Easter Weekend Holiday: Part 3

So after talking about how amazing this trip was, I feel like I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't point out some of the less than perfect aspects of the trip.  For starters, hostels are nice when traveling on the cheap, but after three nights in a row I was feeling rather sleep deprived.  Not only did our hostel not have blinds on the windows to keep the sun out at 7:00 am, but people just start waking up early so that they can use the shower first and get on with their day.  If you slept in till 8:00 am you were lucky.  Also, I think I had my worst restaurant experience ever on Easter Sunday at an Italian Restaurant called Bella Mia (I think.  I think I am wrong though).  First, Allie and I were the only ones in the restaurant at 7:00 pm, which is never a good sign.  Second, they got Allie's order wrong and lastly they failed to mention that their credit machine wasn't working until it came time to pay.  As I didn't have any cash I proceeded to walk down the street to the nearest ATM to withdraw money to pay.  It took every ounce of energy and self-restraint I had for me to not rip the manager a new one.

However, none of this ruined my time because it all seemed incredibly trivial in comparison to the grandeur of the entire trip.  For our final day, Allie and I picked up our final sandwiches at Elle's Cafe and set off to the bus station to catch our tour of Connemara.  It was a huge bus and was practically full.  There were people from every country you could think of, all visiting for Ireland for the Easter/bank holiday weekend.  We set off with our hilarious bus driver/tour guide whose sense of humor was only matched by his fascinating stories of Irish history, especially that of the potatoes blight in 1845.  Throughout the tour he took lots of time to go into detail about what it was like back in that time and pointed out things along the tour to help tell the history.  He was much more informative than The Burren tour guide.

Connemara is considered a bog land and the ground is incredibly saturated in water all year round, so much so that there are nearly no cows raised in the area because they would sink under their tremendous weight.  Instead, what you see is brown grass lands equally mixed with green pastures surrounded by a mountain range called the 12 Bens.  Lakes and rivers are found all throughout the area (Connemara is renowned for its fishing because of this).  When all of these features are combined, it creates some of the most gorgeous and stunning scenery that you could ever hope to find.  There were times when I thought I was looking at a magazine picture because the landscape here is so iconic of Ireland.  It is a must see region for anyone considering a visit to Ireland.

 This is Kylemore Abbey, on of the main sights worth a visit in the region.

 The Gardens of Kylemore Abbey

One of my favorite things about the region was the animal life.  While there may be no cows here, sheep are in ready abundance and being springtime, new born lambs were everywhere.  I nearly died watching the little lambs frolic in the pastures with all of their little friends.  However I feel somewhat terrible because once we had left the region for our ride back to Dublin, the images of lambs had fled, but the thought of lamb remained.  So now all I wanted was a big lamb chop to eat (with roasted potatoes of course).  I am already hoping to go back to this gorgeous region in a car someday and really have the time to explore this entire area in more depth.

 Lots of sheep and lamb