the burren & cliffs of moher

Yesterday, we decided to take a tour of an area called "The Burren" and to the Cliffs of Moher. A girl in our group heard of this company that would take us to all these great places for a really good price, so we decided to go (they even picked us up at our door!). We saw that the forecast for the day had a decent chance of rain, so we just hoped for the best. It ended up being the nicest, sunniest day since I've arrived here in Ireland.

Let me tell you, the tour group was incredible. First we drove to The Burren region where we stopped for a guided walking tour up one of the mountains there. Burren means "great rock" and it is a region with many big, rocky mountains made up of limestone. All of the mountains in The Burren are privately owned, so we took a tour from a young man who owned two mountains and farmland passed down in his family. He lead us up the mountain stopping to explain the history of the region, which was really incredible. You could see the markings of Irish history all over the land. After the tour we went to our guide's house at the base of the land, and sat by a fireplace eating homemade apple pie. This happened to be the only time it rained all day, when we were warm & inside, lucky us!

 The view of the guide's land and part of the mountain.

View from the top.

We left our mark :)

Our next destination was the Cliffs of Moher. Our bus driver (main tour guide) told us so much about Irish history and landscape. He was really entertaining. The drive alone in between the sights was incredible. We weaved through small town after small town and past many pretty churches and castles. Our tour guide seemed to know everything about every single building we passed. Ireland really is as green as it looks in the pictures. We saw countless cows, horses, sheep, rabbits, and even alpacas! Because it is early spring here, we saw a lot of newborn animals as well. 

As we pulled into the Cliffs of Moher, our bus driver told us a morbid story about a man who died from falling off the cliffs. He warned us not to get too close to the edge because a gust of wind could be strong enough to knock you off. Man, he was not kidding. As we were walking up to the viewing point to see the cliffs, it was so windy it honestly could have knocked an adult over. I think it was the strongest wind I've ever been in. But the sight at the top was so worth it. These cliffs were one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen. It's actually impossible to really explain how magnificent they really are. We actually learned that scenes from the movie Inception and from one of the Harry Potter movies were filmed there (cool fact!). We took many, many pictures!

The beautiful Cliffs of Moher.

Part of our group :)

After our stop at the Cliffs, we drove about 5 minutes into the town of Doolan where we stopped for lunch at a local pub. I got seafood chowder and it was amazing :) After this we began our trip back home, taking a different route this time. Instead of driving through small towns, we drove along the western coast of Ireland. Words can't even explain how pretty this drive was.  The driver stopped at a couple look outs along the way for great photo ops. Finally, we stopped briefly at the Dunguaire Castle to take pictures. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted! The whole tour was about an eight hour affair, but so so worth it.  

Fairy tale- like castle!

Ireland's west coast.

Dunguaire Castle.