IRELAND: ARAN ISLANDS

Monday, August 18th - Day 6

I was so excited to see the Aran Islands! We started our day off right with some delicious french toast from our B & B. We took a break from our normal Irish breakfast for one day. :)

 Pat handed us some towels so we could do some swimming on the island of Inishmore. That was so thoughtful! 

We took a quick drive down to the town of Rossaveel and caught a passenger ferry out for 25 Euro each. Nick was saying that flying would probably be faster and less expensive. It would have been quicker, but it was also 90 Euro per person. I was happy to take an hour-long ferry ride. 

When we arrived on Kilronan on Inishmore, Nick ran to the first bike rental we spotted. We really wanted to rent a tandem bike, and he was really worried that they would have been sold out...

These were just a few of the tandem bikes they had available. Not to mention about a dozen others around the corner. Haha! We got fitted for our bikes and we were off to explore the island! Our first few moments were a little rough, but we got the hang of it really quickly. I think the hardest part is riding in the back. You have to completely let go and just petal and trust the driver in the front. 

On our way through town Nick pointed out a store called, "Aran Island Sweaters." We stopped and he told me his idea he had for an anniversary gift. The 7 year anniversary gift is wool and what better place to buy wool than in Ireland! We were going to pick out our sweaters on our way back. How thoughtful was that?!

We took our second break at the local supermarket. We wanted to grab some sandwiches for a picnic. I headed to the back of the store where they had a create-your-own option. I made a delicious turkey sandwich with cheese, honey mustard, oregano, sun dried tomato, and lettuce on a fresh baguette.  It looked and smelled so good. Nick was dead set on making his own sandwich from items in the store. He bought a loaf of bread, a pack of sliced meat, and a package of sliced cheese. There was at least a dozen slices in each pack.  I tried to convince him to get a tuna and corn sandwich (his fav) at the deli in the back. He was not moved. He thought it would be more economical to make his own.  I was just grateful we'd have food when we reached the other end of the island. 

We made our way to Dun Aenghus fort on the very tip of Inishmore. It was supposed to take us 30 minutes on a bike, but we shaved off a lot of time on our fast tandem bike. We must have past 100 people on bikes. One guy yelled, "Heyyy, not fair" as we blew by!

We had to stop and pet these friendly beasts. There was a family already standing there petting them. The little girl was about 10 years old and very animated. She was convinced the donkey and horse were her best friends. She said if you combined a horse and a donkey you would get a "horney!!" Haha! I had trouble not laughing. 

We kept on truckin'...I had such a blast on the bike! I didn't even have to hold onto the handle bars. I just petaled and took photos of our surroundings. 

We spotted Dun Aenghus in the distance... 

These stones are called Frisian soldiers. The helped slow down any charging army in front of the fort.

Dun Aenghus is hanging onto a 300 foot cliff over the Atlantic. It sure didn't seem nearly as high as the Cliffs of Moher. And once again there was nothing blocking you from the edge. 

We were pretty hungry by that point, so we pulled out our sandwiches and had our picnic at Dun Aenghus. I practically inhaled mine. Nick sat and put his together. He made 2 huge sandwiches stuffed with 6 layers of meat and cheese. He looked over at mine and said, "I don't think I made the right decision." Haha! He spent more money on the packs he bought than my little sandwich, and ended up with a very large, dry sandwich. Maybe one day he'll listen to me...until then he'll just keep eating some dry sandwiches. :)

Nick wanted to get some different angles of the cliffs. He walked right to the edge and laid down with his head hanging over. All the other tourists were watching him carefully. I sat down about 5 feet from the edge and crept over to him. This was as close as I would get. It wasn't as windy as the Cliffs of Moher, but it was still windy! Nick kept trying to convince me to get closer. NOPE! I wouldn't do it! Haha!

Such a dare devil!

It was a beautiful breezy day! The Aran Islands are known for having sporadic rain showers. I was grateful we were there on maybe the one and only day it didn't rain there! Haha!

