Ireland - In which I succumb to the rarest of things, an Irish sunburn, and fall in love with the countryside

I never really thought of Ireland much. Until PS I Love You that is. As I watched that move I was astonished by the sea of green, the absolute brilliance of the colors of the flowers dappling along the countryside, the stone walls, the remote landscape that seemed both tame but independent at the same time. And so I thought intensely about visiting Ireland for a few years, then decided nothing is as good as the movies and moved on. Yet this month here I was, in Ireland. And wouldn't you know it, I loved the countryside.

We headed to the Emerald Isle for a family trip, some of us looking briefly to explore our roots, others of us along for the ride. Winding around a cliff, precariously, on the left side of the road, dodging wayward sheep and tour buses too large for the tiny lanes, it ended up being quite the ride.

Our adventure started with a drive through the Irish countryside from Dublin to Dingle, stopping in Kilkenny and at the Rock of Cashel. Kilkenny is an adorable little town that won Ireland's "Tidy Town" competition a few years back. What this means is that it is crisp, the buildings are a rainbow of colors, and the small streets are lined with historic taverns and trendy little shops. At the center of the town sits a castle, more of a manor now than a medieval fortress.

It was a delightful place to stop for lunch and a walk, a couple of hours out from Dublin. Strolling along the "Medieval Mile" felt a bit more like strolling along the shop-lined streets of a New England beach town than a step back in time, but with the trickle of fountains and the flowers bobbing to the breeze, it was well worth the couple hour stop.

Our next stop was the Rock of Cashel, one of the most famous ruins in all of Ireland. It is supposedly where King Munster was converted to Christianity by St Patrick back in the 5th century, but most of the buildings there are from the 12th or 13th century, including the cathedral, the stone tower, and the chapel.  Sitting atop the tallest hill around, surrounded by a stone wall and the crumbling cathedral, with the echo of crows circling overhead, the place feels both eerie and peaceful. There was a massive fire here after fighting between the Catholic Irish and the Protestant British, at which point Irish taking shelter in the church were trapped inside when the church caught on fire (this may or may not have been lit by the British, the accounts I've found contradict each other). Either way, the place is both enchanting, alive with visitors, and yet haunting.

There's another small ruin that can be seen from the Rock, an easy walk downhill, and just as fun to explore.

Next we hit up my favorite part of the trip: the Dingle Peninsula. While the Ring of Kerry is one of the most famous stretches of sights in Ireland, we chose to go to the Dingle Peninsula because it is smaller, less crowder, and has just as many sights but with a much shorter loop. While the many ring forts and old churches are impressive and beautiful, I truly fell in love with the landscape of Dingle, with sweeping green hills, craggy shrubberies, and bright red flowers contrasting against the brilliant water.

One of our favorite sites on the Dingle Loops was a combination of a petting zoo and a ring fort that never got excavated. The archaeological remains were undisturbed for years because the place got the reputation for being a home to fairies, and with the exception of the tourists walking over the grass and the pigs, sheep, and goats that keep the landscape trim, the sight is still left to nature.

There was no shortage of gorgeous cliff views overlooking sky and sea. I expected the ocean to be more the color of the water in New England, more of a deep cobalt or gray blue, but it was shockingly emerald.

We probably hit the timing just right, but there were bushes filled with beautiful red flowers everywhere. The picture below isn't adjusted for color in any way; the sky, flowers, and green grass were all that bright.

The town of Dingle itself is charming, especially slightly on the off season when you get it mostly to yourself. It's fun to wander along a series of brightly colored, winding roads interspersed with shacks selling fresh fish, tacky tourist shops, historic buildings, and pubs that still hold on to their heritage by proudly displaying the other purpose of their buildings, such as leather shop or a hardware store. Years ago, the pubs would serve as one thing during the day, and then serve alcohol in the evening, with separate corridors for the women since it wasn't proper for them to be seen out in public drinking. 

