Sunday July 5

I THINK it's Sunday!  Haven't slept for many hours having left Toronto at around 8:15pm Saturday night, arrived in Dublin 7am local time.  Fitful dozing on board, zombie-like semi-consciousness at the Dublin airport as we waited for 5 hours to rendezvous with Christopher of Footfalls tours and the rest of the gang.  Amazingly, one of the group this year was part of our tour in 2013!  William, a teacher from Iowa, was standing at the meeting spot when Deirdre and I showed up.  What are the odds?

Little Lucy came along again this year as a stand-in for her real life counterpart.  Here she is admiring the passport stamp.

The group consists of 6 Canadians, 4 Americans, and 2 Argentinians, although 3 of the 6 Canadians are originally Americans so I guess the Americans win.  Ten women and two guys, plus Christopher our intrepid leader.  The age range is 16 (one high school girl along with her mother from Toronto) to, I'm guessing, mid to late 60s.  Seems like a congenial group.

We headed west from Dublin and stopped at Cashel for about an hour.  Some of the folks toured Cashel Rock, a partially ruined fortress built hundreds of years ago for a king.  Ireland is full of piles like this, all impressive.

Once we got off the controlled access highways and started wending our way on secondary roads, we really felt that we were in Ireland.  Especially when we reached the Beara Peninsula, our location for the next 3 days.

Stunning just from the road and I can't wait to go off tomorrow on our first foray, despite the forecast for rain.  We had a great dinner at the Olde Bakery in Castletownbere.  Then we headed home to the Island View B&B, where resident Lab Bruno made me feel right at home!

Tomorrow it's off to Dursey Island!  Now for some overdue Zzzzz's....