Ireland, UK 2017: 5/7 Day 5 - Wild Atlantic Way

..."'Do you know what the Burren is?..

Yes, I knew what the Burren was. I’d seen it on my maps and read about it during the recent learning binge I’d gone on in an attempt to dispel my provinciality. From the Irish Boireann, which meant great rock or rocky place, it was a karst landscape in County Clare, Ireland, a limestone area of roughly three hundred square kilometers, with the famous Cliffs of Moher at the southwest edge. On cracked limestone pavements chiseled by grykes, or fissures in the stone, one could find Neolithic tombs, portal dolmens, high crosses, and as many as five hundred ring forts. Beneath the Burren were active stream caves and miles of labyrinthine passages and caverns, some open to tourists, the majority unexplored, undeveloped, and far too dangerous for the casual potholer."

~Karen Marie Moning, Faefever 

Miles traveled: 216 (ish). Today I let Jeff determine the pace. We had 2 MUST do items and a fair distance to travel.

We started out in an area of Ireland known as The Burren.

We spent the morning at the Cliffs of Moher. I have a few sober words to say before I get into the fun, but I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

It gets better. Truly, it does.

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My Fitbit claimed that we walked 67 flights of stairs! Although we went off the paved path, we both have a reasonable fear of heights that kept us away from the edge. Still, thinking about the drop off even after the fact gives me a sense of vertigo.

From the Cliffs, we followed the coast a bit, driving more meandering roads at a safe rate of speed.

100 km/hour (75 mph) is NOT a safe rate of speed through much of this area. Some suggest that Ireland trusts the drivers' judgement. Others suggest the maximum speed posting is an intelligence test of some kind.

More fekking bicycles.

We made a stop for coffee and tea in a small town when I thought I'd lost our navigation setting. We're told we are experiencing weather uncommon in Ireland. Whatever. I'm enjoying it.

Jeff's brother called shortly before our trip to tell us of a relation on their mother's side of the family that immigrated to the US from Ireland. Martin Ford lived in Castleboy, made a stop in Kilchreest to bid his father farewell, and then made the ocean journey from Galway. 

Castleboy wasn't much more than farmland, but also contained a ruined tower. We paused for pictures. 

In Kilchreest, Jeff walked around the cemetery. The headstones of the older graves were illegible, so Jeff did not identify any additional long-dead relatives.