It took me about 15 minutes to get to this point of dangling my feet off the edge. Eesh! I had seen a picture of my friend Heather Foster with her feet off at this same cliff edge. I had to do it!

The Island of Inishmore from Dun Aenghus

We had a 15 minute walk back down to the ticket office. The hoards of people were starting to arrive. I got all kinds of funny looks for wearing my boots there. I got even funnier looks for riding a tandem bike with them! Haha!

Next we road over to the trail head of the Worm Hole. It's hard to tell from the photo, but we were off- roading at this point on a bumpy dirt road. We still managed it!

I thought the trail would only be about a 5 minute hike. It turned out to be a 40 minute hike one way!! Not to mention...I was wearing boots! Nick left me in the dust. I had to climb over rocky, craggy stones with large cracks beneath them. At one point, I asked a woman walking by if it was worth it. She looked at my shoes and said, "Maybe not in those." Haha! I had to laugh! 

This worm hole had better be worth it!

The algae growing along the rocks close to the shore was so vibrant and green!

Well...maybe not that one any more. 

I found the worm hole and Nick!!!

 The first thoughts I had were, "1. It doesn't look anything like a worm hole. 2. This looks like a pool, or a good place to dive. 3. I don't think it was worth that long hike in boots. 4. Holy cow I feel really sunburned. 5. Who gets sunburned in Ireland?!"

We turned around 10 minutes later and did the hike back. Doh! I've never been more grateful to get back on a bike. 

We rode past this beach. It looked so tempting, but we only had about an hour left and we had to go get our anniversary sweaters. 

We took the low road back over to Kilronan. (We had taken the high road over.) I couldn't help but sing, "You'll take the load road, and I'll take the high road.."

We found our way back to the Aran Island Sweater Co.  I found my sweater in about 10 minutes out of the 50 or more styles they had. I couldn't believe I was trying on a wool sweater in August! Only in Ireland. 

I went upstairs to the men's section to see if I could help Nick make a decision. He had chosen about 3 styles that he liked. He tried all of them on, but they all made him look like an old man. One of the sales clerks said, "Wow, you're worse than a woman," when he saw the large pile of clothes he had tried on. Heehee:)

I went around and picked out a few men's sweaters I liked. He tried them on. He found one that fit perfect and the color was great too. Even better he found a fedora! It looked so good on him. (Sweater pics to come in the next blog post...)

I loved our sweaters! It was such a sweet and thoughtful gift!

We wanted to get a good spot on the boat so we headed back early. Nick let me try and steer the bike before we returned it. It was harder for him to sit in the back and not be in control than it was for me to steer. It was so funny! We were both cracking up!

We jumped on the boat, and grabbed a good seat and we were off!

The first comment our hosts said when we walked in the door from our day-trip was that we both looked sunburned. I said, "No one will believe me if I tell them I got sunburned in Ireland." Haha!

That night we drove into Galway for dinner. Our hosts recommended The Quay Street Kitchen. As we went searching for it this family stopped us. They asked if we had just been in Dingle two night before. They told us they had sat behind us at Murphy's Pub while we listened to music. We laughed and chatted for about 15 minutes. The woman standing next to me was Dee; she was from STL. Her granddaughter Katie was standing next to her, and her daughter Karen was next to Nick. Katie and Karen lived in the Chicago area. We found out that Karen's son is in the AF as well and he flies C-17s. How random is that?! We told them we hoped to run into them again!

Quay Street

We found the Quay Street Kitchen and had a delicious meal! 

We could have stayed out and gone pub crawling, but we were so tired (and sunburned!) we just went straight back to the B & B. 

I think my favorite day so far was riding tandem around the Aran Islands and buying our beautiful anniversary sweaters!

We had another busy day ahead of us. We were planning on driving the Connemara/Mayo County Loop on day 7...I couldn't wait!