Three Days in Galway

Our cousin, Eli, who currently lives in London wanted to come visit us while we were on our vacation since we were so close to him. Since he had never been to the western coast of Ireland before and it is purported to be one of the most beautiful parts of the country, we all agreed to meet there.

I found a cute B&B just outside of the city and booked us rooms there. The Woodberry Cottage was to be our base for the next few days and turned out to be wonderful. It was family home where an older couple and their grown son run it for the summer months every year. The proprietors offered everything from a ride into town at midnight to custom breakfast and information on where to go in town. It was a great place.

Our first day in town we picked up Eli in the afternoon and meandered through the downtown Galway streets, soaking in the culture. Galway is a great little city with a huge tourist crowd and some lovely older buildings, but it’s the county of the same name (and county Clare) that really draw in the masses. Galway is a great base from which to go exploring the Aran Islands, the Cliffs of Moher, Connemara, and a smattering of castles, abbeys, and forts. We visited a few of these places over the weekend.

The day that we picked up Eli happened to also be our 31^st birthday (we’re getting old even if we still look like high schoolers) and therefore he informed us that he was taking us to dinner to celebrate. Eli had made reservations at a small seafood restaurant called O’Grady’s on the Pier, in the one street village of Barna. It was located (as the name suggests) on the end of the pier and afforded a great view from which to watch the sunset. The meal and company were excellent.

Before coming to Ireland, Em had booked us a trip on the ferry out to the largest of the three Aran Islands. We drove an hour outside of Galway along the western coast of Ireland and then caught the 45 minute ride to Inishmore. The Aran isalnds are a huge tourist attraction as they are a piece of living history. Most of the 1,200 residents on the islands only speak Irish and their language and culture is still heavily visible there. In addition, the islands contain the relics and ruins of many ancient forts, monasteries, churches, and homes.

As a typical tourist, once reaching shore we were bombarded with offers of bikes or shuttles to view the island. We opted for exercise and rented bikes. I got a great bike while Em and Eli got ones that changed gears on their own when they went up hills. We rode all over the island and viewed some of the 700 miles of stones walls that crisscross this small piece of land (I think the island is only about two miles by 8 or 9 miles).

Besides the amazing beach with its blue and green waters that enticed many overheated bikers, the main attraction was Dún Aengus. This is a Bronze and Iron Age fort that is situation on top of the highest point of the island and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean 100 meters below. You can even sit on the edge and view the vertical drop if you’re brave (read crazy) enough. It’s a beautiful site.

We caught the four o’clock ferry back to the mainland and proceeded to venture up the Connemara coast pasts some of the small fishing villages. We stopped in Roundstone for dinner and got to watch part of the Regatta (boat race) that was happening. Eli really enjoyed the town, while Em and I liked our next stop, Clifden, the largest town on the Connemara coast, more. From Clifden bay to Streamstown Bay you can travel along the 11 km Sky Drive which takes you 150 meters above the ocean and affords magnificent views. It is definitely worth the detour.

Since we’d seen a good chunk of the Connemara coast and area the previous day, for our last full day in the Galway area, the trio headed to the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs tower 390 ft above the ocean at their highest point and take their name from the fort named Moher that was located on Hag’s Head, the southernmost point of the Cliffs. We walked from the visitor center at the middle of the Cliffs about three miles out to Hag’s Head. It’s a great walk, made all the more enticing by the scenery. You just need to be careful as there are places where there is nothing to keep you from plunging to your death and in the past on really windy days, people have been blown into the ocean.

As we were driving to the Cliffs, we’d seen signs advertising caves and Em and I couldn’t resist dragging Eli with us as we backtracked 15 miles to go explore one. The Aillwee Caves were found in 1944 by Jack McGann in the way most things are found, by chasing after his pet dog, who in turn was chasing after a rabbit. It is believed that the cave system is one of the oldest in the region. There are some deposits that have been dated to 350,000 years ago. It was fun to go on the tour and view the underground waterfall and the remains of what some call “the last bear den in Ireland”.

