Day Twelve- Cliffs of Moher and Doolin

We did our now traditional late start again today. Not a bad tradition, really. Stella is not a morning person, so she was happy to make breakfast around 9. This morning it is potato (that stereotype of Ireland is accurate) pancakes and homemade applesauce. Truly Lovely.
Sadly, it is a day of long driving today. We were unwilling to pay the big bucks allow a second driver, but one of us is paying in another way.

Shannon

We are taking small detour to pass through Shannon. With Shannon. So Shannon can bond with the city named after her and the river named after her. The guide books don’t say much of anything about Shannon and now we know why. There isn’t much there. We did stop for lunch at the Irish version of a strip mall and had the best Indian food I have had in a long time at a restaurant called Saffron. If you fly into Shannon you might consider eating there before running off. However, I should warn you, they do play the theme from Love Story over. And over. And over.

Off to Doolin

In any case, off we go again, headed for Doolin, the purported

traditional music capitol of Ireland. We are getting close at 3 in the afternoon and the sun is still out, so we decide to visit the Cliffs of Moher on the way. Turns out this was pretty good decision. An hour is plenty of time to see them. Of course, Aaron and I had to have our turn at looking over the 600 foot cliffs edge. I thought the guidebooks were exagerrating about the wind, but was, in fact, incredibly windy. A few people have been blown off, but I suspect the wind had some help from seriously poor judgment and maybe even a little alchohol.

 

So we tooled into Doolin, a tiny little stretch of road with three pubs and a whole passel of B and B’s strung along the road. We picked the most likely looking one, called Suantrai B and B, asking the two important questions: Do you have WiFi and how much is a room yielded a yes and 60 Euro per room. We’re in.

 

We randomly select McGann’s pub for dinner and music. Ok, not so random. It was the closest one and we were walking. We had some great Guiness Beef stew and watched Germany whooping Australia in another world cup match. Music started around 9 and was very good. This pub has the friendly atmosphere you would expect. An amazing thing was that three people ran the whole place with three small connected rooms. they took food orders at the bar, did bar tending , delivered the food to your table and bussed. Wow.