Next we traveled up to Galway, passing through the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. The Burren is a rocky limestone landscape, and in its most extreme form offers very little space for plants to grow. We stopped by the impressive Poulnabrone Dolmen, a portal tomb dating back to some time between 4200 and 2900 BC. When it was excavated, the remains of 33 people were found underneath. The landscape is amazing, but desolate. Edmund Ludlow, a general under Cromwell, once said of the area "there is not water enough to drown a man, wood enough to hang one nor earth enough to bury one." I guess he didn't find it as charming as I did, but then again I wasn't looking for ways to kill people.

Next we headed to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands. It only has a population of about 840 people, but the people there still speak the Irish language and are immensely proud of Irish culture. Many of the remaining people work in the tourist industry, either driving minibuses, directing a horse and carriage, and serving in cafes and pubs around the island, but they are proud to talk about their lives on the island. Our carriage driver told us all about the churches where people are baptized, the schoolhouse, the beaches where they swim, and the farm animals he keeps as we passed bumped along the roads towards Dun Aengus, the main tourist draw.

Dun Aengus is a prehistoric hill fort that hugs the edge of a roughly 300 foot cliff. While the fort was clearly circular on construction, the edge of it disappears right over the cliff. When it was built, it is believed that the fort would have been about 1000m from the sea, but with sea level rise and erosion, the sea has been steadily claiming the ruin.

We ended our trip in Dublin, spending a few days visiting the various museums, pubs, and walking around downtown. If you are in to nightlife, Dublin is your dream city. To get back to the airport at 3am we had to reserve a taxi, not because there wouldn't be any out but because they would all be filled with people making their way back from the pubs. Its a lively nightlife with bodies crammed in warm rooms, beer and whisky flowing freely as music spills out of each building. Going to one of the pubs and listening to traditional Irish music with a lively fiddle was one of the best experiences we had in Dublin, but this bookworm really fell in love with the Trinity Library. It wasn't my favorite city, but the people are friendly and welcoming, the buildings warm and cozy, and if you love to go out drinking and make new friends this would be one of the best places to do it.

Sintra and Lisbon - Photo Diaries

Evora - In which a last second diversion becomes the best part of the trip

When planning this trip, I really wanted a time when we would just chill out, do very little, and sit by a beach. The Algarve rang out like a gleaming beacon of emerald seas with gorgeous caves a slow pace. Yet when our planned trip to the Algarve came around, so did the 50° weather, wind, and rain. What?! You can't sit on a beach, much less take a boat ride through rocky alcoves, with a frigid wind coming off the water. So with great regret and disappointment, Nick and I canceled our beach trip the night before we were scheduled to take off. But where else could we possibly go?

As usual, I turned to our Rick Steve's guidebook and found Evora, which Steve's described as a "sizzling, arid plain." Well, sizzling and arid it would not be, but at least it offered more to do when our beach weather failed to materialize. So we booked a last minute hotel, which ended up being our favorite place we stayed on our entire trip, picked up our rental car in Granada (a brand new red Mercedes which made both Nick and I sweat with the anxiety having never driven anything so fine in our lives) and took off driving into the planes of Spain. We only realized we had crossed the border when the street signs changed to Portuguese.

Not fond of driving a car through tiny cobblestone lanes initially designed for horses and people alone, we parked outside of the medieval city wall and hiked in with all our luggage on our backs uphill into the city center to find our hotel, the Noble House. When we got there, I asked if where we had parked was appropriate, or if we had to go pay somewhere. When the woman showing us our room heard we had walked here from the parking area outside the wall, her eyes widened and she said "No indeed, you have already paid." The room was airy and comfortable with a beautiful original fresco on the ceiling. There was also the famous Portuguese pastry, pastel de nata, waiting for us. I was at first wary that this would be the first custard tart that Nick would eat on our visit to Portugal, but I shouldn't have been. They were delicious, maybe the best that we had the entire trip. So far, this last second excursion was looking like it might be a success.

The road on which we found our hotel

We had made one fatal error, however, in that we had showed up around 3:00 and had not eaten lunch. Every restaurant we found had shut down until 7:00 in order to prepare for dinner, and we were practically dead on our feet. Although many people in Evora did not speak English, a chef at one of the restaurants we wandered by took pity on us. He jovially described to us where we might be able to find some food and chatted with us for a bit, and while he was very clear he could not vouch for the quality of the food we might find at this hour, we quickly found something given his directions (note: if you order a hamburger at a dive bar in Evora, the patty will be made of pork, not beef, or at least ours was). 