On the way home for the evening, we went back towards the Cliffs of Moher and stopped in the village of Doolin. Em and I loved this small village as much as Eli loved Roundstone the day before. There was a central pub where we had dinner and were treated to a Trad Session. Locals sat in the center of the pub and sang traditional Irish ballads while admiring patrons looked on. It was pretty amazing to see.

After dinner, we all wandered down to the harbor chasing Em, who was chasing photos of the scenery. Our walk to the end had the unexpected surprise of allowing up to watch as a local swam with a dolphin near the pier.

When we arrived back in Galway city, we finished the evening with a night on the town, trying local whiskey and enjoying another live music session in a local city pub. Em and I even attempted to join the revelers, but it was a short lived attempt as the band finished for the night and the dance floor was so small that is was more of a mosh pit than a dancing space.

On our last morning with Eli and in Galway in general, we said goodbye to our hosts and went to wander the city of Galway a little more. From reading about the city before our arrival, I had learned of the small section of the city called Salthill and was told it was worth a visit. We headed there and after a short walk around all of us concluded that it had the air of a beach town that was envisioned but never really took off. There was something about this part of the city that felt more run down and old. The Irish did not share our view as the beach was crowded with bleach white bodies enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.

From the district of Salthill we returned to the city center and again wandered the narrow streets for a while before seeing Eli safely to his bus.

Once again, the dynamic duo was on its own. We headed south to the city of Killarney, in the heart of Kerry County. Along the way we spotted a sign for the Bunratty Castle and Folk Village and couldn’t resist a stop. I’m glad we did as this was fantastic. The castle itself is another of the tower style fortresses of the style that was immensely popular in the region during the 15^th-17^th centuries. Now-in-days, you can view the rooms by day and magically be transported back in time by evening if you participate in one of their dinner and show productions (as cheesy as this sounds, I would have done it had I known about it beforehand).

The thing I really liked about the site was not the castle, but in fact, the Folk Village that surrounded it. The folk park is comprised of real homes from different eras that come from all over Ireland. The homes were removed from their original locations and reassembled in the village so that visitors could see all the different styles. The layout is set up like an actual village and you can wander around the shops in the main square or wander further a field and view two different types of mills or a series of gardens. The whole thing was an unexpected treat on the way to Killarney.

Killarney is situated at the entrance to the Killarney National Park and great launching pad for the Ring of Kerry, Dingle Bay and the Slea Head Trail, and a handful of other well-known attractions in the area. We viewed the town and were pleasantly surprised to see that most shops and restaurants were actually open until later in the evening affording us a chance to get a meal before heading to the hostel for the evening.

Passage Tombs, Castles, WOOFers, the Sea, and Tattoos…everything you need to get to Galway

Em and I said goodbye to Dublin and took our Nissan Micro (which the rental guy called large when its seemingly tiny trunk actually swallowed both of our backpacks and Em’s camera bag) and hit the road. We had three days to meander to Galway, where we were to meet our cousin Eli on the 19^th.

First stop on the trip was to Brú na Bóinne, the largest and one of the most important Megalithic complexes in Europe. Brú na Bóinne is a series of mounds, passage tombs, standing stones, hedges, and other Neolithic age enclosures dating back to 3,500 BC. This makes it one of the oldest monuments in the world (it is 500 years older than Stonehenge and a few thousand years older than the pyramids of Gaza). The area comprised of three different sites, Knowth, Dowth, and Newgrange that are spread out around and area of 780 hectares. Other more modern societies later built on top of the site, creating their own distinct additions.

The passage tombs are named because they’re mounds that have walkways into the centers, where there are dolmens (five standing stones with a cap stone on top) that denote burials. All of the sites have at least one tomb that is associated with solar movements and astrology. It’s pretty neat the parallels between these sites and certain ones in America (the Woodland cultures of the Southeast and the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest, for instance).  

To round out this day, we left the tombs and headed up the center of the country to Trim Castle and then on to Cavan. Trim Castle is a Normal castle that was built by Huge de Lacy. De Lacy was granted the entire Meath area by King Henry II of England to lord over and built Trim Castle to be his administrative center and home. The Castle was actually built twice as the first time it was built in wood which was easy enough for dissidents to burn down. De Lacy learned from his mistakes and built the second incarnation in stone.

