West Coast of Ireland: Cliffs of Moher & The Burren

This past weekend my sister came to Dublin. She's currently on her spring break so she flew from Florence to Dublin to visit me. We took a bus tour to the west coast of Ireland with my friend Emma and her friend, who is also on her spring break from her university in Rome.

One of the most common comments I got from Irish people was that I had to get out of Dublin and go to the west coast in order to experience the true Ireland. They were right. While the bus tour was long, I enjoyed the sites I saw and was happy I went on it. The Irish countryside was beautiful and experiencing it with my sister was an added bonus.

We decided to do an overnight tour with The Galway Tour Company. First we did the Cliffs of Moher and Burren tour on Saturday and then the Cong and Connemara tour on Sunday.

I'll talk about our Cliffs of Moher and Burren tour in this post and Cong & Connemara in the next post.

On Saturday morning we woke up at 6 am in order to make it to the bus stop by 7 am. We then hopped onto a bus that took us from Dublin to Galway. After a quick stop in Galway, we made our way to The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. The day started out sunny but rain came after a few hours. The rain put a damper on things but I just say that I experienced the "real" part of Ireland with true Irish weather (rain).

We drove through the Burren landscape in order to get to Cliffs of Moher. The Burren is a limestone landscape that according to the tour guide makes up 1% of Ireland's landscape.

The Cliffs of Moher is one of the finalists for the new 7 natural wonders of the world. It is also Ireland's most popular tourist attractions. Located in County Clare, the cliffs are about 8 km long (5 miles) and reaches from a height of 394 ft to about 700 ft.  The cliffs are home to over 20 species of birds and is a Special Protection Area for Birds. 

After visiting the Cliffs of Moher, we saw ancient burial tombs. The Poulnabrone Dolmen is a portal tomb. Portal tombs are generally made up of a single megalithic chamber (thanks Introduction to Archeology for that information. =]) According to my intro to Irish archeology course, a capstone (one of the standing stones) of the tomb needed conservation work due to a crack. While they were working to fix the tomb, human remains were found. The portal tomb dates back to Ireland's Neolithic (stone age) period, around 3800-3200 BCE.  We also saw a wedge tomb but did not have time to stop and take pictures of it. 

 After stopping by the tomb, we went to Ballyalban Fairy Fort. This is a ring fort (dates back to the medieval period). Ring forts are believed to be a farm yard. The myth around ring forts is that they are inhabited by fairies.

The last stop before we headed back to Galway was the Dunguaire Castle. We passed by it at the beginning of the tour during low tide. We came back after the tide had arrived. I wish I had taken a picture of it before the water came in because the landscape was just rocks. At night the area was surrounded by water. 

Overall, the tour was long but fun. I was able to cross of the #1 on my list of things to do/see while in Ireland (see the Cliffs of Moher).