It was a quick stay at the Cloonlara Lodge B&B in Swinford. As we arrived late last night, we made it up to our rooms, changed and were quickly asleep, and perhaps even more quickly awake this morning. As the B&B didnt have an alarm, I tried setting my phone, but it didnt go off, though fortunately I only woke up 10 minutes late. With all of the sunlight around here we are definitely confused on times!
We were the only ones staying there, and our hosts came in to take our breakfast order. I was excited to see smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on the menu, something a little different! Dad and I ordered porridge as well, and soon Eamon brought out the food and his wife came to check on us. She had forgotten the porridge and felt so horrible that she insisted on giving us a loaf of her home baked bread to take with us! Who were we to refuse! Eamon had some great stories and was an amazing host. We probably could have stayed for hours chatting with him if it hadn't been for trying to catch the Aran Islands Ferry!
We headed out right around 10am, and my initial directions said it would take close to 3 hours, so we had to move fast. But when I put it in the GPS, it found a way to go that wasn't through Galway and would only take two hours! Much much better. We decided to brave the backroads to potentially cut off the extra time. The drive was enchanting, up and down through mountains, around the lakes and several bodies of water.
We finally arrived in Rosaveel, and bought our tickets for the Aran Islands ferry. Definitely not cheap at 25 euros/person, but it was supposed to be worth the trip.
It took about 45 minutes to head over there, and on the way, we perused some brochures that we got on our way down to the boat, and decided that a bus tour would very likely be the best way to see the most of the island in the short time we had for the afternoon (since the last ferry came back at 5:30pm). We snacked on some of the bread and checked out the scenery, though it was fairly grey on the trip over.
Once we arrived on the island, though, all of the clouds cleared up and the sun came out. It was absolutely gorgeous! We found a tour operator quickly, and he promised to have us back around 4:30. The first part of the tour headed up to town and brought us to the village where we could walk up to the ancient fort.
The views on the way up and up there were simply amazing. The fort was made of several rings and you could walk up and climb through them and hang out on the cliffs.
It was beautiful and amazing to be able to sit on the edges of the cliffs and at the same time, we had this feeling of "this would never happen in the USA", as there were very very few ropes anywhere!
I hung my legs over the cliff, but the closest Eric got was hanging his hand in the breeze :)
We also played around with the zoom on the camera, and with such a bright sunny day got some great shots!
We headed back to the little town where our tour guide picked us up and brought us around other parts of the island, visiting old church ruins, sites of interest, and the seal habitat.
And this was my favorite photo of the day!! Eric tried to take a photo of me through the window of our tour van while we were at the church, and unintentionally caught me and everything else. It looks so photoshopped, but its 100% real!!
We wrapped up our tour at the beach by the pier. And I've included a photo of our guide, as he was a lot of fun :)
Although it ended up a pricey day... 25 euros for the ferry, 10 euros for the bus, and another 2 euros for visiting the fort (we at least got in as a "family"), it was definitely worth it and we were all glad to have had a nice sunny day!!
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