On the Road ... Tour de France

More from the Emerald Isle 

My apologies ... I badly understated Ireland's beauty and charm in my previous post.

You must forgive me, though, because I had no idea what I had yet to see.

On Wednesday, we took a drive around the Dingle Peninsula -- on the southwestern coast of Ireland -- and its beauty humbled me.

From still-standing beehive homes used by inhabitants of Ireland from prehistory until the 1200s to the sandy beaches that make photographers drool, this area seems to have "the most beautiful thing I've seen" around seemingly every corner.

The highlight of the roughly 20-mile drive was Slea Head, a spot where Ireland dramatically meets the Atlantic Ocean and one of the main backdrops for the movie "Ryan's Daughter." I haven’t seen that movie, but it guarantees to be easy on the eyes if nothing else.

To get to Slea Head, we drove through about 10 miles of roads that were called "two-lane" only in theory. As tight as the roads were leading into Dingle -- and those forced two passing cars to scrape the brush on either side of the road -- those going around the peninsula truly are one-lane roads that permit traffic going in both directions.

Luckily, most people opt to make the drive going in the same direction as we were and local traffic is rare. But when an oncoming car happened to be headed our way, we usually had two choices -- drive off a 100-foot cliff into the Atlantic or simply wait as the other driver veered off into a driveway or ditch. Believe it or not, tour buses actually attempt to maneuver this stretch of road.

It's hard to blame them.

The views are epic and seem ripped from the pages of National Geographic. Sheep graze on centuries-old farmland penned in by fences built so long ago the brush has at least tripled the original height and width of the fence. Sheer cliffs fall into the ocean created by millions of years of waves pounding against them and leaving short stretches of sandy coves that appear totally undisturbed by human meddling as the greenery runs right up to the sand. You get the feeling that you are the first person to set eyes on them.

Of course, these areas are hardly undiscovered. Hundreds of people spend their entire lives just a few feet away and hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to this region every year. It’s nature’s ability to retain its beauty that is part of what makes it so wonderful.

Slea Head is an area that incorporates all of those elements.

Making a left turn into the parking lot right in front of a flock of sheep, we then battled heavy wind and light rain to walk about 200 feet down to the 100-yard long beach. A father and his 12-year-old son were just getting ready to ignore the no-swimming signs and jump into the choppy water.

We were content to just admire the way land and sea met.

We then hiked up 500 feet to the top of Slea Head where we could see miles of coast and various islands.

Even as lifelong Californians who have seen thousands of miles of coastline, these views were among the most impressive I've seen.

posted by FreeSanJose at 12:12 PM

1 Comments:

geez, sounds like driving around Pebble beach ... pints aren't so smooth though, and the pubs, well ... See ya July 4. - your boss

By  Anonymous, at 1:59 AM  

Post a Comment