When we were about an hour away from Montimerso, John started having a problem. The problem was that the scenery was getting prettier and prettier. We both love Braga – don’t read too much into this – but the natural beauty of Northern Portugal is not a perfect match for John’s favorite places. Whenever we go to Ireland and the UK, he gets a little swoony about the rolling green hills and giant trees (not to mention the moderate temperatures and, gods help him, the frequently gray skies). As we moved into the Alentejo it got suspiciously verdant, with carpets of wildflowers across the hillsides. As it turns out, photos of summer in the Alentejo broke the spell (three words: brown. hot. dry.) but it was a lovely if confusing drive down. Ah, springtime in the Alentejo… speaking of which.

So, two days in the Alentejo with one very specific, weather-dependent goal in mind. Day one was lovely, temperate, but wet. That was ok, the forecast had that right, so our fingers were crossed that day two would play out as predicted: clear skies and cold. After an excellent night’s sleep, we wandered into the main house for a buffet breakfast. Hot items included made-to-order pancakes and omelettes; everything else was a robust, if typical, European breakfast including yogurt, jams, sweet butter, cured meats, sliced cheeses, and fruit in both whole and sliced varieties. The coffee was particularly good (which isn’t always the case; it’s actually kinda mind-boggling that in a country that produces generally excellent coffee, the hotels regularly have swill), and there were several juices and teas to choose from.

Replete, we decided to walk the extensive grounds. The surrounding land has been rewilded, so we saw drifts of wildflowers, enjoyed the aromas of a variety of herbal plants wafting through the air, accompanied by a chorus of birdsong. We aren’t actually given to just wandering through meadows; it’s one of those things that sounds good in books but, after half an hour or so we start wondering when the show is going to start. (heh) It was just so dang pretty down there, though, and what with it being an Anniversary trip and all, we were content to meander up and down the hills for a fair piece of the day. Bonus star of the show? The Alqueva Lake (Europe’s largest man-made reservoir) that glistens as far as the eye can see. It was too cold to take a dip in the (unheated) infinity pool, but we could imagine how refreshing it would be to do so in August.

There are lake beaches and medieval walled towns and villages nearby – we snuck to the hilltop town of Monsaraz for dinner and it blew us away; that’s got to be a whole different trip for sure — in short, we discovered that we can happily spend a lot more time in the Alentejo in years to come. But the sun was setting and our main event was about to begin! First of all – holy hell, the sky was gorgeous. It’s one of those sights like the Grand Canyon, where you can hear stories and you can see pictures but it really, really doesn’t explain it the way actually being there does. The real night sky was the same way, and so describing it, as we just got done saying, is not easy. (And by the way, we are well aware how silly this must sound to people who live in such places; “yeah pal, it’s the sky. Big whoop?” But that’s the life we’ve led…) The good news is that John had been spending some time learning the advanced features of his phone’s camera, which includes (apparently) pretty good “astrophotography.” The bad news? Turns out he still has a lot to learn. Exhibit A:

Kinda neat, right? Really pretty… what exactly is in the picture? No clue. Yeah, the settings are one thing, and leaving it perfectly still for 10 minutes is just logistics, but taking a picture worth looking at is over the next hill, apparently. Still, taking our own beautiful pictures of the night sky is closer to reality than ever before. In any case, horizon to horizon we were suffused with the visible light of millions of stars. The instructor on hand guided us (in English, woo!) across the sky using a fascinating telescope that could point itself wherever he asked it to. Look, there was a lot of technology involved and we understood only a little of it. He said “point at that star” and it did, ok? We were also almost embarrassingly fascinated with his laser pointer. Like, there’s pointers that cats will chase around the living room, and then there was his laser pointer, with which he could direct our attention to stars in the sky and we could clearly follow it. Sometimes we’re simple people, ok? It was a cool laser pointer. After an hour or so of his tour through science and mythology and the place of astronomy and astrology throughout time it was true dark and we could retire to our room, sit on the patio, and just absorb the wonders above.

