Travelling Ireland; Thursday, 05 August, 2004

Second coach tour, this time to the Cliffs of Moher. First stop though was Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, located just outside Ennis (The capital of County Clare). The Folk Park is based around the well preserved castle and have a collection of "Typical Irish" houses from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The park is quite interesting, but in an attempt to make it as realistic as possible all the small cottages are burning peat and at times the smell and smoke can be overpowering.

The castle does not have that much on display inside, and what there is is obscured by the sheer number of people looking round making it feel very cramped, and on the narrow spiral staircases quite dangerous. From the top of the castle there are views over the surrounding areas.

After the castle we moved on across the Burran, a bizarre almost non-Earth like plane with strange rocks and very few living things growing across it. The Burran is littered with burial sites and the tour took a short stop at the Poulnabrone Dolmen.

After the Burran we headed over to the coast and the impressive Cliffs of Moher. These dark and precipitous cliffs mark the end of Europe, beyond lies the Atlantic and then America. Just as the left the Cliffs the sky decided to open, so the dinner stop in Lahinch was just that, dinner. There was no way anyone could have seen more!

From there the coach headed back towards Cork stopping briefly in Limerick and finally arriving back in Cork at just before 10.