Aran Adventure

The best day of my trip to Ireland was when I got dropped off at the docks. I caught a ferry to one of the Aran Islands and spent the day there alone. I had no idea what I was going to do once I arrived, but the vulture-like trip vendors waiting for the boat to arrive had plenty of ideas. I had to walk past a long line of men standing outside of little buses trying to get me to climb inside. I just kept walking until I got to a bike rental place. I hadn't ridden a bike in years, but I was feeling adventurous, so I rented one. I wasn't sure that was a good idea at the time, but it turned out well. I had a blast.

The island was hilly and my lack of bicycle muscles made it necessary for me to endure the public humiliation of walking my bike uphill. The payoff was on the downhill stretches when I just flew. The adrenaline rush was worth the risk of riding so fast, although, I would probably feel differently had I crashed without a helmet or other safety gear.

Besides busses and bikes, it was also possible to travel by horse drawn carriage.

This is one of the few potato fields I saw in Ireland. Given that they really do feed you tons of potatoes at practically every meal, I expected more planting fields. Irish potatoes are especially good, by the way. They have a more pronounced potato flavor than American ones.

These are just typical Irish homes. They are usually white with either a thatch or slate roof. The doors are painted bright colors, such as red, blue or green. In the country, there are sheep in practically every field, making lawn mowers unnecessary.

The number of abandoned homes/ruins in Ireland is just unreal. It looks like half of the population at some time in the past suddenly packed up and moved or died. Actually, that is what happened. The population of Ireland is still only currently half of what it was before the potato famine.

I suppose that somewhere in southern Ireland there is a house in ruins that once belonged to my family. My original family name was Cronin, which is an old Irish name. It was later changed to sound more German because of the prejudice against the Irish.

The house below is in fairly good shape for having been abandoned. I will later be posting pictures of homes in ruins. It's hard not to wonder what happened to the people who lived in these homes. Did they move to America and thrive or die of starvation?

The highlight of my trip was seeing this fortress built on the edge of a 300 foot cliff. It is 2,500 years old.

People crawl on their bellies to the edge of the shear rock face and look below to the waves smashing against the rocks. I wasn't that brave.

As you can see, I got near the edge, but there still is a good distance of land between me and the edge.



If my smile looks forced, that is because it was forced. I was scared silly perched on those rocks.

My bike trip around the Aran Islands was an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Note: Because the photos disappeared from this post, I tried to fix it. In the process, I accidently deleted the original post with its comments. Sorry. It's not easy going through life as such an idiot.