So, yes. The point of the trip paid off this time, as well as we could ever have wished. Our curiosities sated and our anniversary happily observed, we made for home. Now that the Dark Sky is checked off, we’ll have to set some new, even more abstruse goal to celebrate with!

A long time ago (last year), in a galaxy far, far away (Braga), we planned to celebrate our anniversary by ticking an item off our not-quite-in-the-bucket list – visiting a Dark Sky Observatory (or DSO). We’ve wanted to go to one for many years but they aren’t always conveniently located, for obvious reasons. However, one of the central regions of Portugal known as the Alentejo has a large swath that is so designated. It’s relatively high altitude and hardly ever rains, so stargazing there can be amazing. We booked a nice room at an inn, rented a car, packed our bags…. aaaaaand it rained. Less than two days a month on average, but the ole storm clouds scored a bullseye. Figures. So, we filed that plan away, and this year we pulled it out to give it another go. It was sketchy for a bit but turned out wonderfully. Do tell? We tell!

“What exactly is a DSO,” you ask? Excellent and thoughtful question! In a Dark Sky Observatory the territory is rural or agricultural, or for whatever reason devoid of human settlement. A DSO is not so much a specific place with an address, it’s a region that has been marked out as having extremely low, or no, light pollution, allowing for the best environment for viewing the night sky. Generally, the local inhabitants and businesses agree to avoid using external light as much as possible. Just in case you aren’t aware, the ambient light in populated areas washes out the comparatively dim light of the stars in the sky, the result being that only the brightest stars are visible. The Alentejo is one such place – it’s an area of land not suited for large cities but perfect for some kinds of farming (primarily cork, grapes, and olives). A lot of great wine comes out of the Alentejo. The result is that you can settle in for an overnight or two and see the sky in a way that most people in industrialized nations rarely get to do.

Last time we had booked ourselves into a simple little motel, but this time we figured “what the heck, it’s our anniversary!” and made plans to go to Montimerso Skyscape Countryhouse. Described as a remote, tranquil eco-retreat with 15 suites, jaw-dropping lake views, starry skies, and a top-rated gourmet restaurant, it seemed very celebratory. And we fell in love with this sparkling eco-hotel in a secret corner of glorious Alentejo countryside. Nature is at the heart of everything here – from the fresh, seasonal ingredients used in the kitchen, to the trendy, locally-sourced decor in the rooms. All of the suites are generously sized, even the smallest (ours) and beautifully designed with handmade interiors with muted tones and cork and wicker touches. Did I mention those far-reaching views of the lake or countryside? We were utterly charmed.

We were amused during check-in when they asked us “do you have a problem with dogs?” We don’t, and their website even mentions being dog-friendly. However, there’s “friendly” and there’s “our two dogs act like they own the place and very likely will wander into your room to see if you like giving belly scritches.” John actually likes this level of engagement with random dogs so he had a great time, but we could both admit this was a little extra. The little pooch pictured here actually came in through the front door of our room and nosed around pleasantly enough. John said “ok pal, I’m closing this up and you need to go, but if you can find us on the back patio (we were ground floor with a nice little deck space) then you’ll earn your way in… and sure enough, 15 minutes later – give or take – he sauntered up to us on the patio, received chin skritches as was his due, and then went for a lie down in our room. I mean, he’d earned it, right?

Dinner that evening was at the hotel’s SkyScape Restaurant, by pre-arrangement. (They have a zero waste policy and ask that you pre-order at least 24 hours in advance so they can minimize food waste.) For a fixed priced, we shared a collection of starters, small plates, both hot and cold, all featuring foods local to the Alentejo. We had cheeses, cured meats, crusty bread, asparagus drizzled in a honey-mustard dressing and topped with toasted nuts, and black pig tenderloins with migas (a local delicacy made by soaking stale bread. Dessert was super-sweet sericaia (a type of flat cake local to the region) with plum and cinnamon.

The weather this night was not cooperative to skywatching, but we’d been expecting that from the forecast, so it wasn’t a disappointment. We went to sleep that night with visions of sugarplums, or at least clear skies, dancing in our heads.