After we were thoroughly fed, we could truly appreciate how charming this beautiful little city is. The buildings in the city are all painted white, yellow, and sky blue, colors which help keep heat and flies away. The city also boasts roman aqueducts, a medieval wall, a Roman temple, a cathedral, and a chapel of bones. If this sounds like a number of other European cities, consider that this place is considerably smaller and less discovered, with a unique charm that left us feeling like we had the city all to ourselves. It didn't hurt that we wandered into Ervideira Wine Shop for some tastings before happily stumbling our way through the cobblestone streets.

The main square in Evora, Praca do Giraldo.

A gorgeous flower garden in front of the Roman Temple

We tended to play games with the sun the entire day: as long as we were inside, the sun came out and teased us. As soon as we were outside, especially if we were on a roof or a high viewpoint, the sky would cloud over, the wind would start howling, and we would be forced to duck under for cover. 

The cathedral in Evora is no more grand than any other cathedral you might find in Europe. However, the outside is beautifully decrepit, with moss, lichen, and plants growing out of broken shingles or cracks in the stone. Exploring the area surrounding this cathedral was one of our favorite parts.

One of the most unique parts of Evora, however, was the chapel of bones, or Capela dos Ossos. The words above the door to the chapel say, "We bones in here wait for yours to join us." Walking in, all the walls are arches are lined with the bones of people who were buried in various churchyards in Evora, then exhumed by three Franciscan monks who had grown concerned that the congregants in Evora cared more for earthly possessions and stature than their eternal souls. When you walk into the attached Church of St Francis and see the ornately decorated chapels along the sides, slathered in gold leaf, you begin to understand why the Franciscans, dedicated to simplicity, might have felt this way.

The chapel of bones

The best view of the city can be found from the top of the chapel. This was one of those instances where the wind began to howl and threaten to blow you off the roof, but the view was worth it.

Work being done in the cloisters

We also had some of our best meals in Evora. Our first evening we went to Taska Fina, where the owner welcomed us in and sat and chatted with us for a while, talking about Evora, his family, the variations in the pork and sausage on the menu, and of course Rick Steves. His children played in the back of the restaurant, and after a half hour his wife came in carrying some supplies for the evening's meals. It's a small place, and after the seven or so tables had filled up they closed the restaurant, leaving those of us in their to drink and savor and bask in the warm glow of this adorable eatery.
We not only found interesting history inside Evora but even older sites outside. There are several sets of megalithic monuments just outside the city, which were easily reached on our way to Lisbon. Although you can get here with a bus tour, having the rental car made this adventure particularly easy, although at times we ended up driving down dirt roads made entirely of muddy potholes that threatened to swallow the car. As we meandered our way through, cows watched us, chewing dully on just another day wandering between the cork trees. The landscape was gorgeous, and the monuments well worth some of the stress put on the rental. We first stopped at the Anta Granda do Zambujeira, a burial tomb dating back to 4000-3000 BC.

Anta Granda do Zambujeira

Next we visited the Cromeleque dos Almendres, from 5500 BC, making it 2000 years older than Stonehenge. While we were there, there was a man standing in the center of the ring of stones, recording himself reading a poem over and over again. He was our only companion, although to be fair we had just waited out a torrential downpour in the car before trudging through the mud to get here. The stones are believed to have functioned as a celestial calendar and served as a holy place for those worshipping the sun.

Cromeleque dos Almendres

Our trusty car made it through all our adventures

After that we were off to Lisbon. Although we hand't intended to come to Evora, it was definitely one of the highpoints of the trip, not only because it gave us the opportunity to slow down and explore an area with fewer tourists but also because we went into the city with few expectations. The people were incredibly friendly and kind, and while the overwhelming thrum of people celebrating Holy Week in Spain had left these two introverts a little on edge, Evora ended up offering a little bit of the quiet, restorative peace that we needed, even if it continued to rain as all the locals told us, "It never rains here!"