The castle is famous in modern times due to Mel Gibson’s Bravehart. Administrators of the castle sought out Gibson when they found out that he was making his film in the country and enticed him to use the grounds for the film with an offer of “free”. Through Hollywood magic, Trim became four different locations in the finally cut of the film. There is a piece of a prop from the set still at the castle that you can touch if you’re so inclined.

For the evening we stayed in a hostel in Arvagh that was really a family home that had been converted into a hostel. The family that ran the hostel lived in the smaller of two buildings on a small farm and rented bunks to those that managed to either wander a little off the beaten path or those that found them through internet sites and didn’t realize they were kind of in the middle of no where. They were very friendly though and I got a lesson on the difference between Irish soccer, football, and hurling from the nine year old son (none of these are the same as their counter-parts in other countries).

Em and I were the only hostelers staying the night, but there were some WOOFers (Workers on Organic Farms) there that we made friends with. WOOFers are people that flirt from farm to farm working for room and board. Apparently it is an easy and cheap way to travel and meet new people. We meet a pair of brothers, Ben and Joe, from Virginia that had spent their last three summers WOOFing, camping, bike riding, and hitchhiking around Europe. Sounds pretty cool.

With some directions to a few neat places to check out, we headed out the next morning in hopes of finally ending up on the west coast in Bundoran. The first stop for the day was to visit a Dolmen in Arvaghcliff, the next town over from the hostel. The brothers told us to park on the road and head down the path past the cows and the horses and on to what appeared to be someone’s private land. This led us to believe we’d be walking for a few miles. Turns out it was about 400 meters through a meadow. We took some pictures and then headed back on the road.

Next stop was Boyle Abbey, the first successful foundation in Connacht of the Cistercian order. There was some amazing stone work and carved motifs in the ruins of this old monastery, which dates back to the 12^th century. We explored and moved on.

Parke’s Castle, on the edge of Logh Gill, was a large manor house that was built by Roger Parke in 1610 on the top of an earlier O’Rourke’s Castle. Parke essentially tore down the remains of the castle that was there and rebuilt it into his own giant house.

There was time in our day to visit one last site, Carrowmore. This is a region of about one square kilometer with over a 70 passage tombs that were built over a 500 year period. Some of these tombs pre-date even the ones that are at Brú na Bóinne. They are from the same society, just believed to possibly be the precursors to the large ones seen in some of the surrounding areas. Like at Brú na Bóinne, there are aspects of astronomy woven in to the buildings. It was a beautiful graveyard.

Our home for the next two evenings was the TurfNSurf hostel in Bundoran. Bundoran is a small seaside town were our hostel sat on top of the hill overlooking the ocean a block away. You couldn’t really ask for a better view to wake up to and stare at while eating breakfast. Bundoran turned into our favorite city of the country (of from what we’ve visited so far). It was so quaint and had such a feeling of serenity to it, that we instantly loved it. In addition to being right on the water, there was a great seaside cliff trail that you could walk across, a neat old hotel that used to be an old train station and had a great golf course, an amusement park that closed at 11 pm but still let you wander through the darkened rides (Em loved this for taking photos), and a plethora of tasty restaurants to choose from. There was also a B&B that we passed where you could see an array of creepy dolls all staring in towards where guests would be enjoying their breakfasts. It was so creepy that I tried to convince Em that we had to stay there for an evening. She ran away declaring that that was never going to happen.

Our goal of staying in Bundoran was to actually take off north and visit Donegal in the northern part of Ireland (still in the Republic of Ireland though) and see that area. We did head that way, but a chance occurrence of Em biting her tongue ring in half and needing a new one, necessitated a stop at a tattoo and piercing place as soon as we arrived. This in turn led to talking to the proprietor, Ruth Zombie, and taking a look at her work. This all culminated in the acquisition of a new piece of permanent art for both Em and I. I got a Steampunk fairy (something I’d been wanting for a few years) on my shoulder and Em got a dark, gnarled tree with crows and a tree spirit (she named him “Glow”) that the three of us kind of created on the spot from ideas that she had floating around in her head.