You see, we’d been planning to go to a Dark Sky Reserve here in Portugal to see the Milky Way. The historical rain fall in that region in April is like one-tenth of an inch per month; clear skies were a safe bet. And this is why the casinos make money on suckers like me – safe bets aren’t. Thunderstorms were suddenly in the forecast for last week. No biggie, right? Reschedule for some other time. The only hiccup there is that it was a celebration which is somewhat hard to reschedule – our 10th wedding anniversary. Oops. We needed something special to do, on short notice. Time to punt.

One of the many benefits of being married to my wife (this is mostly a John post this week) is that she loves looking ahead to future travel opportunities. She’ll plan a trip, for example, to the Florida Keys. We almost went several times, but never did. But if you think that plan was discarded you would be mistaken; if the opportunity ever presents itself, she will whip that file out and we’ll be all set. So, when we need to change our plans at the last minute for something nice to do, we were not starting from scratch. Leaving out how the sausage got made (because, you know – sausage) we put together a couple of days at a relative new place, Quinta das Lágrimas, in the city of Coimbra that was just established in *checks notes* 1:26PM.

Hang on. *checks notes again* OH. Established in the year 1326. My mistake.

Silly goofs aside, the place is absolutely right for a special time. There are acres of gardens and trails behind the “house” to meander through, which contain an amphitheater, formal gardens, and remnants of the original 14th century buildings. We booked in a couple of nights and, thanks to some Hyatt rewards, had our nice room upgraded to a nicer junior suite. The space was nice, but the real perk was that the back of the room opened up with french doors onto a little stream the burbled happily. The weather was nice enough that we just kept the doors open and had the sound of the stream whispering through our room the whole time.

The place was lovely and we had a very nice time there. One of the features that I think they consider a cute throw-away but that we adored was the library. Apparently the place is still in the hands of a family and so it has little touches like the family library still being intact. While, yes, the library was largely in Portuguese, they had several decades-worth of Paris Match magazine bound into collections, stretching from the 50s to the 70s. The very first one I opened up greeted me with this:

Once we saw that we just sat down and started digging. The death of popes, concerts by Joan Baez, the moon landing, it was just one time capsule after another. Some savage had ripped out the issues about the Kennedy assassination, but otherwise the collection was in pretty good shape.

And speaking of Americans, the place was crawling with them. We went to their restaurant for lunch as soon as we arrived, and as we sat there we just exchanged surprised looks; without saying anything to one another we had both grokked the fact that we could understand the conversations at the tables around us. That hadn’t been true for so long that it was startling. Not that there were no Portuguese people staying there at all, but clearly Rick Steves or somebody had put the place on the map for U.S. tourists.

We spent two nights at Quinta das Lágrimas in the reportedly-beautiful city of Coimbra. I say reportedly because we only left the grounds once (for dinner); so we can’t actually say anything about the city that you can’t get from wikipedia. Next time. Between walking the gardens, spending a relaxing afternoon at the spa (hey, it’s a 10th wedding anniversary; we lived it up a little), and just chilling out in the hotel, the time flew by. We had an incredible meal out at Casas do Bragal which is a story unto itself; expect Lisa’s review to go up shortly. Short version: until we actually opened the door we weren’t 100% certain we weren’t walking into somebody’s living room.

This getaway marked the end of a pretty quiet month for us, which you may have noticed from our reduced posting schedule. When there’s not a lot going on we’re not going to just hammer out filler; one of the benefits of not trying to monetize the blog. Next month is going to be a whole different story, when we see just how busy we can make ourselves and still keep our sanity. See you then.

Dinner was at 1789 restaurant. Located in a Federal style building converted into a series of dining rooms decorated with antiques. It’s a very ‘east coast’ place. The building isn’t actually from 1789, the name came from history; but that doesn’t seem to matter.

