Have you missed the Ireland travel diary series yet?! I can assure you, there is not too much left, only 3.5 days yet to be covered. Some with a lot of pictures, some with a lot of stories, but all fill me with great love, appreciation and wanderlust. After an epic day on the Ring of Kerry and the most epic photo shot on the trip, it surprisingly didn’t all go south from there. The worst part of the day was the morning, as it was time to say goodbye to Maria and her family, who we had stayed with for 2 nights. We left Beaufort and took the route towards Dingle, our first stop of the day was Inch Beach on the southern side of Dingle Peninsula.

To be honest I haven’t completely understood the fascination of Inch Beach, but yes, it’s pretty, especially on a sunny day. The winds there attract surfers and kitesurfers from what I understand, but on that morning, we had the beach to ourselves…

You haven’t been to Ireland if you didn’t eat an Eclair

We drove on along the southern coast of the Dingle Peninsula and it was dripping when we arrived in Dingle. That didn’t really matter as we were hungry for our second breakfast anyway. After the hipster coffeeshop was so cramped that the water was already running down the fogged windows, my friend found a small bakery in a backalley. We sat down to fuel up on coffee and sugar while we witnessed an old man going down memory lane, visiting the town he grew up in after living a moved life in the States. The counter was stocked with all sorts of pastries and goodies as well as Scones, rolls and breads of all sorts. While I enjoyed my Eclair and my coffee a lady came in asking the the old Lady behind the counter if they had any sourdough bread. The old lady went to explain that sourdough is too care intensive so they stick to their handed down recipes. She said she wouldn’t know what to do with a sourdough during winter time when Dingle gets quiet and less customers drop in. I couldn’t keep in my knowledge about sourdough that I picked up during various sessions at food blogger camp and educated the two ladies about how a sourdough can be set to rest in a jar in the fridge for up to 3 months and how to spawn it. “The Germans, they know their bread” she said and smiled. (Courtney’s Bakery, Dick Mack’s Yard, Green St, Dingle, Co. Kerry, Irland)

We went for a little walk through Dingle, I had my obligatory selfie and icecream at Murphy’s (at least at one of them as the other one was still closed) before we hopped back into the car to do the Slea Head Drive.

Giants sleeping through traffic jams

We made some good progress but all of a sudden we had to stop: Traffic Jam… We had some great company by a seagull who sat next to my car window for quite some time but decided to ditch us as soon as I switched to paparazzi mode. Such an ungrateful brat… The reason for the jam probably were people taking pictures of the Blasket Islands, that can be seen from there. See the big dude over there? He slept through the whole jam and honking peacefully. Ireland has a different pace…

The weather was up and down, bright sunshine and misty rain on and off. We stopped at a Pottery, to warm up and get some food and did all for the instafame… Spoiler: None of it happened. Here’s our not so famous and intentional punny hommage to a great scene from Pulp Fiction: Instafameworthy or what?! Since we neither got fame, food or pottery, we decided to drop back in to Courtney’s Bakery for chicken pie and custard tarte. By that time the second branch of Murphy’s was open too and I finished with some icecream cause bright sunshine was back on.

Best Fish’n’Chips in Ireland

That should have been the last bit of sunshine we saw for a while. When we arrived in Trallee just in time for dinner at alledgely the best place to get Fish’n’Chips the gods let the rain stop for a while so we could walk to Quinlan’s without getting soaked. The interior is well designed industrial style with brickwalls and metro tiles and they serve the fish and seafood fresh from nearby Dingle Bay. They have a chalkboard with the names of the boats and fishermen and what they caught. The chipper was nice but maybe not the best-best I ever had. Maybe that opinion changes on a bright day when it’s not freezing 8 degrees and 100% humidity and your warmest clothes are a cardigan and a thin jacket… 

After the meal we geared up and made our way towards Tarbert. The initial travel route had Limmerick as sleepstop for that day, but during the trip we decided to alter the route and stay somewhere closer to the shore than making all the way into the country just to head back out the next day. We figured the easiest and shortest way was to cross the Shannon by ferry, so we had a ferry ticket for our white horse prebooked and found a nice b&b closeby in Kilrush. I was nervous about the ferry ride to be honest, cause this was my first time on a car ferry, but it was all good and easy. A little reminder that overthinking and stressing out usually is a complete waste of energy… We spent the rest of the evening in cosy chairs overlooking the garden with tea and biscuits, I wrote some blogpost while my friend wrote in her travel journal. Absolute bliss!

More craic in Atlantis: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9