The coast along the Dingle Peninsula could not be more breathtaking.  It is best to drive to the Dingle Peninsula by car and savor the approach.  While some will even walk the Dingle Way, which is a great option for a clear day, that is not rainy.  These are rare in Ireland.  If you have a handful of days without rain while visiting Ireland, consider yourself one of the fortunate few.  However, the rain creates the gorgeous green color that sweeps most of Ireland.  

Highlights of visiting the Dingle Peninsula!

• early Christian monuments – includes a 12th Century Romanesque church with incredible stone carvings and even an Ogham stone.  Ogham is the Latin Alphabet made up of notches and lines to represent the 20 different letters.  
• Iron-Age fortifications – built to last, for defense (military stuff, guys love it, and I do too)
• Beehive huts – piles of loose stone built huts that have been standing for over 4,000 years
• Fungie the dolphin who has lived in the harbor since 1984 (the year I was born!)
• Blennerville Windmill – a great reminder of Ireland’s industrial history.  The hard working Irish!!!
• Gallerus Castle – access by guided tours only.  It’s a super old (15th Century) castle and you might be interested in paying for a guided tour.

Overall, the Dingle Peninsula has a lot to offer.  The rocky cliffs are something to enjoy, photograph, write a poem about, etc.  

Visiting the Dingle Peninsula is a great way to get out of the cities, while venturing to the edge of Ireland, imaging what life was like centuries ago.  It’s beautiful to consider the isolation the Irish could experience while living on this coastal Peninsula so long ago.  

Take a wild walk through history through visiting these ancient relics, monuments, and national land.

Sick of the old stuff?  

• Visit the Dingle Aquarium 
• Go shopping in the little village
• You are in Ireland, Guinness on tap is never too far away.  Get a beer!

Don’t worry about where to sleep.  With over a dozen hostels in Dingle alone, you can  Travel on a Shoestring.  

Paddy’s Place is a great hostel for hikers, as you are situated at the perfect place to wake up and stroll along the natural beauty of the Dingle Peninsula.  They have a bar and restaurant with pool tables, Internet access, laundry facilities, the kitchen to save money by making your own meals, and if you have rented a car, they have plenty of parking.

Know before your book your stay:

Whenever you see a price listed, followed by “pp” in Ireland.  The “pp” stands for “per person”.  This is good to keep in mind while booking hostels and other lodging in Ireland.  A B&B’s (Bed and Breakfast’s) may appear to be cheap, until you have to double that price the next morning and receive check out shock, and have to skip the beer at lunch to make up for your lost travel funds.

A traveler could reasonably spend 1-3 nights in Dingle and have enough time to see the Dingle Peninsula without becoming bored with the area.  Have fun in Dingle, with it’s funny name, but serious beauty!

Soon you may say, “I’ve done the Dingle Way.  Have you?”

The Museum of Free Derry is extremely informative with all things related to the Troubles and Civil Rights.  As an American growing up learning so much about the U.S. Civil Rights movements, it’s easy to forget other countries struggles towards resolving conflict and persecution.  And after reading a few chapters in a history book, and learning of people who died, it’s easy to forget that they were each people, with real lives and real families.

In fact, while in Derry, Justin and I had the privilege of meeting and spending some time talking with John Kelly.  He was only 23, in 1972 when Bloody Sunday occurred, but he remembers it like it was yesterday.  His younger brother, Michael Kelly (17) was shot in the stomach while standing near the rubble barricade in front of Rossville Flats.  Michael Kelly was unarmed.  Fourteen individuals total were tragically killed that day.  John shared with us the story of one of the 14 individuals killed that day, his friend simply trying to run home.  While he was running he was shot in the leg, and was trying to crawl under a fence only 5 yards from his home when he was shot again and killed.

As John shared with us tears came to my face, because it was not just a history book, but it was one mans story of loosing his brother.

Thank you John for sharing with us of loosing your brother.  The violent, tragic acts of that day will not be forgotten.  But most importantly all of the Derry citizens that risked their lives that day will be loved and remembered by friends and family.  Especially, young, 15 year old, Michael.