They seemed to enjoy our enjoyment, and the service was perfect. I had a cosmo before the meal, as we perused the  menu; and a glass of sauternes with my melon salad:

The fresh burrata with the pressed melon were perfectly offset by the slightly pickled honeydew. Very refreshing and redolent of summer. John went basic, with an utterly excellent burrata:

My main was a pork tenderloin and pork belly dish that was rich and yet not too heavy. A ‘side’ of foraged mushrooms and garlic scape provided a foil to the richness of the belly. An excellent Malbec further enhanced the dish.

I wasn’t going to have a dessert, just a glass of port, but J. made sure I had a candle to make a wish on, as they brought me a ‘nuttella’ dessert: thin chocolate slabs held nuttella mouse protectively, while a quennelle of nutella ice cream nestled alongside. Outrageous and lovely.

A lovely beginning to my next 50!

Two files:

Wedding Album pt 1

Wedding Album pt 2

each file is 16+Mb

You might enjoy it as well, so here is a .pdf file of Pup Culture. The file is large, so give it time.

First thing’s first: I totally lied in yesterday’s post. There is no way I can finish this week without writing absurdly long posts or skipping bits. True, there are bits that aren’t critical to the story, but then again this whole story isn’t critical, so if I’m setting the threshold at the things you “need to know” I should go delete the whole run and start blogging about the NSA leaks.

…

No. No, that wouldn’t be right. I’m so close! Right. So, the previous night (technically this is a post-script to “Day Fifteen”) we made it to Galway and checked into the gorgeous Hotel Meyrick. Classic, old-world appointments, no contemporary blah-blu here. Remember, months ago, when I mentioned how Lisa was shameless in playing the honeymoon card when making reservations? She hit the jackpot here, where we were upgraded into a phenomenal suite for the first two of three nights (big wedding on the weekend, couldn’t be helped). It was divine. We snuck down to Eight, a casual restaurant Lisa found through Chowhound… wow, I think I just mentioned Chowhound for the first time; Lisa should write about that site, it was her dining Bible for this trip… and it wasn’t bad. Most notably, we completely reworked our itinerary while we sat in their window, looking out at the docks. See. we were beat. We’d been having a great time, but we had a couple days’ hard driving ahead of us and were really feeling like we’d had enough of the road for awhile. Plus, and Lisa disputes my recollection of this, I feel like we were warned off of heading toward Giant’s Causeway, our last major tourist stop, because of some nutty motorcycle rally or some such. The roads were going to be clogged, no treat, plus all the inns and restaurants along our likely route were going to be absolutely swamped. So, we bailed. We worked out a few days of leisure time where we were before making our way back to Dublin for the finale. And so, we began to spend one day too many in Galway.

Day Sixteen Proper was largely consumed with a bus tour… yes, the very same type of thing I railed at back in the day for clogging holy sites up with every stereotype you can think of, tourist-wise. Nevertheless, it kept us out of our car and we saw some nice things in Connemara (a poorly-defined district that contains … well, some portion of Western Ireland). Cong Abbey made the list, in Cong of all places – yet another 1000+ year old remnant of a religious site. The town itself was also charming… (if you’re thinking “that’s all you’ve got to say?” well, like I said before, all of these sites start to run together a bit.) The main attraction of the tour was Kylemore Abbey.

The abbey was originally a private home (must be nice), then a school for many years, staffed entirely by nuns, but a lack of nuns, or girls, or both, eventually shuttered it in 2010. It has a going tourist concern to upkeep the place and it sees a lot of visitors. The abbey is nice, but the real draw is the Victorian walled garden. It does not mess around – acres and acres, walled in, providing all of the veg for the nearby restaurant as well as flowers of… I don’t know if “all types” is right, but the variety certainly impressed me. Put it this way, the head gardener has a house within the garden, and it’s just tucked away in a corner. Check out this map on their page for a better idea. We had lunch in the Abbey, and I bought a hat! I hadn’t worn a hat in decades, but I’ve worn it a lot since. The ride back was scenic but otherwise unremarkable.  Oh! The bus driver told hooooooorrible jokes, but charming in their own way. And dinner that night? We were wiped and just went to the sports bar in the bottom of the Meyrick.