To make sure that we got some history in with our “art appreciation”, we also visited Donegal Castle while up north. The castle built by the patriarch of the O’Donnell clan in 1474 but granted to English Captain, Basil Brooke, by the King of England in 1611. Like many of the castles and large manor houses in the UK during this time, the King took lands from their owners and granted them to English lords as rewards and as ways to weaken the cultures of the people in the countries England hoped to subjugate. The castle eventually ended in a ruin, which was resurrected by the Office of Public Works in the late 20^th century and opened as a tourist site.

And here ends the quick and dirty rundown of these few days.

Dublin

The Scholarly Professor and the Raunchy Truck Driver left Scotland and ventured to Ireland. Our first stop, Dublin. We stayed in the Spire Hostel, located off the main drag (O’Connell Street) in downtown. It was a pretty convenient location for those planning to walk most places.

Our first day out in the city was started with an early morning walk to the Dublin Castle (which wasn’t opened yet, but had an exhibition on the city’s history that you could view that was open) and killed sometime waiting for the free walking tour to begin. When I was traveling in Spain a few years ago I got addicted to the free walking tours that are offered because they tend to show you many different parts of the city and convey the history of a place at the same time. I would get on a tour and use it as a way to figure out what areas I wanted to come back to, to explore later. This tour was as good as many of the others I’ve been on, but due to its 3.5 hour length and a surprise that Em had planned, we had to ditch out early.

A few things that I learned on the tour though are that the name for the city of Dublin comes from the Gaelic word Dubhlinn which translates into “Black Pool”. When the Vikings were conquering the area they named it after the “black pool” of sewage that collected in what is now the gardens or the castle. Our walking tour took us past some of the old Viking ruins, remnants of the old city walls (used to keep the slums from being seen by the aristocrats) and to famous movie/television show set locations.

The surprise that Em was keeping from me for three weeks turned out to be concert tickets to Mumford and Sons (as well as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the Vaccines, Ham Sandwich, and Ben Howard). The concert was held in Phoenix Park, which happens to be the biggest public city park in all of Europe. We took the tram to the front of the park and then walked two miles through the center just to get to the venue. The concert was outdoors and I managed to acquire a sunburn (seven months living in the desert and no sunburn, a trip to the rainy lands of the UK and a sunburn…who would’ve thunk it?) enjoying it. The afternoon started out great with good music, bad beer (they only had Heineken), and some breathing space to relax and enjoy. As the night progressed and more people flooded the park for the main attractions, people got drunker, trash started filling up the grass lawn, and space was at a premium, but through it all, I got to have a wonderful early birthday present and see a great concert. It was a good first day in Dublin.

Due to the concert on our first real day in Ireland, we were down to only one day to visit the city. We decided to walk to the Kilmainham Gaol. Kilmainham is a prison that was built in 1796 to replace the older, darker prison that was nearly next door. It was used until the 1920s to house both criminals and political prisoners.

During the first Irish rebellion for independence from England, there were a series of 14 men (believed to the instigators of the rebellion) that were executed at the prison over the course of 10 days. The English hoped that the executions would deter future rebellions but this actually spurred those that previously were ambivalent to the cause into picking a side (mostly for a free Ireland).

On our way to the Gaol, we first stopped at Dublinia, which is a living history type museum. The museum has three levels:  one focusing on Viking history in the city, one level on the medieval history of the city, and one on archaeology and how they uncovered the past of the city. The museum is very well done with a lots of interactive exhibits (we took some nerdy pictures with period costumes and tried an old ring toss game…Em was rubbish) and story panels.

Our walk also lead us through the “liberties” (an area that used to be outside the city walls and thus not subjected to the taxes of being a city resident), past the Guinness Storehouse (which it will offend most of the drinking crowd to know we only took a photo of but didn’t go in) and to the outskirts of the city. It was a lovely walk and the prison at the end was worth it. Unfortunately, due to the distance and to everything closing by 5-6pm, we were unable to visit the crypts that we had wanted to see as well.

Since we missed the crypts, we consoled ourselves with what we were informed was the best Fish and Chips in the Templar Bar region. The Fish and Chips were from Leo Burdock’s, a small hole in the wall place that has a huge framed case denoting all the famous people that have eaten there in the past. Not sure if it was the best, but it was pretty damn tasty. Temple Bar is a touristy cute series of roads filled with bars and restaurants. Somewhere to see, but not to get a feel for real Ireland or Dublin.

