complete with waterfall. My mother had heard there were standing stones in the area and disappeared up the steep, twisty path to find them. I stayed below and glared at the ankle that had been (and still is, grmblgrmbl) forbidding me to do anything exciting (like climb slimy wet rocks) for the last many weeks, and threw it more frustrated looks when the adventure party returned with news of ancient standing stones settled in the middle of a mountain lake. It was raining again by that point, so we picknicked on pudding in the car before tackling the terrifying road down to Dingle.

"Terrifying" is only somewhat overexaggerated for the narrow, winding road zooming from mountain heights back to sea level – mostly due to the fact that it was raining and when you're driving on the left, all cars coming towards you 'round the bend look like they're destined for your windshield. No casualties though, thanks to Dad and the other drivers and St. Patrick or whoever else is responsible for that sort of thing.

Driving through Dingle in the pouring rain kind of looks like driving through an automatic rainbow carwash. Colorful water streaking down the windows, but not much detail. It did let up once we were thoroughly soaked and had had our fill of hopping from shop to shop, running fingers through soft sheepskins and over other lovely woolen things while waiting for the rain to take a break. Spicy hot chocolate at a pricey and confident ice cream place provided a much needed power punch before going to find some more coast. They had some creative flavors to be sampled, including "sea salt" and "toasted oat". I had to sample the salt flavor, of course, and t'was indeed interesting. Delicate salty taste. Probably prime for hot 'n' sweaty days. Anyway.

My parentals, who had been in this area a few years before, had fond memories of the Blasket Centre, so we headed there next. This is a museum conserving the history of a community that once lived on the largest of the Blasket Islands right off the coast. The community dwindled as the generations passed and the young people left for the mainland or for America (a.k.a. Springfield, MA saywhaaa), and was finally evacuated in the 1950s when the community could no longer sustain itself. Not only were the exhibits fascinating and accessible to persons of all ages and sizes (including an interactive exhibit based on learning Irish), the building itself was gorgeous gorgeous with a wonderful use of sunlight. The best part came at the end of the experience once you had gone through all the exhibits and learned all about the people who lived there, and then suddenly found yourself in a protruding, entirely glass segment of the building looking out onto the Blaskets. You could even see the ruins of the abandoned houses on shore. Big props to all designers/architects involved.

Driving a little further, we found a graveyard where some of the inhabitants we had just learned about were buried, tombstones standing tall with a perfect view of their island home. Nothing there other than a few sheep and cows, and a kickass coastline.

We continued along this route until passing a home-turned-seasonal-café in an unbelievable location, at which point the car did a u-turn. A few minutes later, we were seated outside with a view that made us go WHAT WHAT and homemade scones/rhubarb pie that made our tummies go YES YES. Of all my fond memories of this trip, this is (one of) the fondest.

 

We made one more stop along the route to have a peek inside one of Ireland's many prehistoric beehive huts, some of which date back thousands of years. The stones were carefully piled atop one another, packed in tight at an angle for the rain to run off. The circle of stones gets smaller as you go up, thus forming a dome at the top. Unlike the vanished wooden and thatched roofs of all the other ancient structures dotting the countryside, these were still pretty in tact. (Though it seemed pretty crazy to me that they could be as old/fit as was claimed without being touched up here and there.)

The return trip took us back through Dingle and the Conor Pass, where the sun was up to all sorts of crazyawesome spotlight mischief. My brain had a hard time. BUT LOOK; LOOK AT THE SUNBEAMS!

Luckily some adolescent sheep showed up to block the road while headbutting each other, thus allowing me more time to feast upon the landscape. And then... and then...

Then came the double rainbow. At which point everything just seemed ridiculous and all I could do was kinda nod my head and smile while my hands preoccupied themselves with the picture-taking.

Back home in time for dinner and settling into the wonders of the day.