Tomorrow – we split up!!!! … for the day.

Our fifteenth day is defined in three ways, listed in no particular order: our visit to a 1,000 year old abbey, our completely serendipitous stop at a sheepdog demonstration, and the Burren. We are pathetic/ecstatic enough animal lovers that the sheepdog demo rates higher up on our list of trip favorites than it ought to, but what the hell it was our honeymoon and we’ll enjoy what we want. :p

When we left Doolin we entered the Burren almost immediately. It’s not a specific place so much as a region; a type of landscape called “karst.” It comes off as alternately a wasteland and a lush garden. The soil is quite rich but is riddled with essentially infinite stone, such that huge amounts of work have to be done if you want to make any sort of use in an agricultural sense. On the other hand, the land and weather make an exceptionally long growing season for grass, meaning that herds can graze happily for an extended period. There is also an incredibly diverse ecosystem of flowering plants, which has led to a unique boutique (tra-la!) – The Burren Perfumery. Now you, too, can smell like a karst!Actually it was quite nice. Beautiful first of all, with diverse gardens on the grounds to supplement what they forage in the Burren. They have a video running on a constant loop that details the ecology surrounding them. Then, of course, is the shop, which smelled all… karsty? Honestly this is more up Lisa’s alley. I think she bought a few things as gifts. Sorry.

Leaving the Perfumery put us back into the Burren itself, which I neglected to describe in terms of driving. Being relatively flat, it lacked a lot of the drama that the hillside roads afforded us, but the views were still really sere and gorgeous. The road itself was well maintained but tiny; the couple of times we ran into an oncoming car one of us had to pull off into the dirt. Fortunately the visibility extended to forever, so there was never really any danger.

As I said above, one of our absolute highlights of the trip was a sheepdog demonstration that we just stumbled upon; just to be clear, it’s not just the dogs but the whole story, which you shall now read. I believe that Lisa had seen a flyer for the Caherconnell Stone Fort somewhere along the way, and we sort of thought we were passing it, but it still came up on us as a bit of a surprise. It’s another of these ancient relics on a family’s land, and the family is trying to strike a balance of encouraging archaeology while not footing the bill. Thus there is a restaurant, gift center, and a small admission fee to tour the site. As you can see from the photo on their front page, it’s quite a spectacular site, and there is still an active dig on the property excavating sections of the fort.

As part of turning the place into an attraction, they have partnered with a local farmer to give daily working dog demonstrations. (I can only imagine the faint air of ridiculousness with which the farmer observes this process. I imagine rural kids coming to my workplace. “This is a kyew-buh-kul. We put people in these. I know, right? But we buy them off with slightly more expensive chairs and tell them it’s good for “collaboration.” What’s that, in the back? … No, we don’t know what that means, either.”) Anyway, we pulled in at about 1:03 PM. The demonstration is advertised as being at 1 PM, daily. We semi-scurried in but had a bit of confusion figuring out what it took to see the demo. The answer was: buy tickets and go out to a separate paddock. By the time that was sorted out, though, it was a little after 1:15 and apparently that’s all the demonstration lasted. Oh well. Alas. Sigh.

But wait! The friendly fellow (whose name, to my shame, I do not recall nor have written done anywhere) saw that we were lingering, trying to at least catch a look of the dogs. “Are you with the tour?” he asked. We explained that, no, we weren’t, just two idling tourists with a fascination for working dogs. “Ah, that’s alright then, I’ll do it again.” SQUEE! Private dog demo! Seriously, we chatted with him 1-on-1 (ok, 2-on-1) while he showed us his dogs. What I most remember is that he had two: one had been raised up with sheep, and the other with cattle. The cattle dog would help with the sheep if commanded to… petulantly… with great reluctance… the way we’ve all seen a dog get muley. But he would comply, mostly. The sheep-raised dog however… my God. I’ve seen dogs fixated on toys, or birds, or other dogs. Hell, Leo keeps trying to stare down the cats in our house. But this dog… gracious. What the farmer explained is that it’s less about raising a dog to take an interest in sheep and more about taking a sheep predator and training it not to kill them. He showed the dog moving the flock around, stopping them, splitting the flock in two, separating out a single sheep, gathering stragglers…. and all with whistles or hand gestures. Really amazing. He spent a good 30 minutes with us, more than with the official tour. I think he appreciated that we asked a lot about him, his trade, how the weather affected him that year (badly, the rain was slow and late in coming), and so on. We really appreciated his time, his care, and of course his animals.