I think that sometime I’ll need to come back and spend another day or two in the city as there are many things that I didn’t have a chance to really see.

Glasgow and the End of the Scotland Adventure

After searching for Nessie and coming up empty handed, the dynamic duo moved on to our last city for this half of the trip. We headed back to Fort William to cut inland and then south as we headed for Glasgow. Along the route we drove through Glen Coe (which I'll have to come back and actually hike through sometime) and stopped at the Hill House.

The Hill House is located in Helensburgh, just outside Glasgow. It was designed and built for Walter Blackie (of publishing house fame) by the most famous of Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Before we'd seen this house, Em and I had never heard of Mackintosh or known of any of his works, after we saw the house we were hooked. We wished that we could bring the man back to life and make him design a dwelling for us; it was that fantastic.

The house was built between 1902 and 1904 but appears as if it was built in the 1960s. The entire design has multiple levels of meaning and was designed to suit Mr. Blackie and his family. Mackintosh was famous for using small square cutouts in the different elements of his structures and then filling the cutouts with colored glass. He also had a rose motif that was repeated in main of his works. The Hill House not only had these tell tale symbols, but rooms were subtly color coded for males and females, places of contemplation and serenity were added everywhere (elements of chi and the like where visible throughout the home), and the style was simple, yet eloquent.

As a result of seeing the house, we fell in love with Mackintosh and were delighted to find that he is to Glasgow as Gaudi is Barcelona and his work is visible everywhere there.

Glasgow was our last city for this half of the trip and our last couchsurfing experience (for this adventure) as well. Here we stayed with a fellow aspiring filmmaker (Em and him talked film geekery all night), Bert, who happened to also be an identical twin and was a true Scotsman. Bert gladly gave us use of his living room to take over for two days and spent the evenings showing us the hip West End and all the coolest bars.

As for the city of Glasgow itself, Em and I enjoyed this place a lot more than Edinburgh; maybe cause we were going with the flow (instead of trying to see everything) or cause the feel of the place was just more friendly and homey and less touristy, who knows. We had returned the rental so we didn't have to deal with it and returned to our roots of walking endless miles in each new place. We wandered all over and saw probably only a fraction of the city itself. Of note in our wanderings were the Glasgow School of Art, the Lighthouse Museum of Architecture and Design, and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

The Glasgow School of Art was designed by Mackintosh and the only way to see it is by guided tour since it is still a functioning school. The tour was worth it and the architecture was as beautiful as that of the Hill House. The Lighthouse is a tall spire building with a top that can be reached by a seemingly endless set of stairs and affords a scenic view of the city. There are also wonderful exhibits housed on a rotating basis. Lastly, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is situated in the Kelvingrove Park (which we just happened to be staying on the outside of) and is a giant, free house of treasures. The Museum houses everything from hands-on exhibits to renaissance paintings and taxidermy animals. On a side note, the park that bears the same name is similar to central park and seemed to have an endless variety of ways to transverse it. I loved it at once.

After two days with the city, we said goodbye and headed via plane (a small commuted jet with the wings above the seats and a slightly freaked out Em) to Dublin and the second half our trip. Time is just flying by.

Fort Williams and Debating the Merits of Nessie

As sad as it made us to leave, we had to venture forth from Skye or we never would have seen anything else in the country. We would have become like the girl working there that came for a few days and was working there three months later. So early the next morning we set forth for Fort William and Loch Ness by way of the a railway station and Glenfinnan.

There were two main routes to get to back to mainland Scotland from the Hebrides, one by bridge and one by ferry. Since we'd already been across the Bridge to Skye a number of times, we decided to take the ferry. Since we were headed to the monument at Glenfinnan, we headed for the ferry platform at Armadale that takes you Mallaig. Armadale itself is a super cute little village with a castle and gardens that you can visit, although since we needed to catch the ferry we didn't have enough time to do much. The ferry trip takes about 30 minutes and after your car is sufficiently crammed into the "sardine" holding pin, you're free to wander the ship and admire the view of the approaching shore.

