Bus tour of County Clare

We took a full day bus tour of the countryside in County Clare (just south of Galway, around the Bay) today.  It will definitely go down as one of my most memorable travel days!  It started off with a little rain (an improvement from the heavy rain yesterday), then reduced itself to a mist, eventually became a fog, and then simply an overcast afternoon.  Much of what we saw totally fit my stereotype of what Ireland should look like:  green fields with cows and sheep (and a few llamas!), green fields, stone fences, and lots of old ruins.

Our bus driver/guide was a lively Irishman from Galway and took delight in telling us all about the places we were passing.  I was fascinated by the 'dry' stone fences everywhere - very little mortar is used, just gravity to hold the stones in place.  Many date back several hundred years.  I can't imagine the effort it takes to construct these!  And there are miles and miles of them.

I was glad to actually be riding in the front seat of the bus because the roads were very bumpy, curvy, and narrow.  Every time we approached a car coming from the other direction, it would immediately pull over as far as it possibly could into the brush on the side of the road, but it was still a tight fit!