World Famous Cliffs

 

In the summer of 2018, after having attended a wedding in Istanbul and toured a bit of Turkey, we spent a week in Ireland and I realized that I never wrote about that trip on my blog. Since I am not going anywhere this year, it is a good time to tell you about it. 

The Cliffs of Moher - Irish Aillte an Mhothair - are probably the most famous tourist attraction of the country. It was the only place where we saw crowds and the parking lot was filling up with tour busses quickly. Even though we had arrived relatively early, it was already crowded.

These sea cliffs are in the west of the country in County Clare. They are on the Southwestern edge of the Burren region - more about that area in a future post. They run high above the Atlantic Ocean for about 14 kilometers (9 miles) and rise to 120 meters (390 ft) at Hag's Head on the Southern end and 214 meters (702 ft) just North of O'Brien's Tower. 

There are warning signs everywhere around the edge. 

The weather wasn't at its best when we arrived and I couldn't resist the temptation to process one of my photos to make it look even more sinister.

In the distance you can see O'Brien's Tower. It was built in 1835 by Sir Cornelius O'Brien, an Irish politician. Its location on the cliffs offers great views of the cliffs, but also out over the Atlantic to the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. There is a narrow staircase that leads up to the top of the tower. 

We then decided to hike along the trail on top of the cliffs. The weather had become a bit nicer, but it was quite windy. There were many opportunities to take photos and of course we had to take the obligatory family photo.

Walking so high up on the cliffs offered a lot of fabulous views.

The Cliffs of Moher are an important bird area. We saw a colony of Atlantic Puffins and on a fence what I first thought was a "weird raven". I later learned that this is a rook (Corvus frugilegus).

And now a word on something that truly bugged me. No matter where you go to in the world, there are always people who have zero respect for nature and are in competition for the Darwin Award. The trail was to the left of the sign, the unstable cliff edge to the right. Yeah, that's where the people are. In the end, they're ruining it for everybody (not that they care).

Even though the Cliffs of Moher are quite impressive, this wasn't by far my favorite part of Ireland. There were spots I fell in love with and one I didn't like at all. More about those in future posts.

Ireland wouldn't be Ireland without its music, and so there were some musicians playing music on the side of the more crowded trails (but not on the cliffs). I loved listening to them and in coming to an end of tis post I will share this snippet with you.

Since there are quite some faces in this post, I'm sharing with Nicole's Friday Face Off.