May 8pm, 2009 - Ashford to Galway

Connemara's coastline winds across mountains and down into tidepools and estuaries along the western coast of Ireland.

Jagged rocks jut into the sea.

Ruins of the years-gone-by dot the landscape of Connemara, more so than the rest of Eire.

I just wanted to take a generic picture of nothing.
This is just a typical [very narrow] road in the less traveled and vastly less touristy, western Ireland.

The terrain gets higher as we approach the cliff area.

The rocks get rockier.
The waves get more violent.

What a scenic cemetary.

Cool roof!

Down a crazy, 20-mile cut-through road that we shared with only three cars and two bicycles, we see some more 'pure Ireland.'

Among the ruins...

This was cool - we detour down a one-lane/two-way coastal road (just because we have a GPS and know we can).

Down the road, by the sea, is this other scenic cemetary.
(we're just north of the Aran Islands at this point.)

We arrive at our hotel, which is a bit more modern than our previous hotels...

These are the lounges.

This is were breakfast is the next morning.

Good breakfast. Bizarre ambiance.

The hallway to th room.

And the room, while plush, is just artsy and stuff.

For dinner, we head south to a ploce on a swan-inhabited lough.

Moran's Oyster Cottage, a restaurant nearly 300 years old.

Some of their companies need to work on their marketing.
WTF is the other 41%?!?

We eat dinner with rooks watching us.

We'd never had a blue lobster, so we started with oysters and crab claws, then split a blue lobster.

The thatch roof next to the restaurant has a little thatch lizard or something, perhaps to scare away birds...(?)

Another scenic cemetary.