As the ferry docks, you find yourself in Mallaig, a small port town that is also the end of the train route from Fort William. Although most people have never heard of these towns or probably have an idea of why I am mentioning them, you might all have seen the famous Steam engine train that takes two tourist rich trips across this iconic path per day: part of this route and this replica train are both featured in the Harry Potter films as the Hogwarts Express.

As Em and I were driving along the tree lined road from the docks at Mallaig toward Glenfinnan we happened across a small sign denoting a railway museum, bunkhouse, and cafe and decided to detour. The train station is still an active station, but it has the added bonuses of having  a museum that was built to detail the construction of the railway system in northern Scotland, an old train car that has been converted into a hostel, another old rail car that was converted into a cafe, and the trail head for what were probably beautiful walks (we didn't have time to test them out). We visited the museum and the cafe and had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich and tomato and fennel soup (such a good combination).

Back on the road for a short while and we arrived at Glenfinnan. This was a site in our Scotland Trust book that was on the way to Fort Williams so we decided why not check it out. It turns out that it is a monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie (nee Prince Charles Edward Stuart) and commemorates the location where he raised his standard at the beginning of the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745 when he attempted to win back the crown of the King of Britain for his family (the rebellion was short lived and the Prince became a wanted exile). Prince Charles acquired his nickname from having to don woman's clothing to escape detection.

At the monument (which is comprised of a small exhibit hall and a tower that you can climb to the top of via an very cramped stairwell and a Pooh hole opening at the top), there is also a small hill that you can climb that affords a view of the famed train tresses from the Harry Potter films where the train curves along the tracks over a river on a track high up. We just happened to have climbed down the hill and walked back to our car about a minute before the Hogwarts Express crossed the tracks. We fought with the horde of little white-haired women at the edge of the car park for a spot to snap a blurry photograph (if only we'd haven known and stay up on the hill five minutes longer).

Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that the Fort William and Loch Ness were near each other (it's really Loch Ness and Inverness that are near each other), when the reality is that they're about 60 miles apart and an hour and a half drive on the windy roads. I had booked a bed and breakfast in Drumnadrochit believing that it was literally on the shores of Loch Ness and with the idea of getting to town early, grabbing a cider and sitting on the back porch and enjoying the view. This was a nice dream, but not quite the reality. When we arrived in Fort William, thinking that we would drop our bags at the B&B and then explore, we typed the address into GPS and the polite British woman informed us we were far away from our destination. So the original plan was thrown out the window and we stopped and explored the town before moving on.

Fort William is mainly well known due to its central location for all things outdoors. Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in Scotland) is next door, as well as Glen Coe (a famous region known for it's hiking, back country and climbing) being near by. The downtown is super cute and looks like Telluride in Colorado or Zacoplan in Poland. It's got the winter ski resort feel to it and the plethora of sporting good stores. We spent an hour wandering the main stretch and then headed onward due to the late hour.

Eventually we ended in Drumnadrochit for the evening. Here our bed and breakfast turned out to be an adorable home in the center of the three block town, but was located on the town square and not the lakeside (that was about two blocks away). So we did the next best thing to getting a cider and staring at the water, we went to the local pub, which also happened to have phenomenal food and a large selection of Whiskeys from all over the country and we enjoyed a wonderful meal.

Drumnadrochit is well known (maybe not by name) for housing the Loch Ness museum, a small Nessie kids park and multiple tour operates for Nessie spotting lake tours. The next morning, Em and I ventured onto the lake in search of Nessie. We had booked the tour the evening before and were delighted to find out that we were the only ones on it and therefore got a private boat tour of the lake.

Our guide, Dick Rainer, has been exploring the Nessie phenomenon for the better part of 40 years. He was one of the multitude of people that flocked to the shores of Loch Ness in the 1970s in hopes of helping prove (or disprove) the myths. Since then, Rainer has been researching and exploring all the explanations for what people may or may not have seen on the Loch. It was a lovely tour and it was neat to talk with our guide and have him freely admit that he wasn't a blind believer, but that he was searching for the truth (whatever it may be) and happy to provide logical and scientific explanations for many of the sightings that people have seen over the years.

