Western Ireland Bus Tour

With no visits today, and having had quite a long while in Dublin to explore the big group of 40 decided to hire a couple of busses to drive us out to the country side. The places that were most popular in the vote were Belfast and Galaway. We chose the latter, since the Belfast bus ride took even longer than the Galaway one. We woke up early and boarded the Paddywagon tour bus around 7 a.m. we drove around Dublin for an hour picking up other groups who were to share our bus adventure and then headed out into the country side.
One thing to note about Ireland. It may be a European country, but it is not the wealthiest of the EU nations. There are some major roads around Dublin, but no major highways or freeways, merely 2 lane roads that wind from village to village to medium size cities all around the country. This makes traveling within Ireland very tiresome and time consuming! In a country the size of West Virginia we spent a good 13 hours on a bus today to go 266 km (or roughly 165 miles or about 2-2 1/2 hours in the U.S.) Our first stop after an hour of driving was a 20 minute photo op in Limerick at the castle of St. Johns. It was right on the banks of River Shannon (the largest in Ireland). It was gray and raining and the river was full to capacity. It was a charming little town with pretty churches and charming, but run down town homes. It was green and lovely like the rest of the country. Driving to Limrick and getting out of the city for a minute, I realized that many of the Ireland cliches actually seem to hold true. The green is like no other green I have ever experienced. The people and their accents are just like I thought and the patchwork of little green fields divided off by low rock walls are just like all the photos and paintings I have seen before the visit.
After the quick stop in Limrick, we, along with 50 of our bus buddies, jumped back on the Paddywagon and drove on. (And on and on, it seemed) to make another quick 30 minute stop in Burren. Burren was explained to us as an ancient sea bed. It was full of interesting Limestone and was right along the coast. We had fun hiking out over the rocks to the shore to enjoy some fresh sea air and a minute of leg stretching! It was lovely and not something we could have experienced had we stayed in the city.
More driving and then we finally stopped in Doolin for a quick bite of lunch and boarded to again drive (this time only a few minutes) to the main attraction of the bus ride, the Cliffs of Moher. It was an amazingly picturesque site with the dramatic cliffs with the white water of the waves crashing against them. There were 40,000 seagulls circling the cliffs looking for places to build their nests. There was a tower (no idea how old or what it went to, but it sure added to the scenery). We enjoyed our longest bus riding break of 1 1/2 hours and loaded up to head back to Dublin.
The bus driver promised us that if we were good little boys and girls he would stop at Bunratty castle on the way home. We did. For 15 minutes. I took a photo, looked for 5 minutes in the gift shop and got back on the bus, so I know nothing about the history or what it looks like inside. It was a pretty little castle and that is the very most I can tell you. What I learned about Ireland on this adventure: They need a freeway around the edge of the island! The pictures in the story books and movies not only did not lie about the beauty of this land, but did not do it justice and finally, they spell the word TIRE, TYRE (strange, no?).