So a very popular thing to do when touring Ireland is to go around the “Ring of Kerry”. It’s pretty much a drive around a rather large peninsula that takes about all day. It’s supposed to have lots of pretty scenery ect. I wouldn’t really know because we didn’t go.
We planned on going there after touring the Dingle Peninsula (a smaller one just north of Kerry) But Dingle has a magnetic charm that sucked us in. The town of Dingle sits in a small bay, surrounded by mountains. There is a fresh sea breeze from the Atlantic, but not too cold. Unlike most Irish towns, it didn’t seem too cramped and there was always a view of the mountains no matter where you were in the city.
There is also a resident Dolphin in the bay, nicknamed “Fungi”. He’s apparently been living in Dingle since 1983. He’s sort of the town mascot and you can see statues of him around town and sometimes hanging off buildings. I didn’t see him myself, but other tourists we talked to did while they were walking the coast or riding in a boat.
The first night there we stayed at a place called the Greenmount B&B. It was the quietest, nicest place we’ve stayed at so far! The rooms were nicely decorated, the bed was comfy, the bathroom had a shower AND and tub (rare in these parts to see a tub) we had a couch, some chairs, and a dining table. Now the coolest part is that the B&B was constructed so that EVERY room faced west. This was important for two reasons. 1. You got to see the sunset everynight. and 2. The B&B was built on a hill overlooking the whole town of Dingle. Very very awesome.
So we put our stuff down and decided that it was time to eat. Our Innkeeper suggested a few places and we were so hungry we ate the the closest place we could find, Ashe’s. This was the best dinner we have had so far in Ireland!!! I had the Salmon and Kate had Dingle Lobster, both of which were caught in Dingle Bay! OMG, this food was SOOOO GOOOOD!!! We decided to celebrate our day of driving with a bottle of wine which was also quite amazing.
After that glorious dinner, we decided to find some great Irish Music. Now, I’ve read in our tour guide that Dingle is famous for its great Traditional Music and we certainly passed a number of places that had it. I was feeling really picky this night though and I wanted a nice place to sit and listen. (most of the time you need to stand at the bar since the places are packed) So we eventually found a cute little bar that had a odd assortment of musicians. There was a Harpist, a guitarist, a banjo player, a wooden flutist, and an according player.
In most of the Trad sessions we’ve been to we’ve noticed that there is always a band leader. In this case it was the according player. He was a old sailor looking guy with a beard and pot belly and boy could he sing! He was belting out some obvious irish favorites while old ladies were singing along with their eyes closed in the back of the bar. When the group took a small intermission, he got up and promptly collected all the empty beer glasses from everyone in the place and returned them to the bar. It seems our band leader was also the bar owner!!!
Soon after the next set begun, Kate and I struck up a conversation with a mother and daughter from Holland. Little did we know that we were about to get 2 great new friends! More on that later....
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