Good Dinner!
I was walking down Saint James Place (some Irish streets make you feel like you are on a Monopoly board) with a big soup pot and a spoon that I was borrowing from next door, so I could make some soup.  As I was walking, an Irishman saw me and kindly said, “Good Dinner!”, with a smile and a hearty accent.  I responded, “I hope it will be a good dinner”, only later to realize that he said, “Good Day!”  Fortunately, the butternut squash soup did turn out delicious, but it may have caused me gas, but that could be the Guinness too right?

Boston Beauty
One of three guys playing authentic Irish music in a pub one night, hmmm, that sounds like a joke.  Well, the guy meets me, finds out that I am from Detroit, and tells me it’s close to Boston and that is where I am really from.  It being midnight in an Irish Pub, I figured I shouldn’t argue with the guys relative view of geography.  I returned to my seat with a slight identity crisis as he announced and dedicated his next song, “Boston Beauty” to me.  Ironically, I saw him on the streets of Derry the next day, he recognized me and asked if I was coming to the Pub again.  I think he just wanted another excuse to sing “Boston Beauty”.

The Not So French Girls
Justin informed me that he thought four French girls were laughing at him.  In Ireland?  No way!  Okay, well girls of any nationality could laugh at Justin in any country so this did not sound all that ridiculous.  About 20 minutes later I met four girls from Italy.  I asked Justin if these were the French girls.  He cowardly lowered his head and admitted that he thought their Italian sounded French.  This was quickly forgiven as I realized we have been in both Italy and France in the last few weeks and Justin speaks neither language.  Needless to say, we took the four Italian girls to the Pub that night.  I drank my first Guinness and spoke in Italian with an ever increasing Irish accent.  The Italian girls shouted “Bravissimo” and applauded, and although each of the Italian girls were beautiful, we never did hear “Bella Italiano” that evening.

V Eggs
One evening in Galway, I was in the kitchen of our hostel cooking eggs, when a guy from Spain approached me and introduced himself.  This being a huge (200 something person) hostel, in which you could meet a new person from a new country every minute if that was your goal, I didn’t think much about meeting Carlos.  Okay, not true, I must confess that when he introduced himself as Carlos, I nearly lost it.  You see over the past month I have had a cough that comes and goes depending upon how much second hand smoke I have been exposed to.  So, my cough became know as “Carlos”, with frequent references like, “oh Carlos, not again?”, cough, cough, cough.

Carlos (the actual man, not my cough) came back a few minutes later and admired my cooking, saying, “Incredible, incredible.”  Then pausing to say, “It makes me curious”.  Carlos wanted to know where I learned how to make the eggs I was cooking.  I had cut a circle from the center of a piece of bread and I was frying an egg in the hole in the center of the bread.  I told Carlos, feeling extra American at the time, that I saw it in a movie.  He asked which film, and I replied “V for Vendetta”, in which he exclaimed, “Yes!  I saw it too!”  Carlos then wanted to know what  we would call this type of egg in America.  Sadly, I didn’t have a good answer, as I had just began calling them “V eggs” because of V for Vendetta.  He laughed and decided he would call them “V huevos”. Hooray for enculturation of the Victory Egg in Spain!

Feeling well caffeinated and cheered by the now sunny weather, we headed back out to explore Belfast. 1 hour of exploration and a cozy winter hat for my ears later, the sky began to look ominous. I mean really, really, dark. I was starting to get a bit apprehensive as I noticed locals running into the closest shops and bars. Than the rain started to fall. Sideways. I imagine that the sideways style rain was the unfortunate result of the gale like winds that kicked up at about the same time. We ducked into a covered doorway, out  of the wind, to wait it out. This offered us the rare opportunity to watch tourist and Irishmen alike getting blown down the street, usually with their umbrellas turned out backwards.

The rain eventually dissipated and we were treated to a brilliant rainbow that spanned from horizon to horizon. I mean this rainbow was like nothing I have ever seen before. Each color was brilliantly displayed against a sunny sky and the colors seemed to sparkle as the last of the rain drifted through it. I imagine that this happens often as we were the only ones on the street taking in the stunning view.