I have nothing much to say about Caherconnell itself. This mimics our growing disinterest during the trip, when we would half-jokingly say things like “what, the chapel is only 400 years old? Not sure it’s worth the trip, really.” That said, this really was a particularly good example of later period (and thus more elaborate) ring fortifications; if you’re planning a short trip and will be near the Burren, I’d pick this one if you have to pick just one.

Our last stop before making it into Galway was Corcomroe Abbey. That thing I just said about kind-of-old stuff not making the cut? Well, 1100 year old monasteries still make it. Corcomroe, to my untrained eyes, is in fabulous shape for its age, with mostly intact walls both exterior and interior – you get a real sense of the layout of the place. This is particularly nice for (hold your eyerolls) gamers who can get a sense of constriction that narrow passages offer. Anyway, the one downer is that the interior infrastructure would have been made of wood and so all of it, along with the roof, was long gone. Still, seeing things like the heat management system that allowed for the baking of bread to warm the upper halls helped humanize an ancient era.

We finished our trek out of the Burren and into Galway, where we ended up spending the most time of anywhere… a bit of a mistake, in the end, but an honest one. More about that tomorrow.

I have joked about the roads in Ireland, and I have ranted about the roads in Ireland. This was a day when I had to respect the roads in Ireland, the way a lion tamer respects the dinosaur that just crashed through the circus tent and is clearly attracted to the sound of a whip-crack. Here’s the reality: the Irish just don’t need many roads. There are towns, and within those towns are whatever roads are necessary for the conduct of business. Then there are one, MAYBE two, routes to get from point A to point B. In this case, we had the option of taking (you’ve heard this story before) the highway from Dingle to Tralee (a waypoint on the way to Limerick) or the other route. The scenic route. Well shit, we came all this way to see stuff, and they’ve even gone to the trouble of naming it “the Conor Pass,” so we gots to go. Do I have to mention that today’s episode is brought to you by Comprehensive Rental Car Insurance(tm)?

I swear, we had an omen.  A chance to turn around. The picture to the right? We were on this road less than 30 minutes from when we set out from Dingle. We leave, we take a right at a T-intersection, and we start to climb the hillside… and we’re immediately on to the classic one-lane road. If you click on the photo you can get a better look at the camper coming along. Those particular vehicles are ubiquitous in Ireland, the favored vacationing vehicle for natives as well as Europeans of all stripes. If I had to guess, there’s probably a pull-over spot just behind the 1st bend in the wall on the right, which is where we probably dove in and waited for them to pass. If not, well, one of us did some backing up at that point. You may be wondering to yourself why I don’t remember the details. The mistake you’re making is in thinking that this was “the time” that we had such an encounter, instead of the multiple-times-a-day that it did. In any case, we ignored this omen and pressed on, gaining elevation and making for the Conor Pass.

What drew us to the pass? Well it’s the highest pass in Ireland, meaning it’s the highest point we were going to get to by car, and neither of us are much interested in climbing mountains on foot. People tell you it’s scenic, and by God it is. Beautiful part of the country and since the road is always hugging a mountainside you’ve got panoramic vistas in half of your field of view. Great drive. The pass itself is barely a thing, really – more of a map designation than an actual landmark. We failed to get a picture of it but, at the peak itself, there was a goat in the middle of the road that we had to honk away.

