Our next stop in Ireland was the tiny town of Dingle on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. There are more sheep than people in this little harbor town and most people speak Gaelic. Even though it was pouring rain and incredibly windy when we arrived we still could not believe the amazing views. We stayed in a cute bed and breakfast right outside of town. The next morning we were so excited to wake up to clear blue skies! We quickly rented bikes for the main reason we came to Dingle- the Slea Head Drive. This thirty mile loop takes you around the Dingle Peninsula with all kinds of stops along the way. We had read so many wonderful things about this and it did not disappoint! Every few minutes we had to stop and take pictures. They really were some of the most breathtakingly beautiful views I have ever seen!
Along the way we stopped at all the different sights. Monks came to this part of Ireland during the middle ages and this is where they kept the written language alive. There were also old ruins that date back older than the pyramids in Egypt! This picture below shows a the stone walls that are left from one of the monk towns.
This is Dingle Harbor. We loved all the brightly painted houses here. They started painting their houses this way to show their independence from England. Now Ireland has a Tidy Town competition every year to encourage communities to be better places to live- something Nick the city planner loved! There is even a friendly dolphin that lives in the harbor named Fungi.
I have to say, this bike ride ended up being one of our favorite parts of our whole trip! It combined so many things we love. We highly recommend it! We ended our day with much deserved Shepard's Pie and a Guinness at a pub. Later we visited a few other pubs for some traditional Irish music- so much fun! The next day we headed back to Dublin to catch our flight back to London for the final leg of our journey.
