Louis' Travels

When I was originally planning my trip, this fourth day of driving was a drive to Cork to see that city, and then a drive back to Dublin. I didn’t realize how many hours driving that meant. The tiny roads also meant that I had to concentrate all the time during the driving, because on the non-highway roads it always feels like there’s barely enough room for 2 cars (1 for each direction), so I had to make sure the car isn’t in the bush nor too far in the opposite lane.

After 2 hours of driving (including a nap break because I realised I was still very tired) and later than expected, I reached Cork.

The weather that day wasn’t great, it was cloudy with periods of rain, and I was running late, so I wondered how much of Cork I could enjoy.

After parking the car, I walked towards the city centre, looking around as usual. The intermittent rain meant I was mostly looking for shelter. Luckily there were a few malls I could stay dry in. (My “packing light” philosophy meant I didn’t bring an umbrella on this trip). After a while I reached the English Market, at the perfect time of lunch. But deciding what to get wasn’t that easy either, with many many choices, but somehow there was no food where I really thought “I have to try that!”.

After lunch and waiting for the rain to stop, I walked down the side streets of central Cork back towards the car. The sun had returned, so this was a better walk than before lunch.

The drive to Dublin was another 3 hours according to Google Maps. But I wanted to visit Wicklow Mountains National Park and the Guinness Lake (official name: Lough Tay) along the way. So, after a too-short visit of Cork, I was back on the road.

The drive through the national park was cool: it was foggy, giving the place a mystical feeling, I stopped a few times to take pictures.

The main attraction of the afternoon was Lough Tay, also known as Guinness Lake. It’s a lake on a private property which was owned by a great-great-great-grandson of the founder of Guinness. And what a property to own, surrounded by a national park, a lake and an estate house, where guests like Mick Jagger and The Beatles come to chill out.

I parked the car outside the private property and walked for a bit to catch a glimpse of the lake. It was quite warm and humid, and there were bugs flying everywhere, so it wasn't the best experience. After a while, I reached a fence, so there was no further hiking to see the lake. I ended up walking back to the car, and driving further up the hill to get the good view.

And the visit was worth it, the area was nice and quiet and the scenery was amazing. I spent quite a bit of time just enjoying it. While I was there, a young couple showed up in a Porsche to also have a look. Damn, I wished I had a Porsche and a lovely companion!

After this, it was about another hour and a half of driving to reach Dublin and return the car.

Speaking of the rental car, it was a nice new car, with features like keyless entry, although this was sometimes annoying: I would step out of the car to take pictures and take the key with me (I wouldn’t want anyone to just get in the car and steal it), after a few meters the car would lock itself, but it would always beep its horn, calling attention to itself. Not great when I stopped at a nice and quiet scenic view with other people around.

When I got the car, it showed it had done 6619 km so far. I returned it with 8013 km, so I did 1394km in 5 days. Which is a lot of driving!

In Glengarriff I visited Garnish Island, a tiny island accessible by a short boat ride. The island has a nice garden and an old house, and it was the private island of a John Annan Bryce and his wife Violet, who bought it from the War Office in 1910. In 1953 their son bequeathed the island to the Irish nation.

I joined a tour of the home, which was small but neat, and full of old stuff. The man who designed and took care of the garden also lived here, and his room is full of botanical books.

The island has hosted writers like George Bernard Shaw and Agatha Christie. I can see the appeal, staying a few days on such a beautiful island, without any tourists when it was still a private island, was probably quite magical.

After returning from Garnish Island (a short boat ride back to Glengarriff), I had a late lunch, a nap at the hostel, and decided to drive around the area to not miss seeing it, because the next day’s evening I was planning to be back in Dublin, which was 348km away, and I was still thinking about making stops along the way.

I drove further and further, all the way to Ballydonegan Beach. The drive was just as exciting as the previous days: tiny roads with a lot of twists, ups and downs, and a lot of scenery.

After a night in a 4-people hostel room, featuring a loud snorer, I woke up with the world spinning around me. I had put in ear plugs to try to sleep through the snoring, and this gave me an ear inflammation.

I had a problem, because I had only booked the hostel for 1 night, and I don’t think I could have rested there during the day anyway. I couldn’t drive to the next hostel because I thought driving with vertigo was going to be catastrophic, and I was dead tired anyway.

I ended up walking like a zombie to a pharmacy, which pointed me to a doctor’s practice (which is actually across the road from the hostel), and I still felt shit, so I ended up trying to sleep off the problem in my rental car, and actually it was quite comfortable!

In the afternoon I felt okay enough to drive into the city centre. I walked around Killarney for a bit, got some food, and continued towards Glengarriff. I had planned to drive around the Ring of Kerry that day, but the day was gone, and I found out there was a bicycle tour around the Ring that day anyway, so I wouldn’t have been able to drive around it.

Outside of Killarney I stopped by Muckross House, a cool mansion with a huge huge green area, and great views. After that, the road entering County Cork was great; again, great hilly scenery. I stopped quite a bit to take pictures.

This day I realized I was too ambitious with my itinerary around Ireland: the country was too big for just 5 days of road tripping, especially since I really want to see as much as I can. For the next days I had booked a hostel room in Glengarriff, close to the Ring of Kerry, which was a road trip I also wanted to experience.

But Glengarriff is way south in Ireland, so this meant a lot of driving. I also wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher on the way, so it would take even longer to get to the destination.

So this day was more driving in the beautiful Irish countryside, with so much green, and a bit of gloomy grey (which I prefer anyway rather than blue skies). I drove south past Galway, and followed the coast towards the Cliffs of Moher. When I got there it was foggy and cloudy, but it got clearer so I could enjoy the sights. After that, it was more driving, past Limerick (sadly no time to stop and look around…) towards Killarney. Why Killarney instead of Glengarriff? It’s a story I’d rather tell you in person 😊.

I didn’t make it to Glengarriff that night, and got a shared hostel room in Killarney instead. As it turns out, this was a poor choice.

The next day, I drove around the Connemara Loop, visiting Glassilaun beach, stumbling upon Renvyle Castle, and going to Connemara National Park. The roads around here were tiny and hilly, and the views were breathtaking. I stopped a lot to take pictures, this was rural Ireland as you saw in the tourist brochures: a lot of hills, and a lot of green.

After 2 days of Dublin, I had booked a hostel room across the island, in County Galway. I picked up my rental car, and headed first to Howth, a little village outside of Dublin, on a peninsula. Since Ireland drives on the left, my brain needed to adjust, and the driving was a bit slower, if I don’t want to say confused.

I drove to Howth, it was a nice sunny day, and I went for a little hike by the sea. I realized I didn’t have enough time to see all of Howth and then drive several hours across the island, so for the rest of the day I was mostly driving to make it to the hostel before their check-in time ends. Along the way I made a few pit stops. After a while the scenery got amazing: rolling hills and empty landscapes. The hostel was close to the west coast, and I got there around sunset. The hostel (Connemara Hostel) had an amazing location, at the Killary Fjord. It was very beautiful and quiet in the evening.

When I visit a city I like to just walk from sight to sight, and taking pictures along the way. The pics here are from the 2 days I walked around different areas of Dublin.

I also walked around Trinity College, and paid too much to visit the library, which was full of old books and tourists. Outside of the library there were grand old buildings, and brutalist concrete ones.