Down from the Conor Pass we made our way to Tralee as a waypoint, and then turned Northeast towards Limerick. Almost all of our trip has been ancient ruins and scenic routes, so we thought we’d switch things up a bit and go to the Hunt Museum, a private collection turned University of Limerick museum. What struck me when we first got to Limerick was, frankly, that we hadn’t been in a city in awhile. Where were all these people coming from? What’s with the traffic? Ah, civilization. We parked, we toured the museum, we realized that we were starting to see a lot of bronze age relics in our travels and were, perhaps, starting to be less impressed with them. What really caught our attention was in the basement. The Hunts were devout Catholics and part of their collecting passion was focused on Church artifacts. They had handfuls (sometimes literally, har har) of reliquaries and a dozen or so iterations of clerical raiment through the years. The real capper, though, was a small, jeweled ornament with a silver coin set in it. It is reputed to be one of the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas. I think that has to be one of the most evil-radiating artifacts in existence if it is. (And the game geek in me immediately thought it made a fantastic plot hook with just a touch of modification.) Fortunately it was a very modest museum in scope because we’d only allotted it an hour or two of the day – we had miles to cover today to get to Doolin, and still one stop left to make: the Cliffs of Moher.

There is not a ton that I can say about the Cliffs other than “(#*YUIDFHsD THAT”S AMAZING DIuIWEgHIWEIDW”. I mean, they’re giant cliffs, and they’re gorgeous to take in, and we actually had sun for a change. They are not, however, formed by the tears of angels, or the site of a major battle, or… anything. They are, and they are beautiful. Although the visitor’s center is a nice touch. In order to preserve the views it is actually built into the side of a nearby hill, with excavations as needed to make room. Thus there are no impediments to your views, your photos, etc… might seem an excessive touch until you learn the the Cliffs of Moher are the single most visited tourist attraction in Ireland, topping out at a million+. Not bad for rocks.

Our final destination that day is Doolin, a small village with an outsize reputation for the musicians it spawns. Not just Doolin says it, either; when we’d ask about the music scene in Ireland, inevitably Doolin came up as the home of some of their greatest. The reputation is founded on the Russell brothers – three gents who each specialized in a different classic Irish instrument. Talent drew talent, and the pubs of Doolin became known as the place to find the best musicians. That, in turn, drew the best craftsmen, and a thriving, if niche, industry has taken hold there. Doolin was on our radar because I wanted to buy a bodhrán while I was in Ireland – it’s an instrument that has always appealed to me. In the end I chickened out, but that’s still the reason. In any case, we settled in at Daly’s House, where Susan Daly herself spent the evening in the role of “gregarious aunt who talks shit and doesn’t care what you think about it”. She was great.  We had a lovely meal and bedded down, the night marred slightly by the discovery that we had left Lisa’s special pillow behind in Doolin. My dearest can have a tough time sleeping on el generic-o mattresses but a good tempurpedic pillow goes a long way with her. I get talked out of driving to Doolin and back and instead make arrangements for the pillow to be shipped to our next stop: Galway.

We had a second full day on the Dingle peninsula. I won’t lie, having done the Slea Head Drive the day before I sort of felt like we had taken a good sample of the place. I mean, you could spend a month ANYWHERE and not see the same thing twice if you were willing to dig deep enough, but on a time budget you have to draw lines. Still, I was curious. I had found a website online pretty much by chance for Danny Sheehy – he does no marketing and, in fact, asked me at one point how I had even heard of him to call. When I told him I found him via his site he honestly looked surprised. “Oh, that thing? Forgot I had it.” But I’m getting ahead of myself. I found the site for Danny and got in touch with him – he offers customized walks featuring “[a] poet, a farmer, an author, a fisherman… a man at home on sea or land;” him, in other words. I showed him to Lisa, and she said “sure, what the heck.”

We had a lot of great experiences on our honeymoon, but whenever we’ve been asked what topped our list, we both say “our day with Danny Sheehy.”

Danny met us mid-morning, after breakfast. The people who owned our inn knew him; it seemed that everybody on Dingle knew him. He’s not “famous”, exactly, because I’m not sure that any two people ever have put their heads together to realize that anybody else knows him. They just all do. We hopped into his car and explained that we’d already hit some high points of the peninsula, and he should just follow the wind (or probably something much less poetic) where ever it blew him. It turned out to blow him mostly towards the Blasket Islands.

