Ireland Day 6...

Day 6.

The day began with a trip to Dingle Crystal. It was an interesting comparison to the crystal we saw being produced at Waterford Crystal just days before. The owner and primary crystal craftsman gave us a tour of his workshop. He demonstrated cutting a few pieces. While I admittedly am not a fan of cut crystal, I do love the craftsmanship involved.  

The Dingle Crystal Workshop

We spent the day touring around the ring of Kerry. There are some beautiful stops along the highway that simply must be conveyed visually.  The hills surrounding Dingle become mountains, and the road that takes you through them becomes more of a goat path. It is so narrow that it doesn’t even have a center stripe. 

Along the way we found a beach with a path from the mountainside and a car park. We decided to make a stop for some quick photos.  It was really a beautiful beach, and the stop turned into about an hour of milling around on the beach. I learned that writing in sand is harder than you would think. (I suspect that it helps if you have something better to write with than a plastic knife that washed up out of the ocean.)

We had lunch while at the visitor center for the Blasket Islands, and then headed back toward Dingle. We spent the afternoon visiting local shops and pubs. We found this local art gallery and decided to take a quick visit.

We found no Dillon's on display

Our evening ended pretty much like every other one… pubs, pints and people watching. Tom and I once again closed out the evening together. We met a really nice family who was visiting Dingle, and they directed us to a great “late” pub. In reality it was more of a dance club, but the people we met were nice, and everything else was closed. 

Dingle was a great experience, and I’m already looking forward to visiting again in the future. A special shout-out is necessary for my friend Colette for her recommendations on where to visit. I’m really sorry we only missed you by a few days.  

-ND