Picking Up Hitchhikers and a Day on Skye

On the Isle of Skye, Em and I had one full day to explore as much as we could. One of the great things about hostels are that they are great fountains of information from what the staff can provide to what the other travelers can tell you. As a result of multiple conversations, Em and I planned on going to Portree (where Em had wanted to stay), Dunvegan Castle, Neist Lighthouse, and the Fairy Pools.

After a breakfast of homemade scones (a little crispy and a little black on the bottom) and instant coffee (super strong and requiring coco, sugar, and milk to be drinkable), Evil and Grumpy headed out for small windy roads, green hills, and other motorists we hadn’t terrorized yet.

First stop of the day was Portree. Portree is the largest town on the Isle of Skye and where most tourists stay or eventually pass through. Since we didn’t book our hostel here (and I’m glad we didn’t cause I loved our place), we decided to visit. This town is like many of the others that we had visited while traveling across Scotland, a cute and quaint fishing village set on a Loch with a mouthwatering mountain backdrop. The town is set on a series of terraces and provided some good exercise as we hiked to the old tower ruin at the very top. After perusing the shops a bit and grabbing a lunch to go, we hit the road again to go to Dunvegan Castle.

As we were driving along the narrow paths we spied two hitchhikers looking sad and lonely and decided that since there was plenty of room in our lovely Bimmer, we would give them a lift. Upon their entering the vehicle and our inquiring where our new friends, Roger and Debbie from Switzerland, were headed, it was determined that they had no real destination in mind but were just hoping to see the Isle. This of course meant that they were free to kidnap for the day and Em and I decided to drag them around with us wherever we went. Luckily they liked the idea as much as we did and there were no mentions of kidnapping ;)

First stop was Dunvegan Castle. This was the first castle that either of our companions had been to, so we were quite happy that they enjoyed it. Dunvegan Castle is the oldest continually inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the home to the MacLeod Clan for over 800 years. While the castle was lovely and had many helpful placards around the different walls, I was particularly enchanted with the gardens. I have to say that these, by far, were my favorite of all the castle gardens that I’ve seen in Scotland. There were a series of different gardens, a walled garden, a water garden, a rose garden…

The water garden was my favorite. It had small wooden bridges that cross a little river that sprung from a waterfall at one end. Everything was covered in overhanging trees and flowers were planted in between. It definitely gave a feel of a fairy tale forest.

After a shared picnic in the parking lot at the bumper of our rental, the quartet headed to the “end of the world”, otherwise known as Neist Point Lighthouse. To get to the lighthouse requires a car, a GPS (or really good directions), a strong stomach (as there are many places on the one lane road where you crest a hill only to momentarily lose sight of the road and the cars that may or may not be coming from the other direction), a good set of legs and lungs, and a sense of adventure.

Once you’ve made it to the end of the road (quite literally), you park and start walking to the end of the world. Down a set of steep stairs you are graced with a view of green grass, white sheep, and the swirling blues and greens of the Atlantic Ocean. Walk along the path a bit and you’ll tune around the corner of a medium sized hill and be graced with a view of the lighthouse. Then it’s just another steep hill and you’re there.

The Lighthouse was built in 1901 (it’s not that old), but has been remotely operated by the Northern Lighthouse Commission since 1990. What is left is a series of abandoned outbuildings surrounding the central light tower. Em led the way into the closed off courtyard and the rest of us followed. We spent some time here exploring the old buildings and the cliffs, while staring off into the seemingly endless distance. It was peaceful.

Our last stop for the day was to see the Fairy Pools. This was another destination that can only be reached by car (or tour van) and is really just a section of Glen Brittle (a gorgeous hiking and mountain biking area). The area known as the Fairy Pools is section of a hiking and biking path were there are a series of small waters falls that end in crystal clear pools. The pools were incising and all four of us were considering a swim. The colder weather and later hour though prevented the fruition of this plan.

On our way back to Kyleakin and our hostel, we picked up a final hitchhiker, a sad soul (we never got his name) from England, who had been camping in the woods for a few days and missed his ferry off the island. We actually missed stopping for him when we saw him, but decided that we could squish him in the car and therefore turned around and picked him up. In Broadford, a town near Kyleakin, we dropped all of our new friends off and then headed home for the evening.