This morning started rainy and continued as such for a good portion of the day. Early in the morning, Deb could not find her purse and after searching the car, the room, and the sitting room of the B & B, it was determined that it may have been left at the previous evening’s restaurant. A quick phone call revealed that it would not be open until 11:00 and no one was answering at this early Sunday hour. Nothing to be done but head to breakfast and worry about the hour long backtrack later. The full Irish breakfast and Irish pancakes (crepes) were excellent.
Following food, we went back to pack up, and upon moving a suitcase, the missing purse was discovered, It had fallen behind the suitcase the night before and sat there, protected and undiscovered the entire night and into the morning. Crisis averted. As we started out of Boyle, we found ourselves in a long queue of traffic, surprising for a Sunday morning. we suspected a traffic accident head and so spent 30 minutes in line, advancing slowly. It occasioned pictures of windows with flowers and other interesting sights. As we got closer up the line, we realized that the line was for fuel; the local service station was celebrating its 25th birthday and was offering a significant discount of fuel, but only until 11:46 AM. As we were intending to ill up this morning, we took advantage and saved nearly 15% on our fill-up. It still cost us €70 for the tank of diesel fuel. Our first destination of the day was Tobercurry, County Sligo, to take a picture of the Highland’s new home to send to them. We sent the this onto Zöe, as they had only seen a photo from the rental agent. Also photos of the neighboring cat and a flock of sheep in the meadow adjacent.
Then onward towards Westport. In this market town we parked and walked to the town center, finding a coffee shop to sit and have a cuppa together with some pastries. We then wandered the town, completing some shopping and buying some wine for future consumption. We took our leave of this busy market village and drove towards Clifden. A major stop along the way was the Kylemore Abbey,
a Benedictine Nun’s monastery originally built as a castle by William Henry in 1870. We toured the lower floor of the monastery, which is open for tours and is a history of the building and its residents and servants/employees. The structure and rooms are beautiful and the restoration appears to adhere closely to the period and fairly presented. A number of family photographs and other personal belongings are on display.
Next we took the shuttle bus to the walled gardens laid out in a Victorian setting The gardens are huge and beautiful - at least what we c old see of them (photo) in the firs 7 minutes before the midges descende and drove us off. They were everywhere; in our eyes, flying up our nostrils, invading our ear canals, getting into our hair. There was a small sign early on at the gift shop noting about ticks and midges and that select repellants were available for sale. It also noted that
midges were heavy at certain times of the year, particularly when the weather was warm and calm. Today must have qualified! We walked briskly out of the garden swatting and brushing at the little pests as we boarded the return shuttle, glad to finally be rid of them but still brushing them off our face and hair as we reached the obligatory gift shop.
At 5:15, we mounted our chariot and headed on to Clifden to our eventual goal for the next two days of the Sharamore House B&B, arriving about 5:45. We offloaded our luggage and, with help of the proprietress, Sue, got the luggage up to our send floor suites. Another long and adventure filled day. As we reached Sharamore House, the sun came peeking out from behind the clouds and the rain had stopped for the moment. After a rest and a bit of unpacking and laundry duties, we set out for the town of Clifden to score our evening meal.
Clifden is a surprisingly lively town with a plethora of restaurants and pubs up and down two streets, interspersed with shops and gallery’s. We settled on Mitchell’s Seafood restaurant, a recommendation of both our Sharamore hostess and The Lonely Planet travel advisor. Three huge servings of steamed mussels and one large bowl of Irish lamb stew accompanied by excellent olive bread and a bottle of merlot made for a satisfying repast. We walked back to our parked vehicle and took the 3 kilometer drive back to our resting place. Another adventuresome day, the constant companion of rain not withstanding.
