Day 3 - Cliffs of Moher
Driving
We've been in Ireland 3 days so far, and that means 3 days of driving on the left side of the road. Remember which side to drive on hasn't been all that difficult; the hardest part is the little things... The muscle memory of how you check your mirrors or switch from reverse to forward. Keeping aligned in the center of the road takes a lot of focus when your instinct wants you to keep shifting to the left side. It's all perfectly manageable, but also subtlely unnerving. All this combined with the narrow roads lined with hedges means driving around can take quite a bit more focus than normal.
Today, we did about 3.5 hours, our longest road-day yet. We went from our hotel in Cork to Blarney, then North to County Clare to see the spectacular Cliffs of Moher, and finally doubling back to our hotel for the next few nights in Ennis.
We ended up skipping Blarney Castle itself as we had no desire to kiss the Blarney Stone, and admission was a bit pricey (most people seemed to agree that Rock of Cashel was more interesting anyways). Instead we walked around town briefly, and stopped at Blarney Woolen Mills for some light souvenir shopping.
Cliffs of Moher
We eventually reached our major stop of the day, the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher extend a spectacular 9 miles long and vary in height between about 400ft to over 700ft. Movie fans may recognize them from Harry Potter And the Half Blood Prince and as the "Cliffs of Insanity" in The Princess Bride.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't super cooperative with our photography goals, as it was very cloudy and foggy, but we did our best.
Ennis
After our stop at the cliffs, we backtracked to Ennis to check in to our hotel for the night. It was around dinner time, so we made our way onto the main street in search of a pub with some local live music. In what's quickly becoming a disappointing theme, it seems the pub we chose did not have music going on this evening (even though it was said that they have it "every night"), so we just had to settle for some food and drinks. Fish and Chips for Michael and Spinach Ricotta Tortellini for Christina.