I wrote a bit about the Blaskets before – a divergent population that lived mostly on its own until the islands were evacuated in 1953 due to the government’s inability to offer adequate services combined with a diminishing population. Danny is an ardent proponent of Irish cultural traditions (such as speaking Irish in the schools and such) and I think he sees the … well, destruction of the Blasket community as a microcosm for what could happen to Ireland in his nightmares. In any case he spent a good deal of time telling us about the tradition of great writers that came out of the islands, and even took us to a graveyard where two of their best, Peig Sayers and Tomás Ó Criomhthain (don’t ask me to pronounce it). They both wrote, among other works, memoirs of life amongst the people of the Blaskets; works that are considered classics within Irish literature.

We drove for a couple of hours that day, just hearing stories. I barely remember the details, and honestly me telling them would be a pitiful attempt at recounting the day; the man was a bard, pure and simple. Storyteller, rogue, cager, farmer… heluva mix. After awhile, needing to check on his mother, I think it was, he took us to his home. A low-ceilinged, 100-year-old or more farm house, it was absurdly authentic. Five will get you ten that he knew exactly what he was doing, but we were both incredibly touched that he let us wander through his home while he attended to this and that, looking over the artifacts of his life. See, Danny is a doer of things. Those boats in the photo up top? In 2007, he traveled in one of those authentic boats (their crafting dating to the Bronze Age, apparently) with another man, a sculptor. They went 200 miles in a keel-less, light weight boat through the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic to follow in the foot paddlesteps of St. Columcille. You can read about it here. When we talked to him he was working on a documentary about an Irish immigrant in the U.S. who walked 1,000 miles from Peoria to New York so that she could return her 2 daughters to Ireland after her husband died. You can read about his progress here and here. He created a book along with a Swiss print maker and designed about the stone walls of Dingle. He was also planning another boat trip to recreate the travels of a Bible; I forget the story, sadly, but it’s another of those “you don’t realize it but the Irish actually created <thing that’s vitally important to civilization>” storied that you hear in Ireland, some of which may even be true. Meanwhile he raises herds of cattle and sheep, grows a bit, and writes poetry on the side.

He tells us great stories about all of these things, and then I accidentally tried to kill him. See, we learned throughout the day that he hates, haaaaaaaates, seat belts. He would drive an obscenely long time with the bell going off before reluctantly snapping the thing in. He told us how it was a relatively recent law in Ireland (actually in 1979, but they’ve never mandated retroactive fitting and I suspect he just drove older vehicles for the longest time). He also shared how, when coming home drunk from the pub, he’d wear his annoyance with the alarm bell all the way home. (Yes, you can eyeroll. We eyerolled. You think we were going to change his mind?) Anyway, I had recently seen a television show that had a key plot point revolve around the “fact” that police officers on stake out will buckle their seat belt and then sit over it; thus shutting the alarm off for good w/out actually having to be buckled in. I have no idea what came over me, but I shared this bit of trivia with Danny.

Well. I’ll be damned if his face didn’t light up like a very bright thing. “Oh, John! What a great idea!” Well shit. Still, the man had been drunk driving for who knows how long, with no seat belt and a bell yelling at him. Now there’s no bell, big deal. This is what I tell myself.

He dropped us off at the inn. Lisa got out and I pulled out my wallet. “You know, Danny, we never actually settled on the price.”

“Oh, whatever you think is fair.”

“How about 100 euro, then?”

“Can you make it 120?”

“Sure, Danny.” I’d have paid him whatever he wanted, really. There’s “authentic” experiences where the tour takes you to a “real pub” so you can have a Guinness while music is played in the corner, and then there’s a poet farmer who drives you around and tells you about dead cultures and his own fight to save his, who takes you for coffee at a pottery gallery (and has the good grace to act surprised when you offer to buy his) in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and who parks you in